All Narfed Up photography and words by Bryan Villarin

DSL

Rant and gripes about AT&T

In Business, DSL, Review on 1 August 2006 with no comments

I try to stay positive, but it’s times like these when I don’t have an internet connection that I get ticked off.

I got home last night and found out that our landline and DSL connection were down. No dialtone, no connection - nothing. So, I called technical support to see if there were any network status updates. (There weren’t any.)

The phone call was redirected overseas to “Nick”. (Great.)

In the course of the “conversation”, I believe I said that I had no dialtone about five times. He informed me that there’s line issues outside and they would send a technician. I was assigned a trouble ticket and that I would get a phone call between 8am and 5pm tomorrow [on my cell phone].

Today came around, and no phone call. Around 4:15pm, I called to follow up. Since it was on existing ticket, I spoke to someone locally. In California. (Yay.) When I said, “no dialtone”, the CSR told me that I need to speak to 611. (I can’t call 611 from a Verizon Wireless phone for AT&T support.) Anyway, I got transferred. After about 2-3 minutes of being put on hold for line testing, I was told that the earliest I could get a technician visit was August 3rd. On top of that, they prefer I be home between the hours of 8am and 4pm in case they need to get inside.

So, I’m without a landline or DSL connection at home for two days. Then, when they do come, I need to excuse myself from work and wait for them, without pay or compensation? Lame.

I’ll be callling AT&T again when I get home from work to make sure I’m not hearing things. I hate lack of consistency, you know, when one person promises one thing then the next person I talk to contradicts that.

Do I have a right to be upset at AT&T, in regards to the turnaround time and the lame customer service reps overseas?

I’ll try to turn this into something positive. I’ll probably go to Bill’s house when I need to get onto the internet. However, I’m sure the downtime is good for me so I can clear out my inbox and make sure I’m on top of things. (Refer to 43Folders “Back to GTD”)

Note: I didn’t reread or edit this post. I’m too ticked, and I just wanted to get this out there.

Update 7pm: Earlier this morning, I called to find the status of the repair. Apparently, a lot of people were affected. At the latest, it would be repaired by 9am on August 9th. What!?! Luckily, I just home and saw that the “Ready” light on my DSL modem was lit and not blinking. I checked my phone and there was a dialtone. I load Firefox, and boom - there’s my blog! Yes!

DSL upgraded

In DSL on 1 March 2006 with 1 comment

I upgraded my SBC Yahoo DSL connection to AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet Pro Package. I’ve been paying over $40 because I didn’t renew my contract, but I finally did 2 1/2 weeks ago. Today, it finally took effect - sweet! $17.99 for 1.5-3.0Mbps DL and 384-512Kbps UL speeds feels much better.

Phone line back up

In DSL, SBC on 2 June 2005 with no comments

The SBC technician just fixed the phone line. He said the line broke, so he switched me to another line. A speed test from Broadband Reports gave me 1277 kbps / 321 kbps. I believe that was basically a 35-hour turnaround. Not bad, I guess. I hope it’d be different if I was a business. Now I need to clean up around home, since I can’t go to work for today. It’d be a waste of time, especially with the commute.

Decent speeds

In Asides, DSL, Life on 2 June 2005 with no comments

I just tested my cell phone speed using Verizon’s 3G Extended Network connection. (I think that’s what it’s called.) It has a theoretical speed of 115.2 Kbps. Using CNET’s bandwidth meter, it clocked me at 109.8 Kbps. Pretty cool! Still, I miss my DSL line. When I wake up, hopefully the technician will be out there troubleshooting the phone line. *crosses fingers*

Phone line down

In DSL, SBC on 1 June 2005 with 2 comments

My phone line isn’t working right now. I called SBC customer support, and they said they’d need to send a technician to check it out. The nearest appointment is for Thursday. So, if it doesn’t come back up by then, I’ll have to stay home that morning to wait for the person. By the way, I’m posting this by connecting with my cell phone (LG VX4400) with a USB cable, and using the Extended Network (3G) via Verizon Wireless. It says I’m getting 115.2 KB/s. Feels like dialup. Anyway, since it counts as airtime, I’m doing this during off peak minutes (past 9pm). Then again, I don’t get home from whatever I’m doing until around that time anyways. At least Andy lives a few blocks away, and I can just park outside his house if I really need to get online - you know, cuz of the WiFi. It’s not wide open, but I know the security key, and he’s fine with it. I think.

Troubleshooting home networking stuff

In DSL, Networking on 30 December 2004 with 2 comments

I was at a friend’s house for most of the afternoon yesterday, mainly chillin’ and testing out his brand new Philips DVD player (with Divx support).

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AOL Phasing Out Broadband Service

In DSL, SBC on 18 November 2004 with 2 comments

I sometimes forget to check out other blogs for a week or so, and I’m glad to have stumbled upon this bit of news.

Basically, AOL is forcing customers to find another broadband service here in the United States. It hasn’t been all over, just in a few states. But it will happen all over the country next year.

Secondary source

(Thanks Chris.)

Broadband Reports is one of the best places to find information on the best provider possible.

I’ve been with SBC DSL for a long time (Pacbell DSL), and other than a few problems last month, it’s been great for the most part. Well, except for the outsourcing, it’s great. You can search for SBC on my site and see everything (all three posts as of now).

Did I mention about the Broadband Reports forums, where one of the SBC techs felt so bad about my experience with the outsourcing that he bumped up my upload speed?

Phone/DSL Line Repaired

In Business, DSL, General, Life on 5 October 2004 with 1 comment

The problem’s fixed! It was a line problem, more specifically messed up wiring in the laundry room (in our apartment complex) that comes from their DSL office - or something like that. I guess it only affected me, but then again, I didn’t hear any of my neighbors saying anything. The technician was nice, especially arriving so early. It was scheduled between 8am and noon, and he just left now (9:30am). It’s good to be back again.

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Continuous DSL Problems

In DSL on 4 October 2004 with no comments

My DSL line has been acting up as of late. The past six days, it’s been down for lengthy periods of time. I could only get on for 30 minutes at a time. 30 minutes up, 1 hour down - it’s pretty erratic.

My phone line has static, so SBC is going to send a technician over tomorrow morning to check for the problem. The DSL issue should be fixed then. Until then, I can’t really promise to work on anything internet-related at home, except check email when my DSL line is working.

It has to be a nearby line problem, because I know friends in a 3-mile radius that also have SBC Yahoo DSL - and they’re fine.

SBC Yahoo DSL Struggling

In DSL, SBC on 30 September 2004 with no comments

Update: I was down again this morning from 10:30am to 11:30am.

I haven’t been able to get online basically for the last three evenings due to problems on their end. They’ve been so good until now! Perhaps they’re making up for “non-downtime” for all the years I’ve been with them essentially trouble-free…

Here’s a little rant about the SBC Yahoo DSL status updates the technicians post when you call them.

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