A Tale of Two ISPs
… or, the competition for the worst. service. ever.
I wrote a while back about our ongoing Comcast woes, which to this date remain unresolved. (It’s intermittant, they don’t see a problem on their end, disconnecting all the splitters and adding an amplifier only made it happen less often but didn’t resolve the issue.)
So we’ve been checking in with AT&T every once in a while, and they keep saying, sorry, no DSL in your area, but maybe “soon.”
Then, we start getting bombarded with advertising from Earthlink. Call them up: “Oh sure, we can get you DSL.” Tell them AT&T says we’re too far, they say, “Oh no, we can do it, we have ways.” We believe them, mistake #1. We sign up for the DSL/DishTV bundle, with the intention of dropping Comcast entirely.
DishTV guy shows up last Saturday, all goes well except DVR is on backorder and we can’t get it til early Dec., but the dish is up and working and lovely. Earthlink DSL modem shows up last Friday, we hook it up, nothing.
First call to Earthlink, Saturday morning: 45 minutes on hold: “Oh, yes, that should be hooked up by now, try it again in an hour.”
DSL connection light starts blinking intermittantly, we try again, no connection.
Second call to Earthlink, Saturday afternoon. 1 hour on hold, they say that circuits are too busy because of “a major outage” and to try back later, they hang up on us.
Third call to Earthlink, Saturday evening. Sit on hold another 45 minutes. Walk through level 1 tech support, another 30 minutes on hold, bump to level 2 tech support. “Hm, that’s strange, we’ll run a test on your line and call you back within an hour.”
Fourth call to Earthlink, Sunday afternoon. Another hour on hold: “Oh, yeah, we have to send someone out to your house to check the line physically.”
Tuesday morning: AT&T guy shows up. He basically says we’re idiots, we can’t get DSL here but Earthlink wants him to run a test anyway so he’ll run the test and then tell them we’re too far.
Thursday morning, Earthlink leaves a message. We’re too far, but please call back this 800 number so that they can talk to us about possibly “trying another circuit.”
Fifth call to Earthlink, Friday afternoon. Sit on hold for 40 minutes. Guy we get at the number given in the message has no idea what we’re talking about. Transfers us to India, where someone tries to walk us through level one tech support again. Argue and get put on hold for 30 more minutes. Get transferred back to original dept. who say that our ticket is closed out so we have to start over. Relay message again. Get put on hold for 30 more minutes. Guy comes back and says no, there’s no “other circuit,” we can’t get DSL here, and tries to sell us dial-up. Um, no thank you.
They’re theoretically sending an RMA for the modem — anyone want to take bets on whether we’ll get billed for DSL “service?”
Check Comcast web site, find that if we cancel Comcast TV (now that we have the dish) but keep the Internet, we will get charged an additional $15/month for our crappy Internet service as a non-cable-TV customer.
Update: Comcast is sending ANOTHER tech out Friday. “No one should ever have told you to buy an amplifier!” They’re knocking $10 off our bill for 3 months. And the saga continues…
Laura:
Sheesh–and you live in a populated area! I have one choice of ISP here, and, about a month ago I called because my connection kept getting dropped. I said, “I’m not going to pay for this service if it doesn’t work.” They said, “Well, then we’ll shut your service off. We won’t give you service if you’re not paying.” I said, “Yes, but right now I *am* paying and you’re not giving me service.” Since then, things have been better–but then, it helps that this is a local company, and I see our local tech guy (and his family) on an almost daily basis.
In any case, my sympathies–what a pain!
23 November 2006, 3:32 amRachel:
Thanks, Laura — and on another note, why do comcast, earthlink, and everyone else make their techs call the general support number?? shouldn’t they have some kind of special tech superpower number so we don’t have to stare at each other and twiddle our thumbs?
29 November 2006, 3:36 pmCary:
Ha, that is nothing compared to Verizon’s bizzarro policy. After ascending to the 27th level of tech support, they sent out a tech with a truckload of equipment. He hooks it all up and is ready to run tests, but has to call in to get started. He calls in and gets put on hold. He sits for twenty minutes, then hangs up and tells me that it is as long as he is allowed to wait and that he has to leave. I ask how often this happens. He says, almost every time.
29 November 2006, 3:57 pmKatie:
Okay, this is way late on this topic, but I’ve been practically living under a rock for the last month and a half. Check out WOW cable. I think the URL is http://www.wowway.com. We’re down on the south side of the city and are also out of DSL range. Dad *hates* Comcast, and Wow was the only other possible provider. We’ve been pretty happy with them.
13 December 2006, 6:45 am