Quotable Quotes from the Tech Support Ditch
April 4th, 2008I recently was faced with getting some tech support for my DSL I recently purchased from AT&T. I figure that I have spent about 10 hours of my personal time trying to hook-up the AT&T DSL Modem. I am admittedly patient, and don’t see where yelling at any person on the phone who is paid to help you gets anything done. However, in the case of Internet connectivity, the only thing I ask is get me past the “Level One” support! They are great for the clueless - as in leading the clueless. During my recent required support by AT&T, I had to take note of the things I was told to do!
I have had to get support from various levels of Microsoft before, and for a short time, I thought I was dealing with Microsoft support, not AT&T. Question to self - “If Yahoo! is purchased by Microsoft, what does that do to AT&T/Yahoo!?”
Now, here’s a quick synopsis of the problem at hand. All day, the DSL at my home was working fine - very slow, but workable. By mid-afternoon, the DSL modem was no longer providing an IP address lease that would hold longer than about 1 minute. The environment is a networked home - so the DSL modem is in PPPoE cridged mode, and my firewall, proxy, and router for the internal network are all behind the modem. The modem, for all intents is doning nothing beyond providing the IP lease. Everything else should be handled by the PPPoE login information provided by the router. Simple.
I call AT&T and get the Level 1 person after about 15 minutes of automated prompts and tests. At this point, I tell the support person that I have rebooted, reset, unplugged, and replugged the DSL modem many times with no DSL connection. The person on the other end begins to read a “script” of the steps I should take to reboot my modem. At this point I have to, in my kindest words, tell them to stop. I kindly tell them I have already done that. Now, I have to say at this point, the support person is kind as can be. They don’t try to tell me what they know I already know, and are willing to help. I am placed on hold for a VERY long time. The support person comes back and says:
“I can’t get a level 2 support tech to answer the phone. You will need to contact the vendor of your router to determine the problem.”
Okay, that’s stupid support advice number 1! I tell them that the router and all devices behind the modem are functioning just fine, and again Internet life was happy until mid-afternoon.
“Have you rebooted your PC?”
Oh my, that one about put me over the top. I told them “no” and it didn’t need to be rebooted. The person on the other side puts me on HOLD again!
The Support person comes back and says they have opened a support ticket for me, and that they did finally get Level 2 support. Great!
The Level 2 support person comes on the phone, and begins to tell me that the configuration for my line is “all wrong.” They begin to fix the issues at hand. After another eternity of minutes, they tell me they have opened another support ticket, and place me on HOLD! The person comes back after a while, and begins to ask me questions:
AT&T Question: What Operating System are you using?
My Answer: Which one would you like me to use for this DSL modem problem? (okay, a bit smartass, but I was already into this by 1 hour!)
AT&T Reply: Well, if you are using Linux, we will just not help you at all!
My Reply: If this were an OS issue, I would understand your response. However, until you give me a signal, it doesn’t matter what OS I am using. Is Vista okay?
AT&T Reply: Well, I am just saying that if you are expecting support on your Linux system, we will not help. No, we prefer XP. But, we can support you with Vista.
My Reply: Great, when you give me a signal, and if I can’t connect my workstations on my network to the Internet, I will make sure and let them know it’s a Vista system.
I am placed on HOLD again!
The support person comes back and tells me that if I am ready, they have a phone number for me to call along with a support ticket number. I am now 1 hour, 15 minutes into this issue.
I call the secret toll free number, and after being on HOLD for about 20 minutes, get to a call screener! After they determine that I am a person with a REAL issue, they put me on HOLD again. My patience is wearing thin!
After another 15 minutes, the screener comes back on the line and introduces “George” as my “Line Tech.” “George” introduces himself as a name that can not be easily spelled or repeated…India I guess… Anyway, “George” tells me; “Oh my, we don’t see a signal, we will have to get a technician out there to take a look.” Wow, isn’t that what I told Level 1? Anyway, after another 10 minutes or so, I was given another support ticket and told a tech would be at my house the next morning.
So, with approximately 2 hours of my time, I succeeded in getting no resolution and having a lot of tickets created. Now, the internet mysteriously started working around 11:00 PM, I am sure AT&T did nothing. But I decided not to cancel the tech coming to my house.
The good news is, the tech that showed up was great. This person knew what they were doing, and were able to isolate the problem to a number of line issues between my “drop” and my house. After they were resolved, things seemed to be working much better. Speeds were decent, and the phone lines were still working well.
The jury is still out on DSL. I mean, I didn’t have a technical problem with my Time Warner internet; just the extreme pricing on the service. AT&T does a much better job of placing value on the service that is consistent. So, we shall see, but for the time being my new DSL service seems to be working.
