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Oh man, that is a dream! I only wish my DSL repair calls went like that. More
like 60 to 90 minutes on hold. I have 2 DSL lines (for redundancy) and
neither one works. One has been broken since May and the other one since
early July.
BTW, the "guaranteed speed" is only to the switching office. If the copper
from there to your wall plate can't support it, you won't get it. Don't pay
for bandwidth you can't get.
In a message dated 8/21/01 9:01:59 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
timtillson@xxxxxxxx writes:
> Michael,
>
> I reliably get 1.5 MBit/sec from my
> ATT Broadband cable modem for
> $43/month.
>
> Compare to DSL which is more like
> 512-768K for comparable prices.
>
> DSL bandwidth is "guaranteed", whereas the
> cable modem can vary depending on
> node loading.
>
> The major downside of the cable modem
> is the horrendous support if you should have
> a problem. You can wait on hold for 40 minutes
> only to get a first level drone who knows absolutely
> nothing:
>
> Me: "I can ping your gateway, but can't get out any
> further"
>
> Drone: "It must be the network card in your PC"
>
> Me: "I need to speak to a second level person"
>
> Drone: "We have to go through my checklist, fiddle with
> all your network settings, and reboot your
> computer and cable modem several
> times before I am allowed to escalate your
> problem"
>
> Me: "OK, just give me the number so I can talk to the
> local people"
>
> Drone: "I am not allowed to give out that information.
> Besides, our trouble board shows that your
> area is experiencing no problems"
>
> (I obtain the local number of ATT Broadband)
>
> Locals: "Yeah, some yahoo cut the DC3 from Greeley
> to Denver. All of northern Colorado is out.
> The splice truck is there, you should
> be up in about an hour"
>
> Me: "How is that no-one in your 800 number call
> center knows this?"
>
> Locals: "They're idiots. Their database doesn't work
> at all. The quote users 2 week lead times
> for a truck roll, and we can be there the same
> day"
>
> Me: "Shouldn't ATT fix this?"
>
> Locals: "How do you think Michael Armstrong took the
> stock from $60 to $20? On his own ability?"
>
> And you think I am making this up...
>
> Tim
>
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