22 hours of dead lines

After 10+ years of Bellsouth service, AT&T called yesterday to let me know I was going to have to make some changes to my service.

Two hours of back and forth later, I thought we had everything settled.  Including various discounts for the land lines for the cell plan I’d signed the day before.

Less than twenty minutes after I got off the phone with the AT&T sales department I lost phone service on the main line, and DSL.  Oops, they said when I called them back.  So sorry.  We’ll get that right back on for you.

The phone came right back up.  DSL, not so lucky.

Four tech support calls and 18 hours later I’d been hung up on once, told my hardware was faulty twice, told it was a billing issue once, asked to unplug my modem and let it reset over a dozen times, apologized to by five people, transferred to two different supervisors and had three service appointments made at three different times for a real live person to come out and try to figure out why I didn’t have DSL.  Even though AT&T promised me that everything on their end showed I did have DSL, and there must be a problem on my end.  Like maybe a modem that had the unfortunate timing to die at the exact moment they mistakenly disconnectd my phone.  Timing like that happens all the time.
Then they sent out a guy who runs phone lines, and doesn’t handle DSL at all.

Luckily, he knew way more than it was his job to know.  He’d “overheard” a few conversations between DSL techs, and after he repaced a jack for me (as long as he was here, that kitchen jack had been loose for a few years…) he called someone who called someone who checked the ports and – oops.  Looks like yeah, AT&T had messed something up after all.

In further disturbing news, it looks like no one at AT&T has heard of the modem I have used for six years while I was paying for my service through Bellsouth, so if I ever actually do have a hardware problem they will be useless when it comes to diagnosing it unless the unplug-and-let-it-sit-for-15-seconds thing actually works.  And honestly, I do that before I call them.

So thanks Paul, for going way above and beyond.  Out of half a dozen  AT&T employees I talked to in less than a day, you were the only one who was both pleasant AND knew what the hell he was talking about.  If (when?) I have problems with my lines again I’m going to see if they can just connect me straight to you.  At least I know you aren’t going to ask me if the modem is on.