19. August 2009 by admin.

So back in February, we decided to ditch the landline and get an air card for our internet connection.  Dollars are about the same, speed is marginally faster (a snail on steroids is still a snail).  AT&T offers a Sierra Wireless laptop connect, so we signed on.  For the whole first month we played with settings with tech support and finally got the thing where it would work most of the time.  I was still using the XP machine at that time, and the card also worked with the mac.  I didn’t even try using it on a Linux machine, I’ve never been enthusiastic about exercises in futility with predictable outcomes.  We even swapped the device out for a different one, I’m on my second aircard.I don’t know at this point if this was always the case, but at some point I noticed a pattern of accessibility.  Sometime on Saturday afternoon, I lose my connection to the internet.  The laptop shows that it’s connected; I just can’t GO anywhere.  Or sometimes I can’t even connect.  Or sometimes the computer can’t recognize the device.  It’s not a consistent sort of situation, which makes it really difficult to troubleshoot.   Additionally, support for the laptop connect devices goes away Saturday at 6pm and doesn’t reappear till Monday morning sometime.  I rarely spend all day Saturday in my house, and if I AM in my house, I’m probably not spending a lot of time on the web.  But when I want to surf, I want to surf.  Is that too much to ask?Evidently it is.I  have gotten fed up with it.  I called Wild Blue Satellite Internet, and got a quote on service; I’m now signed up for installation with them, but it’s on hold right now, because of what I’m about to tell you.I called AT&T and explained the situation to the customer service rep.   All of the service reps have been very, very nice.  They all “appreciate” my frustration over the situation.  As wonderful as that is, their appreciation of my frustration has not solved the problem.  So I explained that I wanted to terminate my service and I wanted the early termination fee waived and I would like my bill to be adjusted to reflect the time that the service has been unavailable to me.Of course, they don’t want to do that.  See, the service has been used; AT&T makes no guarantee that the service will be available 24/7, so as long as it’s available at some point during the billing cycle, it’s “available.”  The rep wanted to know why I don’t call when I’m having problems–even though there is nobody to call when I’m having problems.So here’s where we are now:  AT&T wants to troubleshoot the device, and after they can determine that the device is functioning properly, somehow they’ll come up with a way for me to contact SOMEONE when it doesn’t work when there’s nobody to contact.The worst part of this from a business point of view is that AT&T feels that they have no obligation to provide consistent service as long as they are providing SOME service.  And I’m not a huge customer. Can we go viral with this?  Let’s make the world aware that AT&T feels no obligation for consistency of service.  They feel that as long as the account has activity, they’re fulfilling the terms of their contract.  What do you think?I think occasional outages are to be expected.  Every Saturday afternoon, all day every Sunday, and even up till every Monday morning sometime after 7 am–THAT’S not “occasional outages.” Something’s happening on a planned, regular, scheduled basis.I will terminate the account after we get through the hoops they want me to jump through.  And if they still make me pay the termination fee, it’ll be worth spending more than that to take them to small claims court. They won’t show up, I’ll win, and we’ll take it viral again.  And when Apple puts the iPhone on Verizon, they’ll lose hundreds of thousands of customers.

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9. July 2009 by admin.

just like me.  And, pretty much like everything else I do, it’s probably going take a while to get from start to finish on any phase of it.  I love reading blogs but this is my first attempt at writing one.  I generally have a lot to say about nearly everything, and I bite my tongue a lot.  This is MY blog.  I don’t intend to offend, but if I do, just return to that part about it being MY blog.  The opinions expressed here are MINE.  I respect a different point of view, but unless there’s a compelling argument in favor of that point of view, I’ll probably stick with my own.  Don’t let that discourage you.

Posted in Life--mine in particular | No Comments »