[SATLUG] DSL - San Antonio - Problem Update

[Daniel J. Givens]

M K Ramadoss wrote:
> What all this brings up is the issue of 8-5/M-F attitude of telco
> inspite of
> the problems they know they have with dsl, Uverse etc. since they know the
> customer can do nothing other than complain. Without Internet, even the
> little info we discuss here will not be out. The more important issue is
> for
> small businesses who may be dependent on Internet. There is a push for more
> use of broadband and businesses can lose a lot if they are dependent on
> broadband and the line is down for days. 

I understand the frustration here, but telco's look at residential and
business service as two different services altogether when it comes to
support. Having been on both sides, I have seen what that extra money
spent on a business account gets you. I had a weekend several years back
working throughout the weekend troubleshooting a couple of PRIs with
Bellsouth, most of the time with a person in a call center and a tech in
the CO, and our equipment with Lucent. When you have a business account,
you get a completely different level of support. This is generally true
of most any business level account.

> These businesses need to look for
> backup such as a cable or dual dsl lines so that service is not
> interrupted.

If your business depends on Internet connectivity, this should go
without saying and usually does.

> I once again feel that if telco cannot find US workers willing to work in
> their central offices during weekends, it is time to hire workers from
> outside US, as the service reliability to customers should come first and
> not the last. In most of the third world countries, working on weekends and
> 7/24 is taken for granted.

Be frustrated with AT&T. I hated SBC when I lived in Texas and Oklahoma
and I didn't get service from them. I don't use Bellsouth (AT&T sooner
or later) now that I'm in the south because of their crappy service.
You, the consumer, have other choices for Internet service. Don't assume
that AT&T isn't hopping to fix your friend's problem because they can't
find people to work on nights and weekends. That's their business
practice to be as absolutely profitable as they can be by cutting
operating costs. Either you can accept it and keep paying them money
(which is what they hope you'll do) or find another provider. Most
people accept that service outages are a part of life and rarely execute
their option to move service to someone else and that's how a lot of
businesses stay afloat. You don't have to be one of those people. You
are the one in power as long as you are handing over your hard earned
dollars.