[COMP] Re: ADSL woes/NT WAS: [Re: pop-only user]


John Madden wrote:
> 
> > Just curious, anyone know if NT has this kind of configurability?
> > Probably does, but I know nothing about NT. :/
> 
> With NT, you'd probably be using one of those goofy servers like Mdaemon
> or something, which has its own set of users.  Since remote access isn't
> built into NT anyway, I think you'd be dealing with a different set of
> circumstances.
> 

Yes, you're right there.  Sigh, it's too bad, everywhere 
you go nowadays it's "Do you have Microsoft Certification?",
which basically means "Do you know how to deal with all kinds
of wierd servers that don't make any sense and don't follow 
any kind of standard anything?" ... I guess I shouldn't say
that though, I don't really use NT much.  Since using Linux,
I've never had a need for it.  It's just that simple.  :)

Anyway, WELCOME BACK!  I can genuinely feel your pain 
as far as getting the phone company to put some 
elbow grease into things.  Oh what the heck, I'm in a 
ranty mood, here's my own not-very-little DSL story:

Mark's Not-Very-Little ADSL Story
-------------------------------------

Pacific Bell advertised that you could sign up for ADSL
and setup your appointment etc. over the web.  Cool, huh?
Nice n' easy.  So I tried it about a dozen times and ran 
into all sorts of problems.  Called the phone company to 
set it up.

The girl started asking me the basic boring questions, 
said "Hi" and "How are you doing?" to other employees 
passing by a couple of times.  Just a bit disconcerting
since she didn't appear to be paying much attention.

Then she asked for my address, and in the middle of giving
it to her she started a conversation with someone else!  
Yes, she asked me to repeat it.  SIGH

I know, I know, should have asked for her boss but she 
was being very nice otherwise so I chalked it up to 
ignorance and frankly I just wanted to get the whole 
thing over with as soon as possible.

At the end of the call the girl said that the installer
person would be at my house two weeks from Sunday.  They had 
people doing installations on the weekend because they were 
overloaded and people were usually home then.  OK, great.

BUT I didn't feel that she was all that reliable (wonder why)
so I called back and confirmed the appointment the Wednesday
before.  "Everything's in there", he told me.

So I waited on Sunday, and waited.  And waited.  No truck.
I saw one drive by and actually chased him down the street
flailing my arms, my neighbors must have thought I was 
completely nuts and mistook him for the Ice-Cream man or 
something.  The guy pulled over and told me he wasn't 
even a DSL installer.

*SIIGH*

So, I was now left with the wonderfully enjoyable task 
of calling the phone company on a Sunday afternoon and 
trying to get a human being at the other end.  This took 
about 45 mins, I got someone and asked for a supervisor 
(should have, would have, I know).  She looks into the 
system and  tells me, "Well it says here that he should 
be there ... but that he shouldn't".

uhm ... ?!?

I'm then offered an appointment two months away.

I called back on Monday and did the whole complaint
let me talk to your bosses boss and could I please
have the CEO's address so that I may write directly
etc. etc. and managed to get it down to two weeks.

The guy actually arrived that time, installed it 
all in about an hour, and the service has been 
*great* ever since.  Here, we have a provider
downtime from 3-4AM on Sunday nights, I think 
it must be a cronjob thing, but other than that, 
it is TOTALLY reliable.  And with only a single
hour of downtime emails always get through.  :)

Sorry to rant! I've been meaning to get this off
my chest for a long time and I don't usually do 
this, promise not to post such long messages in 
the future.  

Hello again to all you avenir people!  :)

--
Mark

========================================
Avenir Web's Computers Mailing List

List Modes, Subscription, and General Info:
Go to http://avenir.dhs.org/mailing.html
List Archives: http://avenir.dhs.org/archives/
Administrative Contact: weez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Get computer help: http://avenir.dhs.org
========================================

Other related posts: