AT&T service installation nightmare

[CZroe]

Glen doesn't deserve this.

 

[eplebnista]

Glen doesn't deserve this.

or this either :thumbsdown:

 

[CZroe]

I think the particular installer is more to blame than the company (IOW, not typical of AT&T) but they should make sure their installers are competent before sending them in to tear up a business. They know this isn't residential service so they need to send someone who can handle typical business PBX systems and configurations.

 

[ZaneNBK]

I don't understand why this guy hasn't told AT&T to take a flying leap and switched back to Cox. Cox should be able to offer service that's much faster than what you can get from AT&T anyway, though as he said it was a little more expensive.

You know what's expensive? Not having good phone/internet service at a business that needs them.

 

[TwiceOver]

I don't understand how the guy runs a computer repair/hosting/etc business and hasn't just fixed it himself. I know he shouldn't "have to" but c'mon, if you're loosing business you do what you need to stay alive even if it means fixing someone elses fuckup.

 

[BlitzPuppet]

I don't understand how the guy runs a computer repair/hosting/etc business and hasn't just fixed it himself. I know he shouldn't "have to" but c'mon, if you're loosing business you do what you need to stay alive even if it means fixing someone elses fuckup.

I hate AT&T, my company deals with them all the time (Business in a box is a joke). Thankfully we're moving away from them with our satellite offices, but my god are most of their sendout "techs" IDIOTS.

I don't do phone wiring, those punch down blocks can be pretty confusing if you don't know what goes where and how it was in the past. I'm not a phone guy but I do a lot of VOIP.

I'd much rather go back to COX and go to a VOIP cloud solution if I were in his shoes.

 

[ZaneNBK]

I don't understand how the guy runs a computer repair/hosting/etc business and hasn't just fixed it himself. I know he shouldn't "have to" but c'mon, if you're loosing business you do what you need to stay alive even if it means fixing someone elses fuckup.

I also thought it was strange that he didn't realize the reason he was hearing the DSL on the phone was because apparently there wasn't a DSL filter installed. The filter allows you to use the same line for voice without hearing/interfering with the DSL connection. Googling "Why do I hear DSL on my phone?" tells you it's because you need a line filter as the first result.

Hard to google with no internet though.

Edit:

Ah, he mentions the filter in the video comments so he knows how it's supposed to be hooked up. However, the way he talks about the noise in the video it seems like he didn't know that. Apparently he's more interested in complaining and making videos than actually getting things working. The tools he needs to fix this are fairly cheap and he probably has most of them already. The knowledge needed (basically connector wiring) is widely available on the internet as well. He could easily print that stuff out at home if needed and then fix most if not all of this himself, then limit what the tech does while he's there. Just because a tech wants to pull a bunch of wires and start cutting stuff doesn't mean you have to let him.

 

[TwiceOver]

The second video makes him look even more like a dimwit. Judging by his shop there's no way I'd want to do any business with him.

 

[ZaneNBK]

I hate AT&T, my company deals with them all the time (Business in a box is a joke). Thankfully we're moving away from them with our satellite offices, but my god are most of their sendout techs IDIOTS).

I don't do phone wiring, those punch down blocks can be pretty confusing if you don't know what goes where and how it was in the past. I'm not a phone guy, but I do a lot of VOIP.

I'd much rather go back to COX and go to a VOIP cloud solution if I were in his shoes.

I have Cox home office service here, which gets the basic business SLA and they've been awesome. Calling support gets me to a tech in just a minute or two (every time so far) and if they can't see/fix the problem while I'm on the line they have a tech out here within 4 hours 24/7. So far I haven't had to wait more than a couple of hours.

The business techs are way better than the residential ones. I had been having service issues (5-20% packet loss, disconnections) intermittently for months that the residential techs couldn't fix. I rewired my house with heavy duty shielded cable (RG62U IIRC), gold-plated connectors, etc.. They even re-ran the line from the post to my house, twice. I kept telling them the problem was not at my house, it had to be a neighborhood level issue as everything had been replaced at least once. Think I had techs out here 6-7 times, including one of the residential tech supervisors.

The business support techs figured it out on the first or second visit, pulling up stats for the neighborhood and noticing that S/N ratios on the uplink for pretty much everyone in the neighborhood were bad.

 

[CZroe]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDXrih5_5k8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73nRsIPU5G8

The second video makes him look even more like a dimwit. Judging by his shop there's no way I'd want to do any business with him.

I take it, you haven't seen the back of the average PC shop, have you? It's not customer-facing.

As for what happened before: You don't get it. He was letting them dig their own hole by letting them set up the DSL/filters improperly then demonstrating. He installed DSL back in the '90s and knows how it's done.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Wow that's some shoddy work by AT&T, for leaving him hang that long.

Though I think he should rewire everything himself so all they need to do is install 1 jack per line, that's it, then he can cross connect however he needs. They should not have even touched the existing service, at all.

 

[ZaneNBK]

I think he's just being an attention whore.

"AT&T KILLED MY BUSINESS! I've been down 43 days!!" (I can fix most this shit myself but I prefer to drag it out and make videos instead.)

He shouldn't have to fix it himself but if it was really the huge deal he claimed then he would.

Regardless, AT&T handled it really badly.

 

[CZroe]

I think he's just being an attention whore.

"AT&T KILLED MY BUSINESS! I've been down 43 days!!" (I can fix most this shit myself but I prefer to drag it out and make videos instead.)

He shouldn't have to fix it himself but if it was really the huge deal he claimed then he would.

Regardless, AT&T handled it really badly.

And I appreciate him for it because he's helping to improve service for everyone.

 

[boomhower]

And I appreciate him for it because he's helping to improve service for everyone.

Not really. They'll fix him up and possibly do some additional training on the substandard techs but I doubt anything more than that is going to happen. No big retraining sessions are going to take place.

 

[Slammy1]

I had a lot of trouble switching to U-Verse. Couldn't get the phone to work then the jack stopped working. They were terrible on the phone then tried to charge me an extra $100. In the end they made everything right so I can't complain. Took some phone time to get things fixed.

 

[ZaneNBK]

I never had problems when I had Uverse for about a year, but their speeds just can't compete with Cox, at least not here.

 

[notposting]

Yeah...I would have just been there when Tech 1 showed up, told him where the line was going (shoot, I would have had the line ran already) and NOT LET HIM CUT MY NETWORK TO SHREDS?!?!?

Another vote for weird attention whoring...

 

[Lonyo]

If he had done something, what do you think AT&T's response would have been?
"Oh, it's not working, but you say you messed about with it to get it to partially work? Well, it's your problem, you screwed it up, you are going to have to pay to get it fixed".

Sure, you can do things yourself, potentially, but then the company is definitely going to hold you responsible for any issues.

 

[slayer202]

dude seems like a clown

but damn they knocked over his modems, that's unforgivable

 

[TwiceOver]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDXrih5_5k8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73nRsIPU5G8



I take it, you haven't seen the back of the average PC shop, have you? It's not customer-facing.

As for what happened before: You don't get it. He was letting them dig their own hole by letting them set up the DSL/filters improperly then demonstrating. He installed DSL back in the '90s and knows how it's done.

I've worked in several of them. Never as shitty looking as his place. That's just sloppy. If he's trying to prove a point, then fine, prove your point, but don't claim AT&T ruined you when you could at least help yourself. Successful business owners don't sit back and wait for someone to come help them and supposedly let their business go to shit. Successful business owners are proactive and fix it themselves, or have someone in within the day to fix it. The guy is a tool.

 

[waggy]

The second video makes him look even more like a dimwit. Judging by his shop there's no way I'd want to do any business with him.

lol you haven't been in the back of any shop have you? that's normal.


You all bitching "he should have" or "i would have" are insane. He hired someone to come out and expected a professional job. He shouldn't have to sit back there and babysit the guy. the fact it took 45 days is insane.

As for him fixing it himself again (he did some. some he just can't such as at&t fucking up the numbers) this is something he shouldn't do. I'm sure AT&T has it in the contract and it's not a good idea for liability reasons.

I do agree he is slightly dramatic..but he got results and free advertising.

 

[waggy]

I've worked in several of them. Never as shitty looking as his place. That's just sloppy. If he's trying to prove a point, then fine, prove your point, but don't claim AT&T ruined you when you could at least help yourself. Successful business owners don't sit back and wait for someone to come help them and supposedly let their business go to shit. Successful business owners are proactive and fix it themselves, or have someone in within the day to fix it. The guy is a tool.

bwhahahhaha

there is only SO much you can do as a business owner when it comes to equipment that YOU DON'T OWN.


but i do agree if he didn't do anything (such as port numbers over to cells, home phone etc) he is a idiot. he tried that (again the numbers were fucked at atat and nobody knew because it wasn't working to begin with).

 

[Pardus]

Glenn C Obert of Cybersmart Computers & Networking in Pensacola Florida posted his rant on DSL Reports:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r28685259-AT-T-killed-my-business

 

[ZaneNBK]

From that DSLReports thread:

You know, I have been on youtube for quite a while. I host a radio program and I appear on TV and in print. I capture a 1/2 million minutes out of people's lives every month just on Youtube alone. You do the math. (That means I own just over 11 peoples lives if they watched my videos non-stop 24/7.)

Being public, I leave myself open for scrutiny, and thats what happens when you put your life out there for everyone to see. I EXPECT people to say stupid things, normally I laugh at them for wasting their time... So until you have the guts to do what I do, don't bother with your drivel, you are only wasting your own time because I laugh at you.

Oh, and Youtube still pays me for your watching, if you like my content or not!

Wow, he's an ass.

 

[TwiceOver]

bwhahahhaha

there is only SO much you can do as a business owner when it comes to equipment that YOU DON'T OWN.


but i do agree if he didn't do anything (such as port numbers over to cells, home phone etc) he is a idiot. he tried that (again the numbers were fucked at atat and nobody knew because it wasn't working to begin with).

While I don't know what the first technician did to cause a bunch of problems, yes that is probably on AT&T. But I know my service at home and at my employer, the modem is the DEMARC making anything beyond my issue to deal with.