Our DSL is out right now (11am, Saturday morning), so I’m the only one that can currently see this while the server is unavailable to the world. SBC’s automated support informed me the problem is apparently affecting parts of St. Louis and Texas, so I don’t feel like I’m being singled out. As long as it’s back up by 2pm as they expect.
I did feel a little awkward on the phone though. SBC has implemented a voice recognition menu system, so I was asked to speak my way through the menu system instead of being prompted for button responses. It’s very conversation-like, and the friendly woman’s voice sounds generally concerned with helping me. First time through, even with my typically mumbled speech, I was understood and got the answers I needed. I was amused and content with the support.
Having accomplished that, I dialed again.
If you garble a word, the she apologizes, “Hmm, I didn’t get that,” or “Sorry, I didn’t understand that.” Her varied responses help keep it less mechanical. If you don’t say anything, the she also apologizes, since it’s of course her fault, and asks the options again. If you continue to not speak, she presents the choices by number for you to press. So, if you are incapable of communicating by voice, you can still use the system.
Unfortunately, if instead she continues to misunderstand your voice responses, she finally offers “I’m sorry, I’m still having trouble understanding you, please call again later.” Click, dial tone. Now that’s the customer support I’m used to.
I like the automated customer support better than the people kind.
I called around 2:30 when I still had no DSL connectivity, and the status update indicated that aside from some users in Texas, “all other network services are functioning normally.” My response of “Bullshit” went unanswered. So I stuck around to talk to a person.
The person I was forwarded two immediately shared that network services had been restored in my area, and I shouldn’t have anymore problems. I wish. Yes, I power cycled my DSL modem. In sharing my personal information with the service rep, I also offered how I get time outs when pinging the SBC gateway, and some details of our static IP package setup, in hopes of either skipping some of his basic consumer troubleshooting scripts or getting passed to someone who knew better. No such luck. In response to my sharing of the network details, I got a brief lecture on how SBC doesn’t support routers or wireless configurations. Then he tried to sell me their home networking wireless package. I held my tongue.
Then I spent an hour humoring him while he guided me through plugging my machine directly into the DSL modem and configuring it to access the network. First we set up the machine for a login-based PPPOE connection with a user and password combo he provided. On hold while he “researched” the error. Then (after he realized we’re not using a user account authenticated connection) we set up the computer’s NIC with the IP, Gateway, and DNS addresses to connect with one of our package’s static IPs. All identical to the router (surprise). That of course also didn’t work. On hold for more “research.” I’m glad I’ve got books to read. I was informed that he was able to ping my DSL modem from where he is. I thought that was nice. I still couldn’t ping them. He was so convinced it was my problem, he started into his NIC hardware device failure script. I stopped him short, clarified how it was still functioning on the local network, and read my book some more.
Finally, he shares that the network status has just been updated, and includes problems in my area. I’m not surprised. He apologized for a while and I hung up after getting a case number in the hopes that I could skip this nonsense when I have to call later this evening.
I had just really wanted to let them know that all other network services were NOT functioning normally. I need a way to do that faster.
Service was finally restored around 1am Monday morning.