08/16/1999 – I’m going to have to put in my two-week notice…
Well, my download from CD-ROM.COM is still going. I’ve gotten 259MB in a little under two days. That is far worse then a modem! Obviously you would never want to download 259MB on a modem, but if you let it go and it never got disconnected, I doubt it would take two days. With out high tech broadband technology, it should have only taken an hour.
9:05am
No one has e-mailed me or called my in regards to the e-mail I sent indicating that all
the employees were incompetent and ineffectual. You’d think a customer service
oriented company would be right on top of that. I did some work with Microsoft during the
launch of Windows 95 and when we got scathing reports like that we had emergency meetings.
Melanie assured me in voice mail that she would talk to David Snodgrass ASAP and get to
me. It’s a little past ASAP. I’m going to make some web page updates and if by
that time no one has called, I’ll start today’s plight.
9:38am
I called Mr. Snodgrass to see what was going on. Apparently he was in but now he’s
not. I left a message stating I wanted to here from him what was going on and that I hoped
Melanie has filled him in on what’s going on. His voice mail message brief and gruff,
as if he was sick of dealing with these @home problems and told callers to call the 888
number for details on the residential service. I’m wondering if these details are how
to get new service, or why does the service suck so bad. I’m still debating whether
or not to call the 888 number and see what they know about my ticket. I’m beginning
to feel that all contact In Madison is going to be cut off for me.
10:10am
ASAP is gone. I called Melanie after reading some posts in comp.dcom.modems.cable and
decided I was getting really irritated. I got the secretary who told me that her extension
was forwarded to voice mail for some reason. I asked to speak at it. Now remember
it’s been two weeks and I don’t care how little control she has, I have no one
else to speak to. I told her that I thought her or David was going to get back to me this
morning. I reminded her that I have been with very poor service for the last two weeks. I
told her that the emergency T1’s that were installed didn’t help a thing
(provided they went in) and that the new T1’s going in on Wednesday won’t help
either. I can almost see her walking out of her job. I bet it is a tough one, but again,
that’s not my problem or fault. I’m the consumer.
10:30am
I’m bored so I decide to call the Bresnan Helpdesk 888 number. I get Jim on
the line. I ask him for an update on my ticket. He gets my name and puts me on hold for 5
minutes. He comes back and asks me if I’m aware of the current situation in Madison.
I tell him to elaborate. He says that they are working on the bandwidth. I stop him there.
I tell him this isn’t a bandwidth issue (I mean, it is, but not in the same way it is
for everyone else). I begin to explain the problem and he asks me if I know what bandwidth
is. Christ. I still didn’t cave into the "I’m a system administrator!"
routine but I did tell him not to get smart with me. I told him that T1’s aren’t
going to fix my problem. I told him that there is something physically wrong with my
connection, node router or server. I also told him my issue was in California (probably in
a pile labeled close when T1’s are installed) where (I feel) there is no way they can
determine that. He basically told me that all problems weren’t going to be touched
until the new T1’s were installed. Right at that point Melanie called, I told her to
hang on. I let the tech support guy finish up and then went to Melanie. She told me that
Dave was in a meeting right now but would call me as soon as he could and "get this
all taking care of for you!" She also gave me David’s direct extension and told
me that if I had any further problems I should just call David from now on. That buck has
been passed to so many people.
The thing is, if this were simply a bandwidth issue, there would be no need for all this. If I were getting 20k/sec like everyone else in Madison, that’d be fine. I can understand that. It is a new service, and it looks like they want to make it work. And the plans for new T1’s and a DS3 are there, so I could live with that. I’d probably vocally complain to my friends, but I wouldn’t by typing it down on or making web pages or talking to the Cap Times. I don’t think Bresnan understands that though.
12:15pm
David finally called me. My first impression is that he’s a real nice guy, knows
that this service has a lot of potential and is struggling with performance issues. He
doesn’t seem as incompetent as a couple people made him out to be. We talked about my
problem; I filled him in on the necessary data (he hadn’t looked at a ticket as far
as I could tell). He told me he would make this a priority and call me by close of
business tomorrow with a plan. Of course his initial comments were about the speed and the
T1’s that are coming in. I had to tell him that my problem wasn’t an overall
bandwidth problem but something centralized to my location. He said he would make it a
priority and see what he could get done for me. He then asked me if I was an IT
professional or sys admin. He commented that he was looking for a couple more. I neglected
to say that I did originally send a resume to them and didn’t even get offered an
interview.
2:00pm
I’ve gone home feeling ill but had all my work calls forwarded home. About 1:51pm
that 300MB download finally finished. It’s almost two days to the hour to get 300MB.
The capitol times calls and we begin our interview. He tells me that he has read
everything on the web page except for the weekends update. I fill him in on how things
have been going. I also fill him in on my conversation with Dave. We pretty much cover and
re iterate everything that’s in this document. He asks if I’ve been soured to
the cable modem experience. I think about this one, I probably should just quit my whining
and get DSL or ISDN. I answer saying, "I know what it’s capable of, currently
I’m not being billed for the service and I am on all the time for things like
newsgroups e-mail and web pages and that’s pretty much all I did with my modem."
Except I can’t play half-life because of the terribly latency but that will be fixed
over time I suspect. He tells me that he’s going to talk to David Snodgrass tomorrow
for the article to get his take. I tell him I’m glad he’s writing the article
but I want to make sure that he puts my name and web page in there. He agrees. He tells me
he’ll call me on thrusday to follow up and the story should be in the paper on
Friday.
I tinker around on the Internet for awhile and get some e-mails from people about the crappy service they are receiving. I get an e-mail from a tech support guy who says he needs my phone number. This is the same guy who intercepted my e-mail talking about how terrible the service was. I e-mail him my phone number. He calls me about 30 minutes later. He starts talking about MTU and MSS and how I must have set them at certain numbers when I had a modem so that I could get the maximum throughput of my modem, but those settings don’t work with my cable modem. I don’t have the heart to tell him I’ve reformatted my computer and I’ve never applied MTU patches to my computer when I had a modem and I’ve been on all the speedguide web pages adjusting those settings to see if I could get anywhere. He e-mails me an MTU removing reg file. The tech in me knows I should have looked at the file before applying it, but I applied it anyway. Rebooted my system. He then had me go to www/download which is a download web page on the @home network. It has a bunch of crap, but it’s good to determine download speeds. I choose one of there install packages and begin to download. It starts off at 14k/sec and stays pretty steady. My heart sinks, this can’t be the end! If this is the solution I need to make something up because now I feel like an idiot! But then the transfer stops and sits for 30 seconds and the picks up and stops dropping the download rate to 4k/sec. My little DU meter looks like a mountain range with huge peaks and deep valleys when it should just look like a high plain.
The tech is of course stumped. He then has me go back into my net diag tool so that he can run these tests for the fourth time. He agrees, something isn’t quite right with the connection. He tells me that he’s going to take this information and forward it to tier 4. Tier 4, what the hell is that? God? Every where I’ve worked Tier 3 is the limit and that’s usually one guy in a closet who knows everything. I don’t say anything of course because this guy has no idea what I’ve been through. At least he hasn’t been telling me about the new T1’s. He tells me that he’s taken ownership of my problem and will follow up with me when he knows something. That’s sweet but pretty much meaningless. I let him go.
7:00pm
My girlfriend gets home and tells me that her brother is getting faster transfer rates
since they’ve added new T1’s. She’s going from memory and it’s pretty
cute to hear her rattle off geek speak. I’ve been spending too much time with this
Bresnan thing and my computer so I decide I’ll check that out when Ally McBeal comes
on.
9:00pm
Ally just got done kissing her ex boyfriend who’s married to her friend all the
while the black dude she’s seeing is getting more and more confused. Blah! I hate
that show! Anyway I go check out my computer. I sit in my chair and realize that ICQ is
just flashing, IRC hasn’t done anything and there is a web page half loaded. I click
my mouse button and all the windows start flashing and grunting about being disconnected.
I look at the modem. It’s not even connecting to the service. I must have jinxed
myself when I talked to that reporter; "at least it’s always connected". I
reboot my computer. Nothing. I power down then up the modem. Nothing. I push the reset
button. Nothing. I call the 888 number and get some guy who just sounds like he hates his
job. I tell him my problem and abruptly he says, "Sorry, can’t help you, Madison
is out." I ask if all of Madison is out. He says that most of Madison is out and that
he can’t help me. He then asks for my name and says he’ll put in a trouble
ticket for me. That’s that and the modem doesn’t work for the rest of the night.