I called AT&T Broadband to order cable service on Tuesday, and they said that because this was a new residence, it wasn’t in their “servicable” database, and it would need to be added to it. The lady said she the person who did that was out to lunch, and she would call me back in about 30 minutes.
Two days later, I had yet to hear from her, so I called back. Of course, I got some other douchebag who said that they didn’t call people back like
that, and even so, it would take about a week for the residence to be added to the database because tech needed to go out and survey the property.
I asked her if she knew if that information had already been submitted to the techs, and she didn’t know. I asked her if she even had a record of me
requesting service there from Tuesday, and she said no, but that was because they didn’t keep such records.
I gave her shit until she agreed to take my information down again and submit it to the techs. She said that “someone already said they would do
that for you” to which I replied, “but that same person also said they would call me back to let me know what was going on”. She responded “but we don’t
call back with that information”, to which I countered “Yes, but the fact that she gave me misinformation doesn’t do much to instill confidence in her
ability to get any of this right. when compounded with the fact that you can’t even verify if this information had ever been submitted, my confidence drops
to zero. Please submit this information to the field office techs.”
So she eventually agreed to do so. The kicker is that they won’t notify me when the property has been surveyed, I have to keep on calling back to see
when they have completed the survey, which will take about a week.
Bullshit.
I called RCN to see if we could just say ‘fuck it’ to AT&T, but alas, they don’t service Cambridge.
at&t fucking eats it. all these gay commercials they keep putting on tv make me cringe every time i see them. them and their “five 9’s” of reliability or whatever. heh. i call that false advertising. =)
They totally eat it.
There’s always wireless if you’ve got a south-facing deck.
You don’t want RCN (if you can help it). DNAI was voted best ISP in the bay area for four years running. They were bought by RCN and everything went to hell. Now I’ve switched birdhouse and most of my clients off of RCN/DNAI. You’re a faceless driveling drone to them.
First of all, when your options are AT&T and RCN, which do you think you will be more of a faceless driviling drone to?
Second, I am not talking about ISP service, I am only talking about cable tv, so I am not too worried about service.
Regardless, my only option is either AT&T or satellite, and since I can’t mount a dish, I guess I am going AT&T.
“Second, I am not talking about ISP service, I am only talking about cable tv, so I am not too worried about service.”
Oh! Nevermind then ;)
:)
As far as data goes, I chose to continue with Verizon DSL because the service has only gone awry 3 or so times since August (each for a few hours at the most).
I can’t say I have heard the same opinions from those who have AT&T cable modems (especially since @Home ate it).
Surprisingly I have heard good things abotu RCN data service in this area, although it wouldn’t surprise me if things were different out there.
Actually, service outages haven’t been the problem with RCN. That part has been good. What’s gotten my goat is that you can no longer call up and talk to a person – you have to leave a message and be at their mercy until they call back. Then they assume you know nothing (DNAI used to be a power users service), so you have to go through three reps to get to someone who knows what the hell you’re talking about. Their newsgroup feed is seldom up to date or complete, their rates aren’t competitive (around here). They sent a bout of confusing emails to all their customers telling them they’d have to change their POP and SMTP server settings. Everyone did, but RCN never actually changed the servers, so there were thousands of people checking non-existent POP boxes etc. It’s been a comedy of errors since the buyout.
Anyway, I didn’t even know that RCN was in the TV biz – they don’t offer TV service in this area.
Anyway, I didn’t even know that RCN was in the TV biz – they don’t offer TV service in this area.
They offer local phone, data, and cable TV service all over one wire in the boston area. AT&T Broadband does as well.
What is interesting to me is that one of my coworkers said that RCN’s customer service has been great… Perhaps it is a regional thing..