AT&T support

[nfallon]

AT&T has without a doubt the worst technical support. For the last three days they have had a problem in my area that took down 2 towns.

Here's the short version of tech support.

Me: CAlled AT&T on Thursday evening to report the service was down but that I could release and renew my IP address.

AT&T Tech: Can we power off your computer and the modem to make sure the IP address renews.

Me: No, I just
told you that I can do that. I'm getting a DNS server error. The problem is in your hardware.

AT&T: OK we'll look into it.

Second day

Me: Hi I called yesterday to report my service down and would like to get a status report and what is happening to restore my service.

AT&T: Can we power down your computer and modem and try to obtain a new IP address?

Me: No, I went through this yesterday. The problem is in your hardware.

AT&T: OK I just looked at the network board there is a problem in your town and the next town.

Me: What's the problem and when do you expect to have it resolved?

AT&T: I don't know. Try back in 8 hours.

Me: 8 hours later. Hi, I'm just checking on the status of the problem that you are having in my area.

AT&T: I'm not aware of any problem in your area. Can you power down your modem and computer so that we can see if the IP address can be renewed.

Me: No, do you people know how to read? There has been a problem in my area for two days and I want to know when it will be fixed?

AT&T: Let me check. OK they say 7:00 PM.

To make a longer story short. I called AT&T every 8 hour over a 3 day period to find out what was going on. On each occasion they wanted me to shut myt system down to recycle the IP address. What is with these people? They don't know that ipconfig/release and ipconfig/renew will do that for them and that if I tell them I can release and renew and ping the gateway then the problem isn't my system?

Needless to say. It's time to start looking for a new ISP.

Neil

[Spot]

On each occasion they wanted me to shut myt system down to recycle the IP address. What is with these people? They don't know that ipconfig/release and ipconfig/renew will do that for them and that if I tell them I can release and renew and ping the gateway then the problem isn't my system?

That, unfortunately, is the best/only way to make sure a Win9x box (what the majority of the surfing world uses, and what they expect you are using) will release and renew it's IP. Even ipconfig /release /renew in Win2k (you know...the hardcore networking OS from MS) doesn't necessarily work. Many many times I've had to reboot a Win2k box just to get an IP released and renewed.
Until more ISPs realize that not everyone uses windows, that's the way it's going to be. There's usually zero support oriented towards linux, even if the ISP's major systems run some sort of *nix (which is often the case). God forbid you have a mac or solaris...
Another thing you should take into consideration when calling "support"...
most of the "support staff" are nothing more than glorified telemarketers reading lines of copy from a page in front of them. They aren't getting paid much, so they could really care less if you called before/already did what they're trying to get you to do.

[nfallon]

That, unfortunately, is the best/only way to make sure a Win9x box (what the majority of the surfing world uses, and what they expect you are using) will release and renew it's IP. Even ipconfig /release /renew in Win2k (you know...the hardcore networking OS from MS) doesn't necessarily work. Many many times I've had to reboot a Win2k box just to get an IP released and renewed.
Until more ISPs realize that not everyone uses windows, that's the way it's going to be. There's usually zero support oriented towards linux, even if the ISP's major systems run some sort of *nix (which is often the case). God forbid you have a mac or solaris...
Another thing you should take into consideration when calling "support"...
most of the "support staff" are nothing more than glorified telemarketers reading lines of copy from a page in front of them. They aren't getting paid much, so they could really care less if you called before/already did what they're trying to get you to do.

Hi Spot,

I understand that sometimes a box has to be rebooted in order to release the IP address. My point was that I told them that it released fine and renewed fine each time and they still asked to do it just like robots. They're not interested in what the person on the other end of the line has to say unless you ask for a supervisor.

I paid my dues years ago working help desks and doing desktop support. I can say for sure that I have never left someone hanging the way that AT&T does and I never put the person on the other end through the same routine over and over again as AT&T does.

Neil

[paradox]

Tech support has taken on an entirely different persona now. Now they automatically go into the phase user=loser. Little do they realize that every now and then they get a intelligent "loser". Then the other problem arises, they dont' know much themselves, they just thought they did because they got lucky getting a tech job, or they lied on their resume abit, or the company just hired whoever they wanted to for tech support. So it is a lose lose situation with tech support. God forbid you ever have to call Dell about a cd rom burner, I ended up teaching the tech, he didn't even know what a friggin ISO was! And he was a cd-r specialist! Hmmm I feel comfortable with them as my backbone for support! :

Aragorn