Internet Down
Today my Internet was down when I got home. My roommates were both upset when I got back, and they wanted me to magically fix the problem so I called up our service provider BellSouth.
I talked to the support guy and went through many of the steps that I have gone through 13 times before. Nothing that they did worked. They decided to do some odd-sounding tests to see if X, Y, or Z issue was the real problem with my Internet not working today.
I felt like BellSouth was not giving us service — like we were experiencing a short break in service. It happens. No one is perfect and neither is any one company.
Eventually, I got to talk to some higher-up tech guy. He let me know that he was the 15th person to enter notes into my account’s technical service log, which is how I knew that I had done this exactly thirteen times before. He said he was doing something to test other possibilities, and eventually he decided that my modem was not working. He said there was really only one thing to do — get a new modem. That would be $150, but if I was willing to give a verbal agreement to stay with BellSouth for another year they’d knock the price down to $100. Wow! It sounded great at first so I started ordering and got put on hold for a moment — just long enough for me to think and realize that this was a bit shady. When I got back on the phone I talked to my new acquaintance about how I felt that the deal was kinda shady. I even explained it to him.
I said that it was kinda weird that when I lose service for a bit that I have to purchase another modem to continue my service. Sounded weird to me, because the way they have it set up, I now have a great opportunity to shop around for better/cheaper service plans. I mean… I have to buy a new broadband modem anyway, right?
So, that’s what I am doing now.
UPDATE — 2/7/2004 @ 7:30PM
Well, I decided to continue to give my modem some more tries. Perhaps the service came back online, right? Well, I prayed that the modem would just work again, and… it did! How cool is that? Now I have Internet again. Now I am disappointed with BellSouth again. They told me that my modem wasn’t working. They were wrong. That mistake would have cost ME $100 — $150 plus shipping and servicing, which is a cost that was never quoted to me.
Oh well, now I need to call BellSouth up again and let them log that my modem was, in fact, NOT broken and that their diagnostics were faulty. Hopefully, that will help them be a better business for the next person.
Posted by David under Technology |