I am in a rural area where my choices are CenturyLink or Hughesnet... COX covers the OTHER end of my road...
So - knowing the insanity of Hughes, I checked what was specifically available at my new house. Web site, after requesting my actual address, showed 10MB available. Great! I said...
Called to set up service - and after the sales rep "confirmed with the Tech dept.) said that 6mb was what was available at my location. Well - not thrilled, but ti is what it is, right? SO I said ok - and an hour later, was set up with an install date of this past Tuesday. I wanted a tech install to insure it was working from the start.
Tuesday rolls around - and no call from a tech on an arrival time. So I took the day off from work to stay at the house. Tech arrives just before noon, finds the only phone outlet in the house, plugs in a handset of his own to confirm dial tone, unboxes the C1100Z router, plugs in to jack, plugs power brick in wall, waits for green light and heads for the door.... And on the way out, he said - the only speed available here is 3MB. i asked why they sold me 6MB service and he laughed and said he didn't know - as he is the ONLY tech for the region, and knows for a fact 3MB is all that anyone can get. Uhhh....
So I called customer care and the fellow I spoke with immediately tore into ME for complaining about the service speed... He then rattled off what my "plan" was... and quoted a whole different price that was 30% higher than what I had agreed to (along with that hard credit pull). I asked why it was higher than what I agreed to and he said that is the price for 3MB service.
I reiterated the AGREED on price and package and after he basically dressed me down arguing that it is exactly what I had agreed on - and after I suggested he have a supervisor pull the audio recording that was supposedly made when the 2nd person joined the call for order confirmation - where every detail was said aloud again... He immediately calmed down. He then said he understood why I would be upset with a 30% increase in price for ½ the speed I was sold. He then found a lower price he could offer me... though with a 12 month commitment (my original deal was a 5 year price-lock with zero commitment and no termination fee). OK - so I said if that is my only option, I would be ok with it.
I try to use the internet - and it doesn't work. Modem says connected - and even shows a bit over 3mb as the speed. But it isn't actually working, then it shows disconnected. I reboot the router - and internet works... for 5 minutes.
Long story short - connection is horrible. I've been round and round with tech support on the phone, customer care on the phone, customer service chat on their web site, and even their twitter support account.
Rep on the Twitter support account said he removed the $60 install fee and applied a $10 per month credit because of all the hassle, but said he couldn't do anything about the service issue - I had to again call Support...
Well - I did last night and was told the earliest available day for service visit was next Friday (1 week out). I said that wasn't acceptable as I couldn't be home again all day - plus I would be out on business anyway. She apologized but said that was my choice! I had to hang up. I had had enough. She did at least say that there was apparently a line problem (though gave no details).
Today, I get home from another half-day working, and internet is "working" - at 0.376 download, 0.576 upload. Reminds me of the old dial-up days (this is the modem-indicated speed). I would run speedtest.net, but just the home page takes barely under 2 minutes to load!!!
So - I call again to try to work things out one more time. The tech support agent again obviously is doing nothing but reading from a formulaic screen, but she does at least listen. She apologizes and explains that they have no control of priority in tech scheduling - they can only do the next available slot the computer generates. I said I understand that, but when the installing tech (again - who claims to be the only tech for this region of the state) did nothing to even confirm the service was working before he left - I think something ought to be taken into consideration. She agreed and connected to a supervisor. While waiting the 20 or so minutes for the supervisor to get on the line, she ran the tests they always run for the line and she tried some test on the modem. She said that the line test showed that (and I quote) "you are only getting 20% of the signal to your modem you should be - there obviously is a serious problem with our line". Then she said, but you modem has a problem too - as when their system attempted to connect to it, it rejected the request. Either way, the supervisor confirmed what she had said to me and he apologized (they must get lots of practice). and said he had to schedule a tech - when was i going to be available (AFTER next Friday) - So I am scheduled for Monday the 19th of June13 days after my install. He also said that the install tech should have done more than plug in the modem, watch for the green light, and leave. I said that it likely would have alleviated at least some of the headache.
So - while my internet is excruciatingly slow, at least it is "up", right? Except I return to my laptop to find the modem showed "Walled Garden" in place of the internet status. I tried rebooting the modem - no change. So I call tech support back. Another nice, hard-to-understand lady comes on and walked me through several things - and for some reason the PPoE user name and password stuff had returned to some kind of default setting which threw up some kind of security scenario. So - I'm back, with a blazing speed (extreme sarcasm)...
OH - and for those more tech minded, yes, the modem page showed MANY retrains over the course of the previous hours.
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