DSL Intermittent Connection | Grumpy Support Supervisor | U-verse Database Errors

[2.21Gigawåtts]

Wow, where do I begin.

1) DSL Intermittent Connection

My wife and I have been 11 year Customers with Bellsouth / AT&T and 7 year DSL Customers.

The problems all started 7-8 months ago when, out of the blue, we started to hear very loud humming/noise on our home phone-line. We called phone repair and within 24 hrs we were noise free, BUT, we also started to experience Internet
Disconnection Issues on our DSL service provided by AT&T.

Two-three months later, the humming returned, we again called AT&T Phone Repair and again within 24 hours the
problem was resolved, this time the DSL connection problems picked up noticeably, and we began to experience frequent and brief internet connection losses.

August 19, 2011 - Internet service was intermittent for a few hours and then went into complete loss. Called DSL Technical Support. (**** I should not here that I would say my Networking and PC skills are above average as I am a PM/ Designer/ Engineer for Networking and Voice/ Data/ Electrical Distribution systems ****) After the typical "by the "book" troubleshooting with the L-1 / Tier-1 Support, it was determined I needed to be escalated to Tier-2 Support, and was. The new Support Tech and i went through all the remaining possibilities over hours of time and during that period, service resumed, but not from anything we (the Tech and I) feel we did.

August 28, 2011 - Internet issues become very bad with connection status oscillating between connected and loss many times each hour. I finally gave up waiting it out and contacted Technical Support. To my surprise "Jessica", Tier-1
Support, was everything you could want from first level support. Friendly, helpful, intelligible with the English language, and knowledgeable of the tools she has available. The experience was so refreshing, I almost didn't mind that we were at the whole thing for hours. Unfortunately, we were unable to resolve the issue and she escalated the problem to Engineering.

Key Troubleshooting Note During her troubleshooting she ran a line-test while I was experiencing one of the outages,
and it came back as "connection status: good" and "signal: strong" Odd, but OK, so then I unplug the power from the Modem and disconnect the network cable. I ask her for another status check.. she does it.. "connection status: good"
and "signal: strong" WHAT, that's impossible??!! When I tell her that the modem is not even connected to anything she is, like me, confused at the status and checks it again.. same thing.. that was when she said "We need to escalate this to engineering".

I am unsure what "Engineering" did, or if they even did anything at all, as the problems persisted and I was not contacted with a follow-up.

August 29, 2011 - Internet loss intermittently continues. The problems continued with short-med duration internet loss every hour. Still have not heard back from "Engineering".

September 1, 2011 - Problems persist, no word from "Engineering", so I called back DSL Technical support. The Support Tech was helpful and after reading all the account notes she quickly determined she needed to dispatch a Technician and asked "would tomorrow between 8-noon be OK?" Sure, send them out. Outages continued through the evening and early morning until I went to sleep.

September 2, 2011 - Internet intermittent loss continues, and awaiting technician at the house. Technician arrives, is both courteous and knowledgeable and after reviewing the issue, decides to clean up some external cable and replace the DSL Modem (Replaced 5 yr old Westell-black with a 2-Wire 2701HG-B Modem/Router which we placed in "Bridge" mode.)

The Technician, while we waited to see how the changes were effecting the issue,  was looking at his outside plant circuit maps. He noted that there were some disparities between his DSL circuit map, the U-Verse circuit map -- which he also had access to -- and the actual service ticket circuits that were the "actual" circuits my home is using. That didn't surprise me, as it is extremely difficult to keep the number of drawings used by a provider all current. What did surprise me was that he indicated it is very possible that the reason my neighbor across from me has U-verse and that I do not is because the U-verse database doesn't have my street entered into it, erroneously. (The Technician knows for a fact U-verse was installed across the street because he did the work). This would explain why everyone around me HAS U-verse, and the people on my street still do not... a database error (this issue is continued separately below). Internet was working at the time the Technician departed but resumed its outage pattern soon after, and with outages of even greater length.

September 2, 2011 Cont. - With continued issues, I once again call DSL Technical Support to report that the steps taken have not helped the issue. The Tech support person is courteous and when looking at all the notes, realized this would again need to be escalated. She indicates that she is forwarding all of the notes to "Engineering" and that they will both be handling the escalation as well as dispatching a new Technician Tomorrow (Saturday). I asked her why I was not just transferred to this "Engineering" escalation team, and she indicated "we are not allowed to transfer to anyone outside of Tier-1 Support" ...ohh great.. some more/new changes must have occurred in the AT&T DSL support structure... and this one certainly doesn't sound customer friendly. Worried about how things will be handled going forward, i asked to speak with a "Supervisor". I wanted to report what a great job the Support people I had been dealing with were doing and ask about how a U-verse database error can be corrected.

2) Grumpy Support Supervisor 

It was the general I don't care about you or your problem... I just want to get off this call" attitude by the supervisor that has caused me to try and seek information and help here in the forums. The supervisor was curt and prickly, and didn't seem to care a less that me "the customer" had been plagued with frustrating connection issues for weeks and many hours of support calls over the recent week. I do not know the circumstances around the poor attitude and lack of professional courtesy by this Supervisor, but I do know that my worry factor has skyrocketed while my satisfaction and confidence have dropped dramatically. I have no idea how to try and report my poor experience other than here, or if I happen to get a customer satisfaction email to complete.

3) U-verse Database Errors

One of these "errors" can make or break our eligibility to improve our internet service and yet I am faced with yet another thing I have found VERY frustrating, that I have contacted AT&T over a dozen times in the last year asking about U-verse, and indicating I wanted to receive their U-verse service, and none of the people I spoke with was able to see that there is a problem with their d-base information regarding my home and street beyond "you're not listed .. so you're not eligible". Even when I brought it up with U-verse Sales a number of times, "how odd it was that all my neighbors have it but we do not", not once did a red flag go up for anyone I had access to, that there may be a problem.

Now for the cherry on top, the discrepancy of my "street mistakenly missing from the database" issue is now known to
me, it's now know by the Technician who discovered it, it's now known and been reported to Tech Support, I even reported it to the supervisor, Ms. Prickly Pants listed above. She tells me that "She can do nothing about it, and that I would have to call AT&T U-verse Sales" as my only option. ... are you KIDDING me?! *...sigh...* So the bottom line on this item is, even though a whole bunch of people know about this issue (now), the only "real" chance my family may have in the near future is that the Technician who was here today said he will bring it up with an engineer he knows. Seriously AT&T?? There is no one, no other, group/ agency/ Phone# I can report this to -- as a Customer aware of an error that impacts my service eligibility -- who can and will take action?

In conclusion, I don't know when, or if, my internet will be repaired, but I do hope the engineering Tech tomorrow has better
luck. I also don't know how to report a very disappointing customer service experience, that doesn't feel like I am just wasting my time. Lastly, I don't know where, or to whom, I can turn with the apparent bad records / data preventing my U-verse eligibility and my service from being upgraded.

I do apologize if a ranted a bit, and for the length of the explanation, but my plight is real, and my concern is high.

Thank you in advance to whomever takes the time to take action with these issues.

With concern,

- Just_an_account_number

[Quiquo]

Hi, I wish I had a solution to your problem because then I'd be able to solve mine.

My problems are not identical, but similar to yours.

I've been an AT&T customer since 2002 when it was Yahoo! SBC

I have ALWAYS had connection issues but they have now gotten so bad, it's seriously puuting a strain on me. Those of you who are reliant on the internet for important things such as online college courses and other things will know the frustration of having an unreliable connection when it had been working just fine for a few months straight. I have spent at least two nights per week for the last several weeks trying to fix this ridiculoudly unreliable DSL. I've slammed my fist upon my desk too many times to count, and I am not even close to being the violent type.

The last time I had issues, a phone line tech was sent to my residence because my phone line had developed this awful buzzing noise. The man came up to my door and refused to enter. He said his work was limited to outdoors. I figured since he's only checking the line, any problems that are due to the line inside my home would go undiagnosed. I had hoped someone would come inside and check it from there, but I was understanding and let him do his work. He came back an hour later and said it was all working now. It worked for about a day then began disconnecting again.

I switched my Motorola modem I had spent $75 on, with an old Speed Stream 5360 and it worked. I would have nearly 4 months of perfect connectivity.

The next set of issues came about a month after I purchased a new Linksys router and the problems persist to this day. I've discovered that some of the Motorola modems were known to be defective so I chucked that one and am still using my old Speed Stream, which is becoming more and more unreliable. I prefer that over spending yet another $75 on a faulty modem.

The truth is, I haven't bothered much with support due to the many bad things I've read about them. If I can't even get online support to help and keep getting disconnected after waiting forever for my turn, person to person will likely be just as bad. I will call later on today because I am desperate and will report what results I get from that.

It is unacceptable that for the price I pay and for the length of time I've had this service, that connectivity is so bad, it literally causes me to lose it after trying to connect for hours. My connection isn't just casual surfing or entertainment. It's my education and other extremely important things I rely on the internet for. I'm hoping I have luck and get good support because the few times I have called for help during these 10 years of service, have not been good and I always get sales pitches instead of solutions.

Btw, my home address often times comes up erroneously stored in databases. I wonder if that's a problem that is the cause of all this.

[2.21Gigawåtts]

Here is an Update - for those who are interested (and yes, it's taken until now to get some of these resolved).

U-Verse Eligibility Database/Maps Discrepancy - Still nothing done here. I have notified everyone I found numbers for, or was referred to. One actually called back!.. but then, made some "promises" on that call which were not followed up on to-date. So, even though the service is literally sitting available 2 houses down, my street can not get them 'still" because my street (that has been here for 15 years now) "does not exist" in their records... funny though, that we do have phone service from the same company (AT&T) since we built our home here.

DSL Intermittent Connection - Resolved!! ... YAYYY! OK, so here is how this turned out. Apparently at the switch my home is being serviced out of, there are multiple "types" of DSL services. The Technician indicated that they are not able to discuss AT&T infrastructure but did say "I've switched you to a different Network Feed. You shouldn't have any more intermittent connection issues". He was right! Since he moved me to "the new Network", I've not had a single outage.. wow

I'm going to guess on this one, as I don't know what he actually did.But my "guess" is that he might have switched me from a "Residential DSL" feed to a "Business Class DSL" feed. Steak for the big money... table scraps for the peasants I guess.

Poor Customer Service - I couldn't find a place or website to specifically address my bad experience so I ended up submitting the details at the AT&T Suggestion Box site http://att.suggestionbox.com/

I've not been contacted so i am unsure if it has been "heard".