Let me start with a little background.
Became a UVerse customer in 2007 after purchasing my house. Have had my DVR replaced more then a dozen times and various service techs, managers and district managers at my house inspecting, re-inspecting and reruning wiring.
Now to my most recent issue:
Incident 1
About a year ago, I started having random spotty service with my internet (signal would cut in and out for long period of times). After several hours on the with Tier 1 and Tier 2 tech support, the tech decided that a service call was necessary. A technician showed up a couple fo days later only to say he could not find any issue but decided that perhaps it had to do with the coax connecter on the line going into the modem. He snipped off the end, replaced and swapped out the modem.
Service worked reasonably well for about the next 3 or 4 months.
Incident 2
3 or 4 months later, I began experiencing a similar issue with interned service. Again I labored through with the punch list of the tier 1 technician and got to a tier 2 technician. This tech swore that the issue I was having was related not to a wiring issue or anything else, but to some sort of known issue that the AT&T routers had with Apple products. He had me run through all sorts of tests including turning off the wireless signal on every apple product, shutting down the modem and running only PC products. Issue still remained...... tech then decided it was likely an outside line issue due to the multiple times my house wiring had been checked and rechecked. However, he could not directly schedule a line tech, he had to first have a service tech come out. Once the service tech came out and looked into the issue, he then scheduled for the line tech to come out........ Yipee 2 more days of work missed.
Line technican come out checks some things outside my house with the lines coming in and decides he needs to go to the hub for my neighborhood. he assures me though that the issue should be resolved in another hour or 2. 7 hours later and about 9pm PDT no word from the technician and still no service. I call AT&T back taking only an hour and a half to get someone that can finally figure out the situation. The technician had called it a night and was going to come back in the morning to work some more (thanks for letting me know). 12 hours later the issue seems to be resolved.
My wife spends more wasted time with the retention department and gets some nominal credits off our bill for the next 6 months.
Incident 3
Monday night I begin to have the same issues as the previous two times. Being a seasoned veteran with the fine tech support team, I demand to bypass Tier 1 and go straight to Tier 2. I explain to the Tier 2 technician my issues and that I have dealt with this before. I further explain that I am 100% sure it is not a wiring issue in my house because of all of the work that has been done before. After another hour on the phone, I finally cave again and allow yet another service technician to come out to my house.
Tuesday night Technician arrives at 7pm to work on my issue. He concludes that the problem is the coax and that he needs to run a new line from the box to the router using a Cat 5 connection. He is certain that this will solve the problem. The main issue I had with moving the router was signal loss. My router had been in the middle of my house so that I could get signal throughout my house. I was a litle concerned that moving the router would leaves ares of my house uncovered but the technician assured me that if that occured he could put a back up router in the back part of the house (through the ethernet port in the DVR). I reluctantly agreed to let him do the work.
Cat5 line was run direct from the box to the router and things seem to be generally working fine. tech can't seem to get backup router to work from DVR box. We decide to call it a night and he went down to staple in the new Cat 5 line he installed. Not 2 minutes later (before he even got to the line) the problem I was having originally started occurring again [this time with the tech in the house]. Tech's advice is to then try to rename the router because this "for some reason helps, though I don't know why". Seems to be working generally well after this "fix". an hour later I am in the back part of my house and discover that the signal strength is almost non-existant so now I am essentially in the same boat as I was from day 1 with a shiny new line running to the router that is now in the front of my house and no signal in the back of the house.
I recalled that the tech had given me a survey sheet with his number and that of his supervisor, so I immediately try to call botn and leave a message (about 10pm no answer from either) I leave a voice mail explaining the issue and leaving my name and number.
Wednesday It hits noon and still no call back from either the supervisor or the technician. I decide to call the general AT&T Uverse support (again bypassing Tier 1) and ultimately get yet another service appointment for that night. 7:30pm technician arrives. I discuss the issues from the previous day and the "fix" that the prior technician had made.
I am informed that it is ludicrious to think that a router could be hooked up to the DVR because the ethernet port was from input, not output. He also was a little concerned about this mystery fix (as was I) as it probably didn't solve the ultimate problem but only was a temporary fix. In the meantime, we decided that the best thing was to run a hard line (Cat 5) from the now moved router to the back of my house to install a secondary router. 3 hours later, he still can't get the secondary router to work and I request that he just put the router back on the coax and move it back to its original location so that I can at least use the service in my whole home. at this point it is near 10pm and once everything is moved back to where it was, he states that he will discuss the issue with his supervisor, and told me to also call him (the supervisor) in the morning as he is certain it is not an issue within my house but something with the lines coming in. He further stated that the result should be that someone will look into the outside issue and I would not need to be home.
Thursday
I call the supervisor (same guy as the last time) at 9am and still get only a voice mail. I decide once again to leave a message.
Friday
Still no call from the supervisor, nut I get a random call from dispatch in the midwest asking if my issue had been resolved and if i was satisfied with the service appointment. I informed the woman of the issue and to the fact that the supervisor had still not called me back. She stated "I am sorry that is a different department, there is nothing further I can do".
Conclusion
My frustration level with AT&T couldn't be higher. the seem to care little about the customer and more about how many different departments they can outsource and/ or pawn you off on. No one person has any authority nor is there any sharing of information between customer service, phone techs, in home techs and line techs. It is very sad to see such a large successful company continue to thrive while they take probably the most important thing to a customer for granted (customer service). Though I hope by some random chance my tale here gets to someone that can actually do something about my issue, I alos hope that is serves a good warning to other customers. I promise you that I will not only not recommend this product, I will go out of my way to tell people to stay as far away as possible.
If you have made it this far, I appreciate you reading my likely somewhat incoherent angry rant.
texasguy37
