Not the Only DSL Company in Town...but AT&T Sure Acts Like It is

Monday, May 5th. 6:40 pm.

My AT&T DSL goes down. I call AT&T’s customer service number. After wading through a lengthy voice mail, I reach a recording telling me the Indianapolis area is experiencing an outage expected to last until 10:15 pm.

I hang up, and continue to try to connect around 10:15 pm and later. At midnight, I go to bed.

Awake again at 3:45 am. I have a final examination I’m supposed to take online on Tuesday. I reckon I’ll sleep better if I know the system’s back up, so I go poke at it. It’s not. I call AT&T again. I get someone named Jules in some customer service center overseas. Based on the accents of the various people I speak to there, I assume it’s India.

After a half hour of diagnostics with Jules, he decides it’s a modem fault, and tells me someone will call me in the morning to schedule a visit to see and probably replace the modem. He gives me a case number, which I record.

Tuesday, May 6th. 1:30 pm.

No telephone call. It is not morning anymore.

I call AT&T again, with the interminable menus and waits. I get a female person named Sam. She says nothing was ever done to ask anyone to come look at my modem, has no faith that the modem is the problem, insists on an hour of “try this, try that.” After an hour, she decides that maybe I need to talk to one of their Mac specialists. Didn’t get that name. Mac person wants to start over from scratch. No progress a half hour later. Mac person escalates me to Don, second tier. Second tier appears, by the sound of it, to actually be in the US.

Don tries another half-hour’s worth of stuff. At the end of all this, he comes to the same conclusion Jules did, actually: there’s something wrong with the modem. He creates a trouble ticket and promises someone will call me within four hours. He takes both my home number and my cell number to ensure I’m reachable. He gives me the direct connect number for the department that actually sends people out.

Wednesday, May 7th. 10:30 am.

No telephone call. It is not between two and six pm on Tuesday anymore, by quite a bit. I call the direct connect number. No voice menus, but still a lengthy wait. I get Sheila. No explanation of why I wasn’t called, but it doesn’t sound like she’s surprised. She tries poking at the modem again from her end, with no difference. She allows as how this is not the first case of this precise problem they’ve seen today. I begin to suspect it’s something that AT&T has broken in their outage/security upgrades to the Indianapolis area system.

Sheila tells me the earliest anyone can actually come out is Thursday. I tell her I have to work Thursday afternoon and need them to come in the morning. She calls Deb in scheduling to try to get that done.

After a full hour, including holds, I’m told that no, they cannot come out when I’m off work; they are only available when it means I have to take off work---and with my manager going off work for a medical procedure, this is not a time where I can take off to deal with this. Which, given the days I have to be there because he won’t be, and I’ll be needed, means “you’ll be offline over a week.”

I tell Sheila this is not acceptable, and she says she will escalate it to her manager and they will call me back. Reluctantly, I hang up the phone with no visit from tech support actually scheduled. It is 11:35 am.

12:30 pm.

Sheila calls back, wonder of wonders. Her manager says no, I will have to take off work or wait until Tuesday. Reluctantly, I agree to take off Thursday afternoon, that being the only part of that time frame where that’s even possibly doable at work.

Thursday afternoon. 2:30 pm.

Jason & Jason arrive at my door. These guys are clueful, courteous, tidy, and competent. Yes, the modem is broken. They replace it, make sure everything’s detangled in terms of IDs and passwords, make sure both machines are back online and working perfectly. We’re good to go: I’ve found where the competence at AT&T hides. Too bad I can’t just get these guys’ number for my next problem, if any.