I won’t be able to update the SDL site for a little while, FYI.
The entertaining story follows, in case you’re interested.
PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THE LIST, but feel free to reply to me personally.
Thanks,
–Sam----------------------------------------------------------------------------
My wife Lauren and I moved into our new place over New Year’s weekend, which
was fairly painless since we have a little practice at this. However, this
time we wanted to transfer our Cox @ Home internet services.
Like the new star wars movies, our saga begins…
We scheduled an appointment for installation on Monday, December 31. Lauren
stayed at home between 11 and 3 to make sure somebody could meet the the
cable rep. I got home after running some errands and found a note on the
front door “sorry, nobody was home”. It was timestamped 1:08 PM. Yes,
Lauren was home. Thinking that maybe our doorbell was broken, since we
hadn’t tried it since we moved in, I went down and rang it. Clear tones
resounded through the house. I’m guessing the rep just wanted a long lunch.
So we called back and were told that they would have the rep call us back.
We waited and waited for the rest of the afternoon and didn’t get a call.
Finally, the sun was down and we were getting hungry, so we called back to
reschedule. Saturday, January 5 in the afternoon, no problem. We were
wiley this time, we waited outside during the appointed time and met the
cable rep in the parking lot. He seemed like a nice fellow, and happily
hooked up our TV service and set up the cable modem… but there was no
service, just blinky lights. That’s not right, he said, and called his
customer service phone number. After being on hold for a while he finally
got through to a service representative. Apparently everything was okay
with the service and he should try a new modem. He told her to check the
provisioning, because it wasn’t a modem problem. She told him to replace
the modem anyway, and she was going to re-setup the service. So, he
replaced the modem, she started resetting the service, and voila! Internet!
Alas, it was not to be. She hadn’t finished configuring it, and he tried to
call her back to tell her to stop, because it was working, and was kept on
hold and couldn’t get through. It was still working though, so he told me
that it might stop working and that I should call customer service if there
was a problem. I walked him to the door, and then I went to download my
wife’s e-mail… too late. I ran out to the parking lot, and called him
back in. Luckily, since he had left his toolbelt, too. After a long time
on hold, it turned out that there were too many errors in setting up the
service, and they had to be cleared on Monday morning, by folks in Atlanta,
but don’t worry, it will be working by Monday afternoon, and here’s my pager
number to tell me how it goes.
Well, Monday the 7’th goes by, and I get home from work and there’s no
internet service, as expected. It’s too late to call the cable company, so
I wait until this morning, the 8’th, to call and find out what the situation
is. Apparently Atlanta never cleared the errors and now there is a freeze
on all @home accounts between the 8’th and the 15’th while Cox transfers
internet service to a new provider. Sorry, you’re screwed.
I’ve dealt with computers and provider changes before, and I know how likely
it is that they’ll be able to help me as soon as the freeze is lifted, so I
ask for, and get, a month’s credit on my internet service. It’s not
internet service, but at least it’s better than nothing.
The icing on the cake…
I called back the cable rep just to relate the funny story, and after
repeatedly telling me it’s not his mistake, he suggests I go out and get an
AOL CD for temporary dialup service.
Needless to say, I don’t have internet service at home, and it looks like it
will be that way for a while.
–Sam