Monday, April 23, 2007
Update on "FIOS gets s . . . l . . . o . . . w" and other Verizon follies
Here's the update on my recent Verizon/FIOS adventure:
[In last week's episode, Verizon's FIOS service had slowed to almost dial-up speed . . . ]
The Verizon technician came in the appointed four-hour window. On Sunday, believe it or not. He replaced two Ethernet plugs and cleaned the end of the fiber connection. We re-flashed the D-Link router that came with my initial FIOS service with updated firmware. The link got faster again. It tested about 14 Mbit/s upstream and 4-point-something Mbit/s downstream. The spec says I have 20 and 5, so not perfect, but not too bad. More importantly, it felt faster. I was happy.
Later that day, FIOS service died completely, Internet and dial tone too. That was the day those torrential rains hit the Northeast U.S. I called FIOS service, and the nice Verizon agent ran a test, advised there was a power problem, and advised me to reset the power unit. I did that. End of Problem #2.
All indications, except the co-occurrence of the Problem #1 fix and the onset of Problem #2 on the same day, indicate that these were two independent problems, each with a different root cause. I hope, for Verizon's sake and for the sake of the future of FTTH in the United States, that FIOS problems are less common than they are in my house.
Then I had a Whole W.E.E.K. without having to call Verizon.
My DSL Internet Connection Adventure:
In another house I use frequently, I returned from a social event last Saturday evening to find Verizon's DSL connection to the Internet was down. The DSL light on the Westell modem Verizon had supplied was green, the Internet light was red. I called Verizon. Somebody WAS there on Saturday night. But the nice Verizon man's advice, and the advice of the other guy he handed me to, was completely useless.
For over 2 and a half hours, we logged into the modem, we reset parameters, we held the reset button and counted to 59-mississippi-60, we rebooted my computer, we twirled the cat by the tail under the new moon and chanted mystical incantations. I asked more than once what might be the cause of a red Internet light; neither man seemed to have any idea. It was a local problem, they said. Can we fix it by doing this, I asked. Cutting through their sincere circumlocution, they seemed to be saying, "No, but it is the procedure in the manual." Cargo. Cargo.
Finally the nice Verizon man said he would escalate the problem to local service, and it would be fixed by Tuesday. He gave me the number of "local service" and it was actually Verizon teleconferencing service. Thanks.
I spent over two and a half hours of my Saturday night with the nice Verizon people. Party animals, not. Educational experience, not. Redeeming social value, unfortunately, severely limited.
I did learn that Verizon trouble tickets could be closed without the problem being fixed, and conversely, tickets could remain open even when the problem was resolved.
We gave up at 11:50PM. At 11:57, mysteriously, the Internet light winked green. And stayed green. I tried to access the Internet, and got a Verizon "establish my DSL account" page. I called Verizon again, and the nice lady undid all the resetting. Magically, I was on line again.
I suspect that somewhere a Verizon technician took a router off line to upgrade or maintain it, and didn't tell the DSL help people. I suspect that the maintenance was **scheduled** for somewhere between midnight and 6AM Sunday morning, but the supervisor couldn't convince anybody to actually do it then, and the next best thing was Saturday night. But the DSL Help Desk didn't know anything about it. I''m certain Ivan Seidenberg won't be able to tell me either. It's likely that nobody will learn anything from this incident.
I wasted three hours of my Saturday night, and so did Verizon at $100/hour or more loaded cost.
[In last week's episode, Verizon's FIOS service had slowed to almost dial-up speed . . . ]
The Verizon technician came in the appointed four-hour window. On Sunday, believe it or not. He replaced two Ethernet plugs and cleaned the end of the fiber connection. We re-flashed the D-Link router that came with my initial FIOS service with updated firmware. The link got faster again. It tested about 14 Mbit/s upstream and 4-point-something Mbit/s downstream. The spec says I have 20 and 5, so not perfect, but not too bad. More importantly, it felt faster. I was happy.
Later that day, FIOS service died completely, Internet and dial tone too. That was the day those torrential rains hit the Northeast U.S. I called FIOS service, and the nice Verizon agent ran a test, advised there was a power problem, and advised me to reset the power unit. I did that. End of Problem #2.
All indications, except the co-occurrence of the Problem #1 fix and the onset of Problem #2 on the same day, indicate that these were two independent problems, each with a different root cause. I hope, for Verizon's sake and for the sake of the future of FTTH in the United States, that FIOS problems are less common than they are in my house.
Then I had a Whole W.E.E.K. without having to call Verizon.
My DSL Internet Connection Adventure:
In another house I use frequently, I returned from a social event last Saturday evening to find Verizon's DSL connection to the Internet was down. The DSL light on the Westell modem Verizon had supplied was green, the Internet light was red. I called Verizon. Somebody WAS there on Saturday night. But the nice Verizon man's advice, and the advice of the other guy he handed me to, was completely useless.
For over 2 and a half hours, we logged into the modem, we reset parameters, we held the reset button and counted to 59-mississippi-60, we rebooted my computer, we twirled the cat by the tail under the new moon and chanted mystical incantations. I asked more than once what might be the cause of a red Internet light; neither man seemed to have any idea. It was a local problem, they said. Can we fix it by doing this, I asked. Cutting through their sincere circumlocution, they seemed to be saying, "No, but it is the procedure in the manual." Cargo. Cargo.
Finally the nice Verizon man said he would escalate the problem to local service, and it would be fixed by Tuesday. He gave me the number of "local service" and it was actually Verizon teleconferencing service. Thanks.
I spent over two and a half hours of my Saturday night with the nice Verizon people. Party animals, not. Educational experience, not. Redeeming social value, unfortunately, severely limited.
I did learn that Verizon trouble tickets could be closed without the problem being fixed, and conversely, tickets could remain open even when the problem was resolved.
We gave up at 11:50PM. At 11:57, mysteriously, the Internet light winked green. And stayed green. I tried to access the Internet, and got a Verizon "establish my DSL account" page. I called Verizon again, and the nice lady undid all the resetting. Magically, I was on line again.
I suspect that somewhere a Verizon technician took a router off line to upgrade or maintain it, and didn't tell the DSL help people. I suspect that the maintenance was **scheduled** for somewhere between midnight and 6AM Sunday morning, but the supervisor couldn't convince anybody to actually do it then, and the next best thing was Saturday night. But the DSL Help Desk didn't know anything about it. I''m certain Ivan Seidenberg won't be able to tell me either. It's likely that nobody will learn anything from this incident.
I wasted three hours of my Saturday night, and so did Verizon at $100/hour or more loaded cost.
Technorati Tags: Customer, DSL, FIOS, FTTH, CustomerService, Verizon
Comments:
Boy David, you have more patience then I. I wonder if there are statistics on number of hours on customer care call per sub per year. I wonder how many people like me simply suffer crappy service cause they cannot afford hours on the phone with idiot care while some desk jockey tells you to go through a series of "procedures" that have nothing to do with what is wrong with your Internet connection. My DSL connection was terrible. My strategy was to wait until someone else on the network complained and things got bettered; this usually worked. Then it died. Now I wonder if I should get Fiber or will I face the same faustian choice - waste hours downloading over a lousy connection or waste hours on the phone with idiot care.
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