cc: attcustomercare@att.com
Dear AT&T,
I've had five days of no service from you, and I'm fed up to the point where I need to bring Ernestine the telephone operator into the conversation (see the attached video). It seems as though this comedic character that was created in the late 1960's were still applicable today. Allow me to explain, if I may.
My family and I were on a "legacy" iNID pair-bond install. (Note the past tense.) We have U-Verse TV and Internet; we had Voice a few years back, but we cancelled it.
A couple weeks ago, we started having an issue with U-Verse On Demand. On Demand programs would constantly stall for a few seconds, then play for maybe half a second, then stall again. Our (small) children occasionally watch some of the free stuff from there, so they were a bit unhappy about the situation; however, since we're constantly recording other children's shows on our DVR, it wasn't the end of the world. Still, after waiting a while and hoping it would somehow clear itself up, we decided to call support and have someone take a look.
This past Tuesday, a prem tech visited our humble abode. He was a nice guy and all. However, it was his "professional" opinion that the iNID and gateway should be replaced with a pair-bonded modem. He did this, and he also set up a network switch where I needed hardwired Ethernet (in a different room from the modem). He also believed we should replace the DVR and run Ethernet to it, as well as replace the hardwired STB's with wireless ones, to remove HPNA from the equation. However, we ended up keeping the existing DVR, STB's and coax - one reason being that recordings couldn't be transferred out of the existing DVR (How is that not a solved problem?).
We have third-party VoIP with E-911, so the fact that a battery wasn't supplied with a modem was a disappointment (the iNID had one) - but generally speaking, we could live with the benefits that most of the changes would allegedly bring. However, the Internet connection speed, which had been perfectly fine until these changes, was now much degraded. The degradation had both the tech and myself scratching our heads, because the line stats as reported by the modem looked like it should support the up-to-18Mbps service (which we've had for many months now) with minimal latency. The prem tech then supposedly called a network tech. The prem tech said he was told that the recent storms (OK, those happened) were causing similar problems for other customers, and he also said that with the switch from iNID to modem, an outside tech would need to move us from one type of line card to another at the VRAD (or whatever it's called these days). He then left, and I don't believe he ever checked whether at least the TV service was working properly again.
Yep, you guessed it. Not only was the Internet connection now barely useable, but the TV service was actually worse than it was before the visit! Live TV was now experiencing the same problems as On Demand was. On top of that, we could barely check email, let alone work from home; I need at least a 12Mbps connection in order to win bread, so now I need to work elsewhere until everything's fixed.
At this point, I didn't want to speak with front-line tech support anymore, so I emailed attcustomercare@att.com. A short time later, I received a response indicating that it was being escalated. It gave me a glimmer of hope. The joke's on me, I guess.
An outside tech came by on Thursday, allegedly to do the line card switch. He also apparently had a look at the outside wiring between our house and the VRAD. He told my wife that he had done everything he could do, but apparently some network people "downtown" would need to make some changes. Of course, things were still not working.
Another prem tech came by on Friday afternoon, but given the situation, I wasn't optimistic that they'd be able to do anything. Sadly, I was proved correct; the guy came, did I-don't-know-what (my wife was home, and I was working somewhere else of course), went to his truck to "write a report," then left and never came back. Oh, and the TV and Internet services were both utterly dead now; we can't even watch recordings on the DVR. You heard me. The modem can't sync with the VRAD currently, so nothing works. His departure also occurred shortly after my wife had mentioned to him that I was on my way home from work - and even better, he never provided his name or any contact info to my wife. Nothing but class from this guy!
Yesterday (Saturday), I spoke with someone who said that an outside tech would be out here "today" to do... whatever. Shockingly, no one actually did anything; during this morning's call to see WTF is going on, I was told that there was still a pending ticket for the work.
I've been holding my temper, but I just can't be kind about this anymore. Time is money, and since I work from home, I'm done with the nice-guy stuff. I pay you people $150/mo. - ONE THOUSAND, EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLARS PER YEAR - along with who knows how many million other customers, and you can't afford people who care? The service has been rock solid for literal years, so I'm absolutely gobsmacked at the sheer muppetry on display. The first prem tech couldn't leave things well enough alone with his apparent crusade to remove the iNID and HPNA, and subsequent visits only made things worse.
I never thought I would say this, but I'm really contemplating switching to Comcast right now. Who knows, they might even be able to get service installed today - Sunday, of all days - so I could actually work from home again and not have to do stuff like drive to a 24-hour restaurant with Wifi early yesterday morning to deal with a work emergency. Needless to say, at this point, Ernestine will need to make some concessions to get me to stay with her.
Sincerely,
<redacted>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHgUN_95UAw
--
Hell is truth seen too late. - Thomas Hobbes
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