Don't Send Out The Search Party

[TheTerrorist_75]

The inept Windstream broadband support in India messed up my account and connection. I called in for a problem with my bill, which amounted to a raise, when I was still under a one year contract for a lower rate. After finally getting it straightened out I was informed that 6 Mb was available in my area for $5.00 more a month over my 3 Mb setup. I locked in for a year and was told that the changeover would take place Tuesday. Needless to say they jumped the gun before a tech could check to see if my lines could handle it. This resulted in the loss of my connection. After several calls to India, I finally got it into their heads something was wrong at the CO.

I just got done with the local field tech who switched my line at the CO. He also informed me that Windstream has piles of complaint letters dealing with the inadequate support in India and is moving support back to the U.S. in Boston around November. Now I need to mess with my new modem and set it up like I want.

[hitest]

Good luck with this, TT_75. I have a love-hate relationship with my local ISP (mostly I hate them). Terrible connection speeds, slow-downs, outages.

[TheTerrorist_75]

I never had a real bad problem until Alltel sold out to Windstream. Alltel's support was based here and there was a couple of support people that actually knew how to troubleshoot by not reading a script.

[JDoors]

<shudder>

Reminds me of my tech-support calls that wind up in India ... I'm sure they're trained well, it's not like U.S. trained personell are better trained or smarter, so maybe it's a cultural thing?

[TheTerrorist_75]

I think the India support people are ordered by their superiors to read the script and go no further. At least I was able to get back online and visit DSLReports to get the phone number for the level 2 techs based in Ohio. Next time I have problems I'll call someone that isn't a script reader.

[baker7]

I think the India support people are ordered by their superiors to read the script and go no further. At least I was able to get back online and visit DSLReports to get the phone number for the level 2 techs based in Ohio. Next time I have problems I'll call someone that isn't a script reader.

I would rather have US support techs then anywhere else in the world, because I cannot understand them when they talk fast, or have a VERY heavy dialect or accents. This is nothing against anyone, but I like my support in the US, rather then to call someone who is unable to help me at the call center.

Good Luck, TT, and I hope all goes smooth for you

Brian

[irregularjoe]

I think the India support people are ordered by their superiors to read the script and go no further. At least I was able to get back online and visit DSLReports to get the phone number for the level 2 techs based in Ohio. Next time I have problems I'll call someone that isn't a script reader.

I would rather have US support techs then anywhere else in the world, because I cannot understand them when they talk fast, or have a VERY heavy dialect or accents. This is nothing against anyone, but I like my support in the US, rather then to call someone who is unable to help me at the call center.

Good Luck, TT, and I hope all goes smooth for you

Brian

I hate telephone tech support. It's an oxymoron. And usually a moron on the other end of the phone too.

As far as heavy accents go, did you ever deal with tech support from Arkansas?

[JDoors]

To play Devil's Advocate: How many people call tech support for things that CAN easily be remedied by a script? 90%? 80%? I'm sure it's OVER 50%, so the script thing probably helps enough people to make it worth the trouble.

Then, there's us. People who have SOME idea of how to fix such minor problems and have already gone through "the script" on our own.

In my experience, once you've convinced the script reader that you need more technical help than the script can supply, you get bumped to the next level and ... THAT level has almost always been professional, helpful, and actually capable of fixing a complicated problem.

Of course that leaves people like us wondering why we couldn't get the second tier support person right off the bat, but it's that 80-90% of non-techies that get in our way.

[baker7]

To play Devil's Advocate: How many people call tech support for things that CAN easily be remedied by a script? 90%? 80%? I'm sure it's OVER 50%, so the script thing probably helps enough people to make it worth the trouble.

Then, there's us. People who have SOME idea of how to fix such minor problems and have already gone through "the script" on our own.

In my experience, once you've convinced the script reader that you need more technical help than the script can supply, you get bumped to the next level and ... THAT level has almost always been professional, helpful, and actually capable of fixing a complicated problem.

Of course that leaves people like us wondering why we couldn't get the second tier support person right off the bat, but it's that 80-90% of non-techies that get in our way.

When I had an issue with my Mom's Broadband Connection with VZ, I had to go through the motions and got to a level 2 tech after my first callback. They TOLD me to tell the Level 1 person to trasfer me to Level 2 techs, and further, told me that to speed my calls through I should ask for Level 3 techs right off, because what I was telling the Level 1 person was beyond them - I would rather deal with Level 3's because I can actually explain what **I** think the problem is, because I have a better understanding of what is going on in front of me. Once, I told them that they were having problems with their mailserver, and they swore up and down that there was no problem, and when I was on the phone, some alert SAID that there was a problem ehehheh I knew that before they did!!

I always "humor" the level 1's and then ask for the transfer up the line, because I know that they have a job to do, but it does get annoying to have to do basic stuff when YOU KNOW that its on their end

Brian

[TheTerrorist_75]

DSL is down again. This sucks using a PC that needs cleaning, on Dialup. A whopping 44 Kbps.

[JDoors]

I was one of the last hold-outs for high speed connections (I waited until the price of a DSL connection came down to the same price as dial-up). So, I did learn how to run a lean machine (not as important with newer OS's since memory management is so much better), and a lean browser (the less stuff onscreen, the better, for example, turn off display of things like avatars, signatures and smilies in forums). My dial-up provider supplied one of those "accelerator" apps and despite the whining from the nay-sayers, it helped a lot. You can get an aftermarket accelerator and run it when you're forced to use dial-up.

Your browser caches many items from pages so you can get them off the hard drive rather than downloading them every time you re-visit a page. The accelerator caches far, FAR more on your hard drive, lessening the bits you have to download (user adjustable amount -- too much and hard drive management takes as long as downloading). The one I used cached entire pages on local servers, so many times if I requested a common page, Google for example, it came up quickly (I didn't have to wait for it to be found, then transferred to the server, THEN downloaded, it was ALREADY on the server).

It also had a user-adjustable graphics setting. You could, for example, decrease the resolution of displayed graphics (or turn them off entirely) then a simple right-click menu item would d/l the full resolution graphic if you wanted to see it in high-res.

There were other features but it's been a while so I don't remember them all. Accelerators won't "cache" files, so if you d/l files you're still stuck in the 80's. I modified my surfing to avoid many speed-sensitive situations and was pretty satisfied with the program (hence I stuck with dial-up longer than most people).

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Edited September 6, 2008 by JDoors

[TheTerrorist_75]

DSL is up again. Foolish Windstream bumped me to 6Mb without testing to see if my lines could handle it. The field tech just left and set me back up with my 3Mb connection. He is going to investigate what needs to be done to bring me a stable 6Mb connection. Meanwhile my rate goes back down and I ended up with a new 2 Wire modem/router. Now I need to test my speeds to see where they actually are.

Just a touch better than with my old Speedstream 5200 modem.

[Dan72]

I know about that reading off a script tech support from india ,at&t does the same crap

come to find out at&t cut my dsl line