Broadband, or not to broadband… 



If any of my frequent readers (if there are any) may have noticed, I have taken another hiatus from publishing over the last six weeks. Why, you ask? Well, let me tell you…

When we got back from Alaska in the middle of June, I fired up my trusty PowerBook up to get my emails before I went to work — I did mention that I had to drop Lynda off at the house when we got home from the airport and head straight into work? — and found that I couldn't connect. OK, that happens, I just need to go reset my wireless router like I have to do every couple of month when it gets wonky. I open the cabinet on the desk where all the network equipment is and notice the Internet light is out on the cable modem. Great, InsightBB is out; don't have time to deal with them, so I head on in to work.

I come home that afternoon after working, picking Sophie up from the kennel (nothing like a freshly bathed dog who is just thrilled to death to see you again), and find the flippin' light is still out. I had found out at work that InsightBB had upgraded servers the Saturday we left, and everyone had been having trouble with their broadband, so theoretically, the service may have been out for as long as two weeks. I called Insight and wade through phone menu hell for a half hour on my cell phone (Insight also provides our phone service, so it was out too, but thankfully we get TV via satellite instead of them). Finally, a body comes on the line and we go through the troubleshooting steps and determine it is actually out, but unable to determine if it is them or my in-house cabling to her satifaction, or whether it is my equipment or theirs (although I have repeatedly told her I have determined it is external, but you can't argue with someone reading off a script). Of course she wants to schedule a service call with the entire day blocked off as a window that they could show up, which mean that Lynda or I will have to take a whole day off work; told her considering the premium charge we pay them made this solution unacceptable in my eyes and offered a three hour window from 3 to 6 as a compromise, which she found unacceptable. Hung up in frustration after letting her and two levels of supervisors know in no uncertain terms what I thought of their service policies. Two hours on the cell phone and the broadband and the land-line still out of commission and no resolution forthcoming.

While walking Sophie a few minutes later with Lynda, one of our neighbors came out to ask if our Insight service was still out and we told her it was and found out that the whole neighborhood was out and had been out almost daily for two weeks. Of course we immediately organized a mass-calling of Insight's customer service number until they sent someone out. The truck finally shows up about 7 (I'd been trying to get this resolved since noon) and they pull the cover off their equipment box three doors down and fiddle around for 5 minutes with everyone standing on their stoops glaring at them and then they packed up and left. Service restored!!!!

Five minutes later, it is out again and the neighborhood is burning up their cellphones. Truck came back, they fiddled for a few and we were back up and running by 8:30.

At least until the next day; came home and the broadband was out again, but only the broadband this time, as the phone still worked. Neighbor on the west side of the house said broadband and cable TV had gone out about 11 AM and they had called it in. Also at this time we found out that when I called in, their automatic phone number sensing/ matching with account system wasn't picking up our phone as a valid account, so I still had to go through phone menu hell. InsightBB didn't show us as an "outage" so we made our rounds again to make sure that all the affected neighbors called in to complain, so when we got back to the house and I make my call, we now show as an "outage". I am getting tired of jumping through hoops, but have a feeling that this is only the beginning. They got us back up around 6 after I started pushing them about 3 and my nice neighbors to the west had called it in at 11.

OK, so ends Tuesday. On Wednesday — I know you know where this is going — yep, it was out again when I got home. Broadband AND phone this time. I am on the cell phone, madder than heck, ripping new ones as I go up Insight's phone ladder DEMANDING an escalation of the problem to get it resolved. They come out, repair it again at the same box they been working on all week. Their solution to the problem? They leave to cover off the box when they leave. So at this point I have no lasting resolution, just a ticket number to use when I call and a promise to credit our account for any and all days it is out. Paying almost $100 a month to Insight and just get shuffled off to the side and forgotten. Mildly ticked at this point.

Thursday. Yep, it's out again.

Friday. Wonder of wonders, it stayed up.

Saturday. Dagnabit, the damn thing is out again. Do the call thing and go run errands.

Stopped in at the Cingular store because I need a new belt case for my Razr. Found one I am finally happy with. What has this got to do with my kvetching about InsightBB? Well, plenty. They are/were running a deal on bundling phone/cellular/DSL services together on one bill from BellSouth that would wind up saving us some money. The down-side was that instead of 4 mbps we could only get 3 mbps download (had hoped to get the 6 mbps down/512 kbps up package, but isn't available in our neighborhood), but the 384 kbps upload would remain the same. The gal signing us up assured us we probably wouldn't notice as cable rarely attained speeds over 3 mbps and dismissed my statement that I consistently got better than 3.7 mbps as we were on a very small loop. Hoped she was right and we signed up for their service. We were told we would be up and running around July 6th.

On July 3rd I received a letter from BellSouth informing me that service would be connected by August 2nd. Not what I was promised, but after making a phone call, found out there wasn't a damned thing I could do about it. InsightBB meanwhile was down every other day now instead of everyday. All I could do was fume every day when I walked Sophie passed the still open cable box three doors down and glare at the Insight truck whenever they were working on it. Wonder if they know how ticked off we are getting?

Finally on July 20th, we got an automated call from BellSouth that they would be out the next day to hook up the phone line and that my DSL kit would ship later that day. Well, they came out on Friday, July 21st and discovered that the old line we had before we switched to Insight four years ago had been severed when the irrigation people had installed our sprinkler system in June. Well, when he ran the new line, HE severed the CABLE. Had been hoping to keep it going — was down to every third day with it going out — until the DSL kit arrived, but since that was no longer an option, called Inight and told em where to stick it. Lynda just had to make do with dialup through FasterMac.net and I used my Razr as a bluetooth cellular modem.

Tuesday, July 25th (notice that this date bears NO resemblance to July 6th) the DSL kit arrived via UPS about 7 PM. I had things up and running in about 10 minutes. Rather, I thought I did until Lynda tried to send anything out on her email. Took me a couple of days to figure out and fix the problem. BellSouth has port 25 blocked to prevent spammers from sending their vile detritus out into an unsuspecting world. They force you to use their SMTP servers if you are going to use email accounts other than the account they supply. Tried to make it work, but it apparently a solution that only works with a PC (which figures, considering the ongoing security issues they have). Noticed a lot of stuff on their website is not Mac-friendly. Searched through forums and found a few ports to try to get around the problem. Port 587 works for IMAP accounts like mac.com accounts and my POP account at ourserendip.com works on port 26. So, if you wonder why neither us were ANSWERING emails that week, now you know.

So far the only problem with BellSouth has been the speed. Downloading, I hit a solid 2.95 mbps, which is great speed for a 3 meg connection with the overhead from going through a wireless router, but is still noticeably slower than the 3.7 mbps we were used to. Upload speed on-the-otherhand has been a major disappointment. I have not seen anything faster than 220 kbps, down from the 340 to 360 kbps we were used to. Became a problem yesterday while doing a videoconference with Heather. Did a speed check through Speakeasy.net and found that we were down to 177 kbps. Lynda and Heather were eventually able to get their conference in, but picture froze and pixelated more than usual. Guess I will have to contact BellSouth in the next few days and let em know that we aren't getting the speed we were promised, even though their speed check says we are, none other the others out there say we are over 220.

Oh, before I forget, got an email from BellSouth on July 30th informing me that my DSL kit had shipped and to use the included tracking number. Nice touch, except, you may have noticed I said they sent the email on the 30th and I had already received the kit on the 25th. We pay these companies big bucks and collectively it really adds up to a lot of money and this is the sort of customer service we get in return. It's time we said to them that we are tired of their lousy service and tired of the way we are treated.

As I write this, I am listening to the garage door being replaced (long story) and sitting in the Southwest Room (our downstairs sitting room (yes, we have two sitting rooms)) that is decorated in a Southwestern motif) looking out the bay window at an Insight truck parked three doors down. Guess they are still having problems. 

Posted: Mon - August 7, 2006 at 10:52 AM          

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