AT&T Follies

I bought my little house-on-a-slab in 1992.    In those days, the Internet was basically unheard of.  AT&T was my phone service provider, and Comcast was my cable TV provider.  All was well.  I had no complaints.

Then along came the Internet and the advent of a computer in the home.  (My daughter was maybe a sophomore in high school, so that puts it around 1995, not long after my father's death.)  We purchased our first computer and accessories with my share of my father's life insurance payout, prompting Megan to say, "In a sense, Grandpa is still taking care of us."  Yes, he was.

Home computering was fairly primitive back then.  We were constantly needing to upgrade memory, RAM, modem speed, etc., none of which I really understood, by the way.  Internet Service Providers were private companies, not a part of the large communications companies.  I found one in Indianapolis for $15/month.  And since the connectivity back then was via dial-up modem, being online meant tying up the phone line.  Any incoming phone call would instantly knock us offline.  Very frustrating.

Know what else would knock us offline?  Static on the phone line.  I had noticed static during normal phone calls that seemed to correspond with the computer's inability to maintain a connection.  I called AT&T for a repair dude to come out. 

They sent out a young fellow the next day who walked around, inside and out, carrying a laptop computer, trying to diagnose the problem.  When he was done, he seemed befuddled.  He told me, in so many words, that he wasn't totally sure where the problem was and advised that I should just live with it to see if it went away.  Then he left.  Are you kidding me??

Obviously, the problem didn't go away.  The modem still couldn't maintain connectivity, and I was growing more and more frustrated.  I called AT&T again the very next day.  I got an actual human.  Our conversation went like this:

ME:  Could you please send out another technician who actually knows what he is doing?  I'm still having a lot of trouble with static on the line.

ATT:  The technician said he couldn't hear any static.

ME:  Ma'am, I am calling you on the line in question.  Can YOU hear the static?

ATT:  Yes, I can.  I'll send someone out as soon as possible.

Different technician came out the next day and fixed the problem.  But golly-oshkins, why do I have to tell them how to do their jobs???

The next time there was phone trouble was along about 1999 or so.  I had no phone service.  At all.  Upon investigation, I discovered that the actual phone wire from my house was on the ground in my neighbor's yard.  I drove down to the local grocery store to a pay phone--yes, there were pay phones in those days!--to report my outage.  I was given a vague answer about when a repair dude would come.  Sometime next week, to be announced.  I sensed a lack of urgency on their part, so I asked a male radio friend of mine to go with me to the pay phone and call them, thinking that maybe hearing a man's voice instead of a female's might make a difference.  It didn't, really--I guess to their credit?

Meanwhile, I'd been without a phone for a couple of days.  (This was long before the cell phone era.)  Not only did I not have online connectivity, I didn't have emergency communication potential.  So...I tried once more.  Here is how that conversation went:

ME:  I have already reported that I have no phone service.  I need you to put my repair on the front burner.  The line is down.

ATT:  How do you know that the line is down?

ME:  I'm looking at it out my kitchen window.  The line is physically on the ground in my neighbor's yard.

ATT:  You didn't mention that before.

ME:  I didn't know that I had to.  Saying that I have no phone service should have been enough. 

Needless to say, the problem was then fixed promptly...but once again, I felt that I was having to tell them how to do their jobs.

I finally invested in a second phone line dedicated for computer use so we could use the phone AND still be online.  (I had long since given up the Indiana ISP and contracted Internet service with Comcast.)  It worked for a long time, until the big communications companies came up with the notion of taking modems off phone lines.  I mean, they are still tied in to phone lines but not to the exclusion of actually using a phone for communications.  Imagine being connected to the Internet all the time!  Wow!  (Cell phone technology was budding by this time.)  I bit on the technology with Comcast and gave up the second phone line.  No more dial-up.  Yay!

One day, there was a knock on the door.  A young lady was there from AT&T offering something called U-VERSE.  This is a "bundling" program that offers Internet connectivity, phone, and cable TV all in one package.  What she offered at the time was less than what I was paying for phone with AT&,  plus TV and Internet with Comcast, so I went for it.  What I didn't realize at the time, and have somewhat regretted, is that when the TV or internet go out, so does the phone.  Typical of me, I didn't do anything about it, even though I am a heart patient, blah, blah...

Over the years, my AT&T monthly payment is the highest one I pay.  It costs me over $250 a month to watch TV, talk on the phone, and have my internet connectivity.  I know I should complain more than I do, but I'm not savvy enough about the alternatives to threaten to cancel.  I consider myself a bit of a Baby Boomer victim, a technology refugee...and I hate it.

Fast forward to now.  I came home from a month in Washington on July 24th.  All was well.  On August 1st, and again on August 2nd, I began to experience "signal lost" on the TV, which also meant loss of internet connectivity and phone service for the seconds to minutes that it stayed out.  This was happening dozens of times per day, so I called AT&T for a repair on Friday.  They did some online testing and determined that I needed a technician.  (This is all via automated phone, by the way.  No human.)  They scheduled a repair dude to come Saturday, between noon and 4:00.  He showed up sometime after 1:30, did some checking, and determined that the problem was in their wiring "at the pole".  He would send for a pole technician who should arrive, he thought, in an hour.  The pole technician arrived at 4:10.  He mucked around some outside but was mostly not visible to me.  He took me "out of service" for awhile, but put me back "in service" before he left for the day.  Before he departed, I picked up the phone to make sure I had a dial tone.  I did.  And the TV was on.  All was well, right?  Wrong!  Just after he left, along about 5:45 PM,  I still didn't have internet service.   

I had to call AT&T again for more service.  This time, I got connected with a person named "Conrad" with an Indian accent.  He had me do some test things, one of which knocked me off the phone with him.  We reconnected awhile later.  Still no internet...so...they would be sending out a technician (again)--ugh--on Monday.  That means another whole day without connectivity.  What bothers me the most about this whole thing is that the last dude left without a word that I still wouldn't have internet, yet supposedly reported in his notes to the company that there were still issues.  In short, I believed that he knew I didn't have Internet and simply wanted to go home for the day rather than deal with customer wrath.  I considered it dishonest, and I was NOT happy.  

Early Sunday morning, I received a phone call from a human from AT&T asking questions.  When I told him what I knew, he kept making sounds as if my situation was strange, weird, unusual, etc.  Not very hopeful for me!!  It was confirmed that I would have a technician here between 8:00 AM and noon on Monday.  Bring it on, boys!  This time, you won't get away until I have ALL of my contracted services and am comped for the time lost!  That'll show 'em!

Well, dear boys and girls, this time, AT&T should have been telling me how to do my job!  

Late Sunday afternoon, after being all day without Internet connection via computer and spending the day feeling totally out of touch with the world, I checked my WiFi connection.  Still not online.  I clicked on a couple of things in the process of exploring, and suddenly, the WiFi connected.  Things were still running weirdly, so I rebooted the computer and discovered, to my chagrin, that I DID have a connection.  My computer had simply failed to automatically reconnect to the router after the service technician had taken me out of service, and  I just never thought to do it manually.  (And, of course, rebooting usually fixes everything--something I have known for years.)  I called AT&T to cancel the repair appointment for Monday (today).

I am grateful that the whole problem is resolved and delighted that I found the issue myself before I tied up a technician's time just to tell me that I needed to connect to my own WiFi.  I am also a bit embarrassed at my own stupidity.  Shhh...  I won't tell anyone if you don't.  Have mercy on me!