Review by (hidden by request)
(review was emailed from domain worldnet.att.net)
lodged 11.8 years ago
 Piscataway,Middlesex,NJ
 $49 per month "cheap, fast when connected" "trouble getting set up, inadequate tech/customer support" "wait until BA has the infrastructure to handle the demand"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Here is my tale of woe. If there is one piece of advice that I can give
anyone is to not order over the internet. I have been told that process
is very buggy and will delay your order getting fufilled.
1/24/2000, Monday. Order over the internet since I found that dsl was
finally available in my area.
1/28/2000, Friday. Recieve my white westell dsl modem. I had ordered
the USB one, but got the ethernet one. I am glad that I got the
ethernet on retrospec, but this was the begging of their fowl ups. I
cannot imagine the trauma to get the modems switched.
1/31/2000, Monday. Get an e-mail telling that my service will be ready
soon and the welcome letter will arrive shortly with my connect date.
2/07/2000, Monday. Have not recieved my welcome letter. It has been 10
business days (when the services is supposed to be ready by) so I call
up customer service and they tell me that my connect day was last
Friday, the 2nd. I proceed to install the dsl equipment, microfileters
and what not along with my ethernet card. I turn on the modem and the
ready light does a slow blink, never synchronizing with the CO. Call
tech support get put on hold. Press 1 to leave a message after 1/2 hour
on hold and get a ringing phone which never picks up. Grrrrrrrr.
2/08/2000, Tuesday. Call tech support again. They talk to someone and
put me on hold again. I again press 1 and get the phone that never
picks up after waiting for 1/2 hour.
2/09/2000, Wednesday. Come home from work and have a message from
someone in tech support who tells me they have a ticket open and will
fix the problem ASAP.
(There may have be some going on in between here, I just do not remember
them.)
3/01/2000, Wednesday. After two weeks of waiting I don't get any
response from BA. This is my fault, I should have called sooner, but
what are you gonna do. I call while at work. For the first 30 minutes
of my call I get passed around to 3 different tech support reps. The
last one transfers me again. I do not want to push 1 to leave a message
because that will just take me to the phone that dosn't pick up. I wait
about 1:45. This guy does some checking around tells me that my order
never go to provisioning and the CO was never set up. He gets some sale
rep on the line and we go to get the CO setup ASAP. They tell me it
will be ready by the 8th, that is the fastest that it will be ready.
3/07/2000, Tuesday. Talk with a network guy at work (I am a computer
programmer with a major long distance telecom company, which kinda makes
we wonder if they know this and are screwing me on purpose, but that is
a little paranoid). Give me some thing to try out to prove that it is
not a problem on my end. It is not.
3/08/2000, Wednesday. Get home after work and turn on DSL modem. Ready
light still does the slow blink. No difference. I am very, very,
frustrated at this point (this also combined with problems with other
companys, but that is for a different website). Call BA and get passed
around from 5 different reps. At every stop along the way I ask to talk
to a supervisor. They are just full of hollow apoligies and tell me why
that can't help me. Get transferred to customer service rep. Spend
about 1/2 hour on hold. This guy tell me that no order was provess from
last week and CO is still not set up. ;-( He gives me a call back
number (this gave me a lot of hope, really) and says that he will talk
to his manager in the morning the next day and try to get this resolved
ASAP. He says that he will get back to me by the next day.
3/09/2000, Thurday. Arrive home from work and don't find any messages
on my answering machine. Call his callback number and leave a message.
3/10/2000, Friday. Call his callback number again from work and hear
that his mailbox is full.
3/13/2000, Monday. Call his callback number again from work and hear
that his mailbox is empy. I leave another message, so I must assume he
got my first one.
3/13/2000, Monday. Come back from work and find no message. Send an
e-mail to the BA CEO about this (he does respond back, but it was
meaningless)
3/15/2000, Wednesday. Call from work to cust support (the contact above
who never returned my message, but did not enter a extension). A lady
rep told me that she would handle the problem personally and would get
back to me in 1/2 hour. They never call back, I should have gotten a
contact number. Return from work and have a message from someone at BA.
Write down number at take to work. I do not know if my e-mail to the
CEO prompted this or the discussion I had earlier in the day.
3/16/2000, Thurday. Call from work and the person answers their phone.
We discuss the problem and she tells me that they are gonna get this set
up ASAP, hopefully by Friday.
3/17/2000, Friday. I get home from work and turn on my modem but the
ready light blinkes incessently. I have no time to call BA since I am
going to Mom's for the weekend.
3/20/2000, Monday. Call the contact that I had and get and answer.
They tell may that the CO is set up (I wonder if I never called if
someone would have told me). I go home, turn on my modem and the slow
blink on my modem lasts for 2 cycles, where it then goes into high speed
mode before it reaches that glorious state of solid green. I proceed to
set up my DSL and it works. I am surfing and d/l'ing at a rate of
55kbytes a sec. All is good.
3/23/2000, Thurday. After spending the early evening surfing I am at my
computer (offline) and notice my ready light is blinking. It alternates
from a slow blink (2 cycles approx) to the fast blink (several seconds)
before switching back to the slow blink. Call tech support. They tell
my that they cannot work on my problem because the appeals division has
an open ticket. Call the contact that I had to get this set up
initially and leave a message.
3/24/2000, Friday. Call the contact again at work, but get voicemail.
Am visiting my brother this weekend so I don't call back.
3/26/2000, Sunday. Get back from my brothers, modem still does not
connect to CO.
3/27/2000, Monday. Call the contact (I fell trite calling it that but
don't know another word) and we talk. She tells me that she will hand
this off to someone in the appeals department tech support. Evidently
it is different from regular tech support for my case. She tells me
that he or somone from his team will call me by the next business day.
I go home and turn on my modem. Surprisingly it connects to the CO. I
connect to the net and don't notice any slowdown in the transfer rate.
It downloads at 556bytes/sec. Later that evening, much like the
previous thursday, I am offline at the computer and the ready light
begins its dance again. Arrrggggghhhhhh!!!!
3/28/2000, Tuesday. No message from the appeals department tech
support.
3/29/2000, Wednesday. Get a call from my contact at work (this
surprises me, I suppose that there is at least 1 person at BA that cares
about the customer). She follows up and asks me if anyone contacted me.
I tell her no and also include some more info about what happened to my
connection on Monday night. She tells me that she will get in contact
with the tech support manager again and they will call me at home. They
do not call. I write this review for dsl reports.
Andrew
Comments:
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