Telly Boot Premium Member join:2002-05-15 Vancouver, BC
1 recommendation |
Upgrading nightmare before Christmas.I was getting random disconnects (as I posted a few months ago), and I suspected that my old D-link 604+ was dying of old age. So, discovering that my 3 yr contract was up in a few days, I phoned in to renew and get the 6 Mbps Extreme for the same price, get a Siemens SE567, and hoped that this would solve the problem. Well it did, ...but I had three days of hell to get it sorted out.
I hooked up the Siemens on Friday, the set-up date, and the handy Telus software promptly caused my computer to black screen, as if a hardware problem existed. I got it running again, and the software prompted me to register both the MAC addresses that showed up, then told me that I couldn't connect because I had too many MAC addresses. I had my first experience with the overseas tech support, after the usual discussion with the Telus computerized voice, and this guy was quite helpful: I got my MAC address registered, however the DSL promptly died. He told me he had missed a few steps ( sorry) so i wans't clear if the problem awas with the modem, the software or the house ewiring...or the Telus equipment. So I checked my CAt5 wiring, cables, connections, POTS splitter, everything, rebooted, etc. ...Didn't work. My next attempt to use the tech support was less successful, first I had to again listen to the lousy Telus Christmas carol music tape, that sounded like it was re-recorded on a kids fisher price cassette player, and then the person that I talked to in the Phillipines, ...had no idea , literally, about how to solve the problem. For example they had no idea what a POTS splitter was, and insisted that I use the filters: Q. "How many phone jacks do you have?". A. "About 15..., but we have an alarm system , so Telus installed a POTS splitter" " er, I'm going to put you on hold for a minute, OK". Q. " Have you rebooted the router: "Yes, about 20 times..." etc... I asked for a Tier 2 tech and was told they did not exist. I asked to talk to a Canadian tech in order to check the network and the port, and was told this wasn't possible. Eventually I was put on hold and abandoned.
I then did a fuller examination of the phone system in my house, including taking all the connections apart. Still nothing. I spent a happy half hour out in the snow checking the outside wiring, and cooling off.
Eventually I tried the tech support again, and the message was that the wait was now 60 minutes, but I could opt to be called back. I tried: I waited: ...it never happened. I talked to Telus Billing, to make sure that the account had actually been set up as agreed when I renewed: they confirmed this, but when I asked for a phone number for Telus's Canadian tech support they couldn't help me..! I tried to cancel, but gave up after getting the run-around ( see below..). I tried again to get a Canadian Tech support employee, this time using 611 and line repair: somehow this worked, and I was thrilled to talk to someone ..in Vancouver! This tech actually knew what he was doing and traced the connection. He agreed that my adsl had quit at the exact time that my old 3Mbps had been pulled, but he checked the network and was assured that I now was on the same card as 5 TTV customers, so there was no problem at that end. I observed that I was getting nothing , like, ...nothing, even after resetting the Siemens. However he was methodical and eventually started a trouble ticket.
I was due to have a truck show up at 10 am Tuesday, and oddly the adsl started sputtering to life at about midnight on Monday after being dead for two days, but it would synch at 1mbps, drop for a bit and synch again after a few minutes: not useful except to get some e-mail, a few at a time. I had dropped off the kids at school and got home on Tuesday morning to see the dsl shut off and then come on again at 10 am, and it was working...as advertised (Day 4). Shortly after that, the tech phoned to say that he was working on it and would be over to look at the router and the wiring. He arrived shortly, and I must admit to being absurdly happy to see a Telus truck: he told me that the port had been giving "odd readings" so he had switched it. That was what I had seen. He checked the house wiring: no problems. He noted that I was 5,000 ft from the CO, and he had also checked the green box at the end of the block, (not sure what he did in there) but it clearly was the Telus equipment that had caused the problem, despite the "five happy TTV customers".
Now, if it wasn't for the fact that I hate Shaw and their sales tactics, I would have cancelled my Telus contract, in fact I did try and Cancel everything at one point to try and get some local tech assistance, (in total we are paying about $210 each and every month to Telus for cell phones, land line, voicemail, LD, ADSL, etc.) but it just got me back into the phone maze again and the hellish Christmas carols forced me to give up...so I had to grit my teeth and try "tech support" again. I found the two local Telus Employees to be very helpful and professional: they knew what they were doing. I'm happy to be getting 5Mbps down and 500 up, and it seems to be consistent now...and it's $1 less than my old contract, however Telus outsourcing jobs and using the overseas tech support is a big mistake that will come back to haunt them: they are nice people, teenagers I would guess, but basically they are call centre employees, hopeless at anything but reading their manual, and even then they get stumped. When they do, they put the customer on hold and hope that they go away....and that's exactly what I think many Telus customers will do. As it turned out, I did spend quite a bit of my weekend trying to resolve the issue, which turned out to be a flaky Telus port. However I didn't have any critical e-mail to send, and my wife didn't have any panicked students e-mailing her about help with end of term assignments. I also didn't have to take a day off work to wait for the truck, which some people might have had to do. So no harm done, just a few more grey hairs. Thanks for listening to my rant, hope it's of some use to others... |