DSL Extreme → Live Chat: Anyone there?

Maybe I'm doing something wrong but I don't get any response back on live chat. I am perusing plans available to existing customers. (Which by the way are blank as far as price.) The live chat window pops up. All it says is enter my message below which I do and then I hit the send button. The message is sent. From that point on nothing happens. I've waited for perhaps up to five minutes while a blank chat window stares at me. No hello, or I'll be right with you, or wait time is...just no response.

What am I doing wrong?

Addendum: In order to talk to someone on the phone about what plan options including pricing and contract options matches are available what department do I call?

Hope it's not billing

LOL. Based upon the "response" I guess one shouldn't expect a lot from "Live Chat."

According to several posts in the forum DSL Extreme or its parent company, IKANO, fired all US tech support and (without warning), and have outsourced all Tech Support to outside of the United States. It is also alleged that other staff besides tech support were let go.

I guess that explains why "Live Chat" is not working.

Another claim is that DSL Extreme's terrific GM, George has either been let go or given notice. Of the many great assets of DSL Extreme, George was their single greatest asset. He literally is/was too good to be true in checking the boards, reading posts of DSL customers with problems and personally proactively taking actions to correct or remedy their problem or complaint.

If the above information proves to be true I suspect I will be leaving DSL Extreme at the end of my contract in June.

George is a VP of Ikano. I seriously doubt he is being let go and we have some obvious trolling going on by disgruntled employees.

The "trolling" you allege are by "disgruntled employees", (or did you mean ex-employees), say all of the US based tech support except for several tier II techs were let go and tech support is being outsourced. To me outsourced usually means tech support from non-Americans working outside of the United States. It is either true or it isn't. Circumstantial evidence suggests that it's at least true in part if not in whole.

The bold US only based support advertisement previously on their website since the beginning of time has been removed and replaced with "Superior Support." No one answers "Live Chat" support and when I post about in the DSL forum no one responds to my inquiry about not being able to raise anyone via "Live Chat."

Coincidentally all of the above happens at exactly the same time.

How do you know that George is a VP at IKANO and he hasn't been let go? (I can say that he was responding to posts as of Friday, March 18th.)

Do you work for IKANO or any of its subsidiaries or owned companies and or business entities?

How do you know what you claim is accurate?

George is evidently still there. 3 US Tier 2 techs means means like 1.5% of what they had before.

You are correct George is still at DSLExtreme. He is not a VP for Ikano however. Just still the GM of DSLExtreme. They did however let everyone go in Utah and all but 4 people go in Chatsworth. As for your statement regarding employees "trolling" i would imagine they are just trying to get the message out that the one service DSLExtreme could offer... stateside tech support.. Is now gone.

The chat is not working because it was one of the overlooked tasks that was not figured in when they outsourced everything. So at least for now, no one is signing in to take the chats... Which is why it just sits there and you get no response. The CEO didn't fully understand all of the tasks being done by the folks he let go.

Yes I understand about the chat now and the CEO as evidenced by a growing day-by-day body of evidence about the situation at DSL Extreme.

I understand that the CEO didn't fully understand the operations of DSL X and tasks of the DSL Extreme staff fired. That's clear. All the CEO knew was that by firing all of the US based American or Resident Alien Tech Support without notice and adequate operational preparation and then switching tech support overseas he was instantly cutting costs and thereby increasing profit for his parent company IKANO.

But don't you know making a profit is the ONLY obligation a CEO has and he owes nothing to anyone but the board and shareholders, or at least so some claim. Of course it probably never occurred to the CEO or if it did he was too lazy to investigate that he could increase profits in a variety of ways and firing all of the US techs was not his only options. Why should he though as according to some he owes nothing to the customers or his workers--just the corporate board and IKANO shareholders, (IKANO being the parent company of DSL X.)

Now customers in the US, most of whom either have English as their first or only language and others who have English as a strong second language are now going to be talking to techs who:

1. Can only speak conversational not detailed or specific technical help English and will have a hard time understanding the core of complaints and will have difficulty specifically and technically or accurately explaining the DSL X "solution" to the subscriber's problem or complaint.

2. Techs that have little to no idea of how things work with DSL X operations so even if they understand the complaint they won't be able to speedily or as clearly and accurately respond to it like the fired techs.

3. Cannot speak colloquial English or do not have a cultural contextual understanding of English spoken in the United States.

If level 1 tech can't get a problem resolved that is what tier 2 are for that are still in CA and Utah(or was Arizona)? Yes CEO owes nothing to customers and only to true owners which are shareholders and board of directors. Only few people will really have problem so in reality no big deal about moving tech support to another country and saving money. This is 21 century and time to get used to it.