Drew502
join:2005-05-19
Louisville, KY
| [Connectivity] New Support Parameters For Charter as of this month (1/23/06) support parameters have changed.
For Operating Systems
Windows 98/98se/ME are now considered dead operating systems and will have limited support in the realm of checking tcp/ip settings, disabling firewalls, and releasing and renewing of ip address.
Anything other than this will no longer be assisted. USB drivers will not be reinstalled and no device manager checking or driver work will be done.
Nothing will be done to disable or prevent these customers for connectivity but Charter will not support operating systems deemed obsolete by Microsoft. Also, along these lines Microsoft will be dropping support for these OS as well.
For Email
Charter will provide the following information.
Server settings
Disabling of firewall/av
Customer educational materials and documents
Voice interactive setup walkthrough
Point of contact for email client manufacturer
Charter will no longer.
Troubleshoot client connectivity
Recreate accounts in client
Repair/reinstall mail client
Troubleshoot attachment issues
Setup accounts or identities | |
|
 
deja1970
join:2002-08-28
North Richland Hills, TX | Re: [Connectivity] New Support Parameters Per who? We havent gotten this information in our call center. | |
|
 | 
psafux
Got Grep?
VIP
join:2005-11-10 | Re: [Connectivity] New Support Parameters MNCC has not received this notification either. I will wait for official word. | |
|
| |
psafux
Got Grep?
VIP
join:2005-11-10 | Re: [Connectivity] New Support Parameters i just checked support.charter.com - it says the same! sweet! | |
|
|
deja1970
join:2002-08-28
North Richland Hills, TX | Ok in checking KMS the parts about 98 and ME were verified but the parts about email are incorrect.
We do still provide limited support (rebuilding accts and such) for Outlook Express. | |
|
macflow
join:2005-11-18
Louisville, KY | dang too bad I got out before I got to utilize this, theres some customers you can't help with email or usb drivers if your life depended on it
good times | |
|
DA
join:2002-04-13
Greenville, SC
 ·Charter Pipeline
 ·ViaTalk
| This will probably anger a lot of people, but I can understand why Charter did this since Microsoft EOL all the above listed products.
I would have handled it a little better, maybe sent out an email explaining the situation to their customers so that when some grandma calls in she is prepared for limited support. | |
|
Drew502
join:2005-05-19
Louisville, KY | Per the new training documents being pushed. Info is at support.charter.com. | |
|
Jamamp1
join:2006-01-25
Louisville, KY | To add to the above parameters, for email problems, Charter would recommend you stick with mail.charter.net. If you're having an Outlook issue, try logging into mail.charter.net as it's the only real email "client" we support now. | |
|
Vodka2
join:2005-12-20
Sacramento, CA
| Oh, you HAD to know I'd be responding on this one.
Charter did one thing I can agree with. If Microsoft won't support ME, why should your ISP? At this point, ME is over 5 years old. Come on! Dump it and go to XP already. (or Linux)
The reduced email support concerns me, especially when it comes to connectivity. Anyone that worked there knows how reliable that mail cluster really is... *sigh*
Customer: "I CANT GET TO MY EMAIL!"
Support: "Too bad."
Customer: "WAIT NOBODY ELSE CAN EITHER!"
Support: "Oh well."
Management: "Heh heh ... one more call lasting a minute or less. Damn I love metrics! ... in my pants." | |
|
Drew502
join:2005-05-19
Louisville, KY
| It's just client support reduced not email support. They recently dumped a bucketload of cash to bring their webmail interface up to date for customers to use so that they could go the route of many other isps and not offer third party app support.
You can still get email support for the webmail interface that includes all the support that third party used to get and more. The difference is we'll get a lot less calls where just updated itself and for god knows what reason added to it's blocked app list. | |
|
|
Vodka2
join:2005-12-20
Sacramento, CA
| Re: [Connectivity] New Support Parameters Drew, that's pretty fair.
I've seen the webmail interface, trying to help my newbie mom through it, and it's not as good as it could be. In fact, I had to write down a translation on quite a few functions... between what makes good common sense, and what she was looking at.
But it was worth the effort, and if management would get off their ass and make it right, it'd be a hell of an addition. | |
|
Fangz
join:2000-10-11
Magna, UT
| Can’t count how many times I had users with Win95, NT or Linux and had to advise them of support boundaries.
Why bother to try to inform the end users with a mass mailing of support boundaries? All that will do is fuel the call volume make the user more irate with S2S.
While I was on phones, about 50% of my calls were Win98(se) and WinME. I tried to inform the users about end of life support from Microsoft and that Charter will follow.
You can bet that once the end user is informed of support boundaries they will either try to push the envelope, escalate the issue or may cancel. | |
|
Drew502
join:2005-05-19
Louisville, KY | Deja I have training documents here that were copied verbatim. The info is not incorrect. | |
|
DA
join:2002-04-13
Greenville, SC | I did not see the info on supporting email clients... Is it a standard practice in the industry to not support non-webmail clients? | |
|
| macflow
join:2005-11-18
Louisville, KY
| Re: [Connectivity] New Support Parameters they dont really need to walk people through it when they can send the "pushdocs" on it to the customer to review and follow the simple instructions. I could see this coming (I hoped anyways) with all the firewalls out there (mainly norton) that keep blocking the smtp server on individual pcs, those calls are a bear when you get someone who has no idea if they even have a firewall to turn it off. Outlook being microsoft's product and the firewall being someone else's, there's no sense in charter supporting anything outside of being able to tell you what servers to use. Kinda like webmail...we can give you a login and pw, but you're on your own when it comes to uploading, ftp, whatever it's not the ISP's forte'. Besides, with 4 million calls in queue everyday, what else can they do? They've gotta eliminate some of the crap tying up the phone lines for so long. This was a smart move for Charter, for once | |
|
emmten
Clowning all the rookies
join:2003-03-13
Riverside, CA | haha, you guys are just glad you will have less calls and customers to handle and more time for your games ;> | |
|
| macflow
join:2005-11-18
Louisville, KY | Re: [Connectivity] New Support Parameters they wish, charter websensed gamesites a year ago lol | |
|
| |
psafux
Got Grep?
VIP
join:2005-11-10 | Re: [Connectivity] New Support Parameters it can cause longer calls as the customer argues about it. btw mac, im wide open here.. we need external resources to do our jobs in a reasonable manner. the entire call center is wide-open except for quality dept and new-hires are websensed. | |
|
| | | macflow
join:2005-11-18
Louisville, KY
| Re: [Connectivity] New Support Parameters well right when I came in training they took games away from our center cuz too many peeps were playing em while on calls, other than that the only other thing that I can remember that was blocked (beside the obvious porn, etc) was webmail sites, oddly enough | |
|
zxarkov
join:2006-01-29
Oshkosh, WI | Clarification: Charter still offers support for win 9x for the momment in the great lakes area...currently customers are advised of the future change and recommended to update their os. | |
|
| Jamamp1
join:2006-01-25
Louisville, KY | Re: [Connectivity] New Support Parameters There are still some games sites that work...:) | |
|
zxarkov
join:2006-01-29
Oshkosh, WI | playing games at work is just asking for trouble ie I dont | |
|
|
psafux
Got Grep?
VIP
join:2005-11-10
| Re: [Connectivity] New Support Parameters back on topic :P
The official word at the MNCC (FTW)
We will continue to support 98SE etc for a couple more weeks. At that time, we will attempt to resolve the issue once. If it fails (USB install anyone?), we will tell the customer they contact 3rd party assistance..
We will continue to support OE for the time being we will be setting new customers up with webmail access unless specifically requested to setup OE:
We will setup one account.
Any problems, we will check servers and verify webmail works. | |
|
Fangz
join:2000-10-11
Magna, UT
| So it all boils down to this.
Microsoft:
Win95 – Best effort or unsupported
Win98 – Best effort or unsupported
Win98SE – Best effort or unsupported
WinNT – Best effort or unsupported
Win2k – Supported but just a matter of time for end of life cycle
WinXP – Fully Supported
Codename Vista – Still in Beta
Mac:
8.6 to current – Supported
Linux (or other distros):
Not supported
Outlook Express:
Limited Support
Outlook:
Not supported
Online Games:
Not supported
Did I miss anything? | |
|
|
psafux
Got Grep?
VIP
join:2005-11-10 | Re: [Connectivity] New Support Parameters we will continue to support Mac Mail & Entourage. That is about it to the best of my knowledge. | |
|
Drew502
join:2005-05-19
Louisville, KY | Actually Fangz,
95 and NT are not supported at all the rest of it is basically correct. | |
|
Fangz
join:2000-10-11
Magna, UT | Thanxs for the correction...
Tells ya how long it's been since I've left. | |
|
| 
stivvy
Technonerd
join:2002-05-08 | Re: [Connectivity] New Support Parameters One other thing, Macs are supported OS 9+. We don't support 8.6-8.99 anymore. Support for 9-9.99 end of life is probably close as well. | |
|
| |
psafux
Got Grep?
VIP
join:2005-11-10 | Re: [Connectivity] New Support Parameters thats what I thought as well. I think we should drop everything below 10 since we can't do a whole lot for troubleshooting with them. | |
|
| | | meestermole
join:2005-11-29
Winsted, CT
| Re: [Connectivity] New Support Parameters From an installers point of view, systems with 98 or ME usually run like crap and can open up a can of worms during service calls, even on systems with good antivirus.
One should keep in mind that systems with an older OS probably has older HARDWARE. Older namebrand systems only have a lifespan of around 5 years. Hard drives fail, network cards get flakey, etc. That's why I'll try to get a customer to do a self install on those systems. When you only get an hour for travel time, time to run an outlet, and PC setup, troubleshooting a flakey PC can ruin your day. Especially with a customer freaking out behind you.
As somone who works on enough computers for people, i've seen e-mail problems caused by many things, bad clusters on hard drives can cause corrupted .dbx files in Outlook Express. Not to mention that if someone gets a LOT of junkmail, a .dbx file over 2GB will corrupt OE.
I try to use my best judgement before getting involved with installs on older systems. | |
|
| | | | 
curious_me
@nc.charter | Re: [Connectivity] New Support Parameters Why would Outlook not be supported? | |
|
Fangz
join:2000-10-11
Magna, UT
| You can use Microsoft Outlook with Charter’s network.
It’s just that the technicians and phone support will not walk the end users through the setup prompts or for general support issues.
Outlook Express is free software that comes with (most) every version of Windows, while Microsoft Outlook is part of paid software in the Microsoft Office Suite. | |
|
psafux
Got Grep?
VIP
join:2005-11-10
| As of 2/12/06, the MNCC (supporting Mn Ne, Mo, Ar, Il, In) will be switching to the new support structure.
Windows 98SE and ME will be dropped from our support scope, however reps will be advised to give one attempt when reinstalling USB / ethernet drivers.
The rest of the unsupported products we will provide default settings for, but will not walk customers through anything. | |
|
Fangz
join:2000-10-11
Magna, UT
| One thing I forgot to add after reading »charter drivers
NIC/Ethernet driver installation. From my time at the VCC if a customer called in wanting assistance with NIC/Ethernet drivers, we’d ask first if this is a card “we” installed, user installed or OEM install.
If “we” installed it, we’d walk through the driver install, if they had the CD. If they did not, we’d refer to the LO (Local Office) to get the EZ Install CD. But now with the OS limitation, that now blows this support option away.
If the NIC/Ethernet was installed by owner, 3rd party or OEM we would refer to that manufacturer for support.
WindowsXP has generic NIC/Ethernet drivers built in by default.
This may be old information but can be still useful if it’s correct. | |
|
|
|
|
