AT&T DSL → [Midwest] ATT Tech Support and Tech Screw-up.....

Well, just I did not think things could get any worse trying to get ATT to listen to me and others in my area, yesterday began a Phone/DSL outage that continues this morning.

Yesterday at 9:46am my DSL went down. I have a firewall that monitors and logs all activity including reconnecting to ATT. When it came back up moments later it went right back down. As the day wore on, the sequence continued.

When I got home from work I also discovered my home phone like was dead. I grabbed my spare hard line phone, went out to the nid and disconnected the house from the poll. On connecting the hard phone, I discovered it was an issue outside my house So I called support from my cell.

NOTE: The automated tech support number is.... (I am trying to keep this clean) Bad, and I mean Real Bad... took 5 minutes to get thru the system and then all it wanted me to do was accept a service call for Monday!.... This was Wednesday!

I punched Zero and got placed into the technical support waiting line. A few minutes later I had a tech on the line and Of Course they wanted to go thru checking all my home equipment. I cut them off and told them the Nid test I did and they placed a service call for me... Once done I got a text on my phone telling me Monday.. Really?

Now things get interesting. As I am reconnecting the house to the Nid, my neighbor comes out and asks whats happening. She then informs me that there was an ATT technician on the poll between 9 and 10AM. Hearing this I call support back and Once Again work my way thru the system.

I get another live person, explain whats happening and tell them I want the call escalated... This was Not an act of God, The Weather, or anything else like that BUT their own technician causing my outage. I am without Home Phone and DSL. After hanging up I get another Text saying it will be sometime Friday that a Tech will come out.

Now I get a call on my cell from a neighbor across the street telling me that when they came home the Home Phones were dead. They also placed a call thru Tech Support and were given a Monday repair date.

The more people I talked to, the worse the outage appeared. I once again placed a call to support and again stressed how bad the situation is in my area. They tell me Maybe tomorrow (now today) a tech might come out.

I have Yet to hear from anyone else. I am still without home phone / dsl along with a number of other people.

I have made complaints here and other sites on the Lack of ATT to listen to people in my area on the ageing phone system. I have even been told by repair techs that they Guess the phone system (on the polls) is 50 or older years old.

Is someone, Anyone from ATT ever going to listen to us?
Does anyone have a direct contact I can call, use, something?
This outage should have Never Happened! At what point does anyone get held responsible to Ageing Equipment and the lack of follow-thru and follow-up my technicians to make sure they have not affected OTHERS in the area when they are working on a separate issue no matter what it might be....

If anyone thinks my last review of ATT was bad, wait until the Village of Arlington Heights and my other neighbor (a reporter) get word of this crap....

Was tech support overseas or domestic?

Anyway, you should get their retention number since the call centers for retention are based in the U.S AFAIK and try sending mail (yes, POSTAL MAIL) to your local C.O since they're responsible for POTS/DSLAMs in there (if you happen to know where it is...).

As for me (Southwest), internet/POTS are not down.

well if it helps,

1.) your dispatch (assuming I have the right number from a prior direct post of "x35x") it seems they have a commit of by tomorrow by 6 P.M.

2.)Another tip for POTS plus DSL customers

Tomorrow???? 3 calls to them!!! and I am on for Tomorrow??!!!!?!?!

WTF??? I went up the chain, followed all the procedures for escalation do to an ATT Tech screwing up the entire neighborhood and I have to wait 2 Damn Days???
What were they doing in the area to begin with??!?!?!

As for Easier way on the internet........
Now that is Funny!!!
DSL on my phone line has been up and down..... Starts to work then stops

I am at work and went to the www.att.com/repair
Stepped my way thru all the menu's... Finally got to a logon after asking to see status

After 14+ Years - Non-Stop as a customer... How is it the system gives me this when I use the same logon and password for Everything Else on the ATT Network???

Your AT&T Access ID is not linked to a home phone account. Please login with your home phone/Internet user ID.
(QL510)

REALLY????

I guess this continues to show my review of services to Long Term Customers is 100% and them some RIGHT

»Review of AT&T DSL Service by breese

The commit is by tomorrow 6 P.M. It can happen anytime before that.That one has me kind of confused, is there maybe more than one login? I know for some folks they have a POTS, DSL, yahoo and even a separate wireless login.

Just thinking to myself just now, I actually have 3. Pots, DSL and wireless logins. I have always had decent luck with it but I do understand YMMV.

Just got a call from the technician. Just finished on one neighbors house and was going across the street to mine.

Cannot wait to hear the root cause...
Anyone want to bet he tells me its the 50 Plus year old phone lines?!?!

I just saw the tech got loaded to it a bit ago, they should be in touch shortly if not already.

I came home and found the tech back at 830 (leaving full street address out but sure David knows).
After fixing the issues (left behind from Uverse tech's Conditioning Lines Yesterday), he was called back over to 830 because the line was dead again. Turns out Another Tech from the Same Garage was working on Another Phone outage on the block and after messing with the Main Box (Quote: Rats Nest), he managed to Disconnect 830 within minutes of it being fixed the 1st Time!!

My service is back up.... Long story short from my tech - Uverse guys were on the poll yesterday working on the Covers and wires on the pole and managed to screw up my phone line.... He found the bad wire and repaired it.

So, U-Verse Tech's caused Wide Spread Issues while trying to Condition the area for U-Verse and did not bother to test ANY LIVE CONNECTIONS!!!

We Should Have Had A Tech On-site Yesterday When The Reports Started Coming In. Multiple People Are At Fault and being a Sr Systems Engineer in the Banking world, If I had done this, I would not have a Job Today!!

Please Escalate All this to Upper Management. I am tired of sitting on phones and no one listens or responds

The thing to keep in mind is that a lack of dial tone should be treated very differently from lack of ADSL service. The latter is a best-effort service with no service guarantees; the former, on the other hand, is potentially your only way of calling for help in case of e.g. medical emergency. You have a cellphone, but cellular service is also a best-effort service and there's no guarantee that your phone's battery would be good when an emergency happens.

Things *may* have changed in the past couple of years, but I think basic dial tone is prioritized very different from Internet connectivity specifically because lack of it could be life threatening -- maybe the AT&T techs here can confirm or deny it?

In my opinion you should not get angry at AT&T, and getting AT&T to escalate internally certainly shouldn't be your highest priority right now. You have a much better avenues available to you. Try escalating to your local public utilities commission, or the equivalent thereof. Be clear that basic dial tone was out and that AT&T was dragging its heels about fixing it. Don't emphasize Internet connection problems; emphasize lack of dial tone

That much time is bad. I'm with WOW after a outage is conformed they usually have a truck out in 1-2 hours if not sooner.

POTS failures can get AT&T attention from the Public Service Commission(PSC) that AT&T does not like. DSL failures do not matter to a PSC.

A small business here in central Georgia had their lawyer file a formal legal complaint with the PSC about lack of reasonable quality POTS, even after several visits by AT&T service technicians. The AT&T technicians blamed the company's internal wiring and equipment for the problems. The company owner paid for an independent evaluation of his company's telephone wiring and equipment. The formal report gave his internal systems a clean bill of health. The PSC quickly told AT&T that they needed to take action as other businesses along the same stretch of road had filed complaints about POTS. The next day there were many AT&T technician trucks examining the POTS all the way down the road to the intersection with a major thoroughfare. It turned out the faults were bad AT&T wiring and other hardware many thousands of feet beyond where the previous technicians had analyzed.

While they were out there, the AT&T technicians decided to fix the problems that had caused DSL service to fail also. A formal complaint about DSL service would have gone nowhere, no matter how many businesses complained to the PSC.

Just about 2 weeks ago I sent a certified letter to Senior Executive Vice President, AT&T Technology and Network Operations.
On Monday if I do not get a response to the issues within our area, I will be making a formal complaint to the FCC under 47 C.F.R. Part 68 concerning the rules regarding connection of Terminal Equipment to the PSTN and to carrier-owned facilities used to provide private line services.

It is proving to be very interesting that there has been zero response from anyone within management of ATT that has reached out to me and others about our issues.

So, I came home from being out of town for 2 weeks.
I find 7 voice mail messages

Wen 11:25am Shawn - Office of the president - Will be dispatching a Tech
Fri 8:30am Joel - Office of the president - Will be dispatching a Tech
Wen 11:41am Brian - Tech - Telling me he is on is way over
Wen 12:34pm Brian - Tech - No Trouble Found. Manager said to leave ticket open and if the Static Returns please place a call for someone to come out

Thur - 8:52am - Joel - Office of the president - Technician had trouble accessing ATT box do to Combo Lock on Box (Really? That is the U-Verse Box. None of the Tech's know the Combination!!! Plus - I DO NO HAVE U-VERSE!!! Wrong Box!!!! )

Thur - 2:13pm Joel - Office of the president - Asking if all is good now

Fri - 12:14pm Shawn - Office of the president - Also asking if all is ok.

Friday - 6/14 - 4ish in the afternoon - Brian (the first tech) left and ATT Note on my door with his # and a Bezia (Manager) #. When I called Bezia on Friday 6/13 She said she did not know anything about it or the letter I sent to the Prez.

Sat - 6/14/2014 - 10:00am - Another Tech comes to the house and Cannot Find Anything Wrong - Going to ask for a Copper or Lead Team to be dispatched.
(Added note: This guy forgot to Reconnect my house at the outside Nid!! WTF)

Sat - 6/14/2014 - 11:00am - I left voicemail messages for both Shawn and Joel explaining everything going on including the facts that:
1-None of the tech's know what box to look at
2-The U-Verse box has a Combo Lock and Techs expect to find a Key Lock
3-I Do Not Have U-Verse!!
4-The Old Copper lines are still available in the Rats Nest Box BUT do to Dry Weather, No Noise on Line - Go Figure
5-No one has given me the Ticket Number for any of this......

FYI: I did not include last names or phone number in the message.
Maybe if things continue I will change my mind......

breese....

Glad to see that you have at least gotten action....It might take a little more time to sort it out but at least they are doing something to make it right.

Try and get these guys to come out when you are actually home if possible, heck, they can wet down their lines with water to simulate the wet conditions that bring out the line static.

Make sure you keep that rep from the office of the president on his toes, make them follow up with you, and inform Joel that you WILL be sending a follow up letter to the the
SEVP of Tech and Network Operations and letting them know what the outcome has been.

This is what I mean by the folks in charge simply don't seem to have a good grasp of what is happening out in the field, and the middle management are either not keeping the execs informed or are actually hiding the reality from top management.

Keep us posted on what happens, I am pretty certain that your problem will be corrected.

It's not just the Wet Static that is the issue.
It is the 50 Year old box the lines are going thru (or what the Tech's call the Rats Nest), the fact that when (and if) U-Verse is completed the lines will Still Be Going thru the Rats Nest, and None of the Tech's seem to know What Box to look in AND the U-Verse cabinet has a Combination Lock that No One knows the Combo to...

Does anyone actually know what the Formal (if there is one) Wording to the AT&T Loyalty program is?

We are in excess of 19 None Stop Years with AT&T.
Never ever been offered anything and when I have asked I get Heehawed by the person on the line.....

I expect my Cell Phone to ring off the hook on Monday with all the voice mail messages I have left.... If not then Tue I file a formal complaint with the FCC based on the FCC Part 68 document I have....

It sounds to me like they need to send out senior line techs.
Tell Joel that you expect them to send out people that are actually able to solve the problem, which means they are senior or master techs. I would tell him that you are ready to file a formal complaint with the FCC and your local Public Utility Commission if they do not resolve the matter in a reasonable amount of time, seems like two weeks or so would be plenty of time. Again make sure you tell Joel that you will be sending a follow up snail mail to the SEVP as well.

Ask Joel about the loyalty program, I personally never heard of this but I would be interested to know what benefits are available.
Tell him that the CSRs blow you off which is ridiculous.