[thelist] Two questions:1. Pacific Bell Telephone problems, and 2. looking for a reliable ISP for a business account.

[spinhead]

I was once a telocom analyst (I'm in Socal) and in our office, we had a
PacBell veteran who was our specialist at dealing with them. Her
ace-in-the-hole was that her husband was some kind of regional director and
frequently made calls to make things happen. Sometimes, that was the only
way to deal with them. PacBell can be extremely difficult to deal with or to
motivate, but it's unfortunately almost purely random. I've got PacBell
phone service and, in response to your second request, I just move from the
dismal Cox Cable modem to PacBell DSL, and I've never been happier -
installation sooner and faster than I expected, the billing is correct, the
access speed averages 900k (on a 384k line) and they didn't even screw up my
phones during the install.

The two weapons an end user has against PacBell are infinite persistance
(not always possible) and determined pressure to speak to the next
supervisor up the chain. If you don't get the response you want from whoever
you're speaking to, get their supervisor on the line. They won't like it,
but they'll do it. They CAN get it right, but once you're in a black hole
like this, the only way out is to make them so unhappy to hear from you that
they'll fix it just to make you go away.

spinhead


----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Williams" <cwilliams at computermodules.com>
To: <thelist at lists.evolt.org>
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 11:19 AM
Subject: [thelist] Two questions:1. Pacific Bell Telephone problems, and 2.
looking for a reliable ISP for a business account.


> Hello,
>
> I am having severe problems accessing the internet from my home phone and
I
> am using Pacific Bell. They came out to my home on 4-5 different
occasions,
> all have said there is a problem with the phone line on their end, and
have
> supposedly refered it to cable for repair, but there is never any
> resolution...ie I cannot get out onto the internet from home, I cannot
> access my email accounts, and I have been cut off from receiving replies
to
> job applications I have submitted via the internet.  I am really
concerned,
> as my job here is ending in the next few weeks and I have sat home for
days
> on end waiting for their technicians to arrive, causing a lot of lost time
> here at work, thousands of dollars in medical bills which were not
> authorized by my insurance company, but since they had no way to contact
me
> because my phone line would either give out a busy signal, go dead, or
ring
> without completing the circuit to my telephone, I will end up paying for
> this out of my own pocket.
>
> The problem is in their lines, and they just kiss off the call, do a test
> from the office, and close the ticket.  Has anyone else had this issue,
and
> what did you do to resolve it?
>
> My second question is regarding a good web hosting company.  I am looking
> for a stable, reliable ISP which has decent tech support to host our web
> site.  We currently use Host pro, and are looking for a second ISP for the
> new site.
>
> Thanks a bunch!
>
> Chris Williams
>