AT&T !@home

Cory Spitz spitzcor@cray.com
Fri, 28 Dec 2001 12:34:11 -0600


That sucks.  Seems to me like everyone back in EL is having a tuff
time with the broadband.  I'm out here in Minneapolis and have been a
very happy AT&T broadband customer.  I have had zero down-time other
than the switch that occurred after the Excite fiasco.  And, they had
my up and running again before I even realized it.  Oh yeah, it's
plenty fast enough for me too.  Guess I'm lucky.  I'm moving soon and
will change to Time Warner cable.  Anybody know if these guys are
good/linux friendly?  They are forcing me to buy digital cable (which
I don't want because frankly it sucks - don't get me started) to get
HBO.  The only good thing about their digital cable is that they will
give me HBO and CBS in HD format for what they say is no additional
charge.  Since I have a HDTV monitor, this will be nice.

Getting back on subject, can you get DSL where you live?  If not,
maybe it's time to consider one of those satellite broadband
alternatives.

Good luck,
-Cory


On Fri, 28 Dec 2001, Edward Glowacki wrote:

> I knew it was a bad sign when I drove through Hell (MI) on Wednesday
> and there was snow on the ground and all the standing water had a
> layer of ice on the surface...  Yes folks, Hell has frozen over
> and my cable modem *still* wasn't working...
>
> The tech was supposed to arrive yesterday between 3-5pm to fix my
> cable modem (which has been out for a week and a half), so I took
> off from work early (using some vacation time...) to wait for him.
> Around 6:45pm, he finally showed up, at which time I was in the
> middle of talking to the AT&T Broadband guy on the phone about
> cancelling my service.  I hung up the phone and talked to the tech
> for a bit, he went outside to check the line, couldn't get the box
> open to look at anything (possibly frozen shut?), so I just unplugged
> the cable modem and let him take it away and cancel my service.
> All this after spending over an hour on hold last week trying to
> get someone to look at it, and another 15 minutes last night trying
> to cancel my service (and the guy on the other end of the line
> desperately trying to get me to stay, poor guy, I'd hate to have
> his job...).
>
> So for the period of Oct. 12 to Dec. 27 (11 weeks), here are the stats:
> Total downtime: More than 5 weeks
> Total time talking to tech support: ~3 hours
> Total vacation time used for install/repair visits: ~6 hours(?)
>
> Financially this translates to:
> Cash cost for 6 weeks internet service: $20
> Personal time cost ($10/hr x 3hr): $30
> Vacation time cost ($20/hr x 6hr): $120
> Total estimated cost: $170
>
> Which gives us an estimated cost per day of $4, or $120/month.
> Considering it was supposed to be $20/month, I paid approximately
> 6x the advertised sale price for internet service through AT&T
> Broadband.
>
> Looking at it from the AT&T side, there's 3 hours of phone time
> and the associated 1 hour of a live person on the other end, 3 tech
> visits to the apartment at about 30-40minutes each not counting
> travel time or other factors, the costs associated with the cable
> modem (i.e. purchasing and storing one for me to use) and the
> infrastructure itself, the cost of the actual bandwidth that I
> used, and not to mention the intangibles like my spreading the word
> about my horrible AT&T cable modem experiences.  All this for my
> $20.  I don't have any exact figures, but I'm sure that AT&T lost
> some serious money on my account.
>
> In conclusion, it was a lose-lose situation for me to have a cable
> modem.  It cost me far more than it should have for the service,
> and AT&T lost money rather than made money by providing me with
> cable modem internet access.
>
> --
> Edward Glowacki				glowack2@msu.edu
> GLLUG Peon  				http://www.gllug.org
> Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.
>                 -- Jules de Gaultier
>
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