Cable customers around Texas or maybe even around the country I guess, are having to endure a transition of power (no pun intended) from the previous owner, Comcast, to the new owner Time-Warner.
I've been through this once before when ATT Broadband sold to Comcast and for the most part there were few snags except for eventually having to change my e-mail address. But since we live in a mobile society changing addresses has now become part of the American way and in reality it kind of gives you a fresh start.
But not this time.
Due to what is now a catch-all for things that can go wrong, a glitch occurred, or rather several glitches.
On Wednesday, people in North Texas were sent e-mails fromTime-Warner explaining the process of changing over to the new system and how to set their PC's accordingly. But unfortunately, you couldn't receive your e-mail to read your e-mail, nor could you send any. Hmmmmm.
However, if you were smart like me, you knew you could log onto your server and retrieve your e-mail without going through your e-mail program.
Confused?
Well, so were most of the people around here as well.
Being the good blogger that I am, I e-mailed D Magazine's Front Burner blog, and they were kind enough to post my searing comments, only to find there were other people going through the same frustrating scenario.
Front Burner is well known for getting the attention of practically anyone in authority, from congressmen, senators, mayors, you name it.
Gary Underwood, Director of Communications for the North Texas area, responded to the blog and explained what had happened and thanked Front Burner, which meant me, for bringing their attention to the problem.
Problem solved. Er'... not just yet.
So Thursday morning I log on and now we have no internet access at all. I went through all of the steps, re-booting, turning off the modem, cussing, ....you know the procedure....and I was able to determine there was no signal coming from Time-Warner.
I stayed on hold for about an hour, (I am one determined SOB) and reported the problem and was told, as I expected, "there were service problems in the area".
As I was leaving for work, I saw no less than 8 Time Warner trucks in a two block area and I knew we were in for a long day without the Internet.
Stopping one of the drivers, he told me they were upgrading the service in the area, and it would be restored around 2 or 3 PM.
I could live with that but I was a little peeved that no one had taken the time to send me any kind of an e-mail stating such.
At 4:00, we still had no access.
I called Adam McGill at D magazine, he was the person who had posted my comments, and asked him if by any chance he had a phone number for Gary Underwood. Adam passed it on to me, and after calming a little bit, but not much, I called Mr. Underwood and told him of my problem including the fact that I had thousands (a slight embellishment) of people who read my blog and they would hear about this.
It wasn't too much longer that I had Jeff Ferrell, a very experienced technician, show up who began trouble shooting my problem. Later, Ty Gibson, another technician pulled up in his truck and along with Abe Robinson, their supervisor who remained in constant contact on the phone, they finally solved the "glitch" at 7:00 in the evening.
Also, Gary Underwood made several calls during that time to check on the progress.
We discussed the whole event and did find out that residents were supposed to have been notified by mail and even a door tag that this upgrade work would be taking place.
Perhaps I missed the mailings, but I definitely didn't receive the door tag and there is some suspicion that neither did many of our neighbors.
So, by the mere fact that you can read my blog today, I am back on line. Back in the groove.
And once again, I've learned it's not what you know but who you know.
I wish all of the good people at Time-Warner success in the coming challenges and I hope they don't encounter anyone else like me......or maybe I do......it does build character.
2 comments:
The meek shall not inherit the earth! If there were more people like you, holding provider's feet to the fire, the world would be a better place.
On behalf of the disenfranchised, the meek and those who don't know they have power, I offer my thanks.
To quote an infamous politician (which I try NOT to do much), "I feel your pain." After trying their directions and instructions so many times, I got similar empty results, but I was determined not to go the route of staying on the phone for hours waiting for 'techy assistance'--I figured it was a "damned if I do-damned if I don't" situation: if I don't call, I would hear 'why isn't our internet connection working?'; if I do call, it would be 'why are you on the phone so much?' I tried their online chat only to find that I was 'in the queue' behind 54 other people. An hour later, I was still behind 44 of them. I finally got it resolved when I connected the cable modem straight to my PC, went to the website of my router, found and downloaded a firmware upgrade for my router and a 'setup-wizard' program, reconnected my router and let the router setup program do it's magic. I'm not a network guy, though I'm a programmer for a small company and I do know enough to probably get me in lots of trouble. I know now where to go for help and it's not TWC, but then I knew not to go to Comcast or AT&T, either.
One thing that I do, at least now, see as a good thing for TWC is that they are at least acknowledging that there are other browsers, newsreaders and mail clients other than IE & Outlook. I don't use them specifically to try and avoid as many viruses as possible, but Comcast would never help me when I told them that I use Firefox and Thunderbird. They acted as if I had a communicable disease.
Post a Comment