My trek into the miasma of Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) began officially on March 22, 1999. That's right, 1999, and six months before Jim ordered DSL for his office. (Jim's service took only two months to get ordered and installed). It's been almost ONE YEAR since I decided I wanted DSL. As you'll see in a moment, some of that lag time is my fault (I got so fed up with my local phone carrier GTE last summer that I decided to forget about DSL, and later changed my mind). But is it really "my" fault? When a service provider treats a customer the way I was treated, I think not.
I'm sharing my experience to alert you to the problems and pitfalls you may encounter when placing a DSL order with your local phone company.
It took a total of sixteen phone calls across this one-year period to get to the point where I now have an actual DSL modem in my hands, and the phone company is waiting for me to call them for some final network settings. I'm purposefully writing this article prior to setting up the modem and software because I don't think the nightmare is over (read: I'm skeptical of the self-install kit process). I'll address the actual install in a subsequent article.
I didn't set timers on the first eight calls. The second eight calls totaled 73 minutes, so just doubling that, figure it took GTE 2.5 hours of phone time to get its customer to this point. Rather than belabor each of GTE's individual sins, I'll group them by category and time frame:
1. GTE didn't keep its promise to follow up with me in 4-7 business days re the result of a free line test for DSL compatibility. (Note: I'm only 1,000 feet from the Central Office, it's literally 20 houses down the block.) They *never* called back and I had to escalate to GTE's Executive Customer Relations group. To add insult to injury, the Executive folks admitted there was a complaint record regarding my report of poor service, but even they (Executive) hadn't followed up on it! Eventually a GTE engineer called to say that my line qualified for all levels of DSL. It took them 10 WEEKS to handle this.
2. That's when I temporarily gave up on DSL. (Funny isn't it, how sometimes when you get what you want after a long struggle, if the effort is too great you simply don't care about it anymore? If anyone at GTE Executive is reading: no marketing geniuses are required here... hello, are you dialed in? You should be paying attention to your customers' experiences!)
3. GTE's DSL division sent me email about free installation. They offered to "waive" a $50 Internet access installation fee and "waive" a $340 line installation and modem fee. I prepared to do battle once again, and my cynicism was well founded.
4. On the very first call I made about the aforementioned offer, the representative told me DSL was not available for my line. Remember, I can throw a rock and hit GTE's local Central Office. I used the tried and true technique of calling back a second time, got a different rep, and was told I *did* qualify. This rep said my order for Bronze Plus was officially underway. I had him repeat that good news twice. Oh, I'd have to wait 4-6 weeks to get a call back from a field engineer for a time to schedule the installation. The delay was said to be due to heavy demand for DSL in my area.
5. Two months went by with no call back. (Anyone surprised? Not me.) I followed up and was told, effectively, "Gee we're just so backed up, expect a call any month now." This is a variation on the "it will be done a week or 10 days from whenever you ask" rule that Jim ran into with his order.
6. On February 26th, about ten weeks after my order, a field engineer left voice mail. His first name was Charlie (not really), but his last name was undecipherable because he slurred it and didn't have the common courtesy to spell it out. (So much for good phone etiquette from a FIELD REP FROM MY LOCAL PHONE COMPANY. Sigh.) Charlie told me to call a special phone number re my ADSL order, and to use reference number 9999 (not the real #, but note that it's four digits long). The first time I called this number, after a one minute wait there was a ringing then the call was dropped. When I called back I heard a conversation among some GTE representatives but they couldn't hear me. I'm screaming, "Hello, hello!" I was silently eavesdropping on a conference call. They were talking about an irate customer's DSL problems in plain detail. I'm not kidding! I called a third time and was again a silent partner in the same conference call.
Long story short, after several more calls and transfers, Earl (not his real name) answered. Earl listens patiently to the whole story. He says DSL order reference numbers have more than four digits. Then he gets no hits on a DSL record for my phone number. I almost throw up. He gets one hit on a wild-card search and finds a "Lee Hudspeth" in a state a thousand miles away who has a DSL order in process. I give him a rapid-fire version of the entire history on my DSL order. He apologies, gives me his direct line, and promises to set things right.
7. Earl calls me back in 43 minutes flat. I have a new friend, and life has new meaning. He says the order was probably lost in the shuffle during an internal reorganization, and he apologizes again. He will honor the "free installation" deal right now. He can provide me with a field rep, or if I'm technically savvy then he can mail me a self-install kit. Naturally I choose the latter. But...
Ex-squeeze me!? A self-install kit!? Which means, all the time I spent waiting for a field rep to call for an on-site appointment was for nothing. I could have done it myself all along, if I had only had the kit. Catch-22. It's conceivable that GTE instituted a self-install kit process during my 10 week waiting period, but it sure would have been nice if they had explained that earlier or proactively sought out customers like me with pending orders for an on-site install.
The self-install kit arrived on March 7th. I've read the instructions (three different sets, but I digress), done a parts inventory, and am waiting for a busy client project to settle down so I will have a free day to spend (waste?) with GTE's DSL infrastructure. Think happy thoughts.
