SBC = service barely connects
Written: Nov 08 '04 (Updated Jan 22 '09)
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Pros: 3 months of stable service (out of the 12 I contracted to and paid for)
Cons: Utterly inept tech support, unstable service, terrible network management
The Bottom Line: I recommend that this company be liquidated under Chapter 7 rules as a step to protect the public.
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| towwang's Full Review: SBC Yahoo |
In this review: my experiences with ordering, installation, usability, DISUSABILITY, DISSERVICE, DISCONNECTION, DISSED BY TECH SUPPORT, and by now the reader should now where this review is headed.
I'll write this review in a chronological narrative, to give an idea of the the amounts of time in which problems appeared, persisted, disappeared, or were left unsolved.
2003 October 20 (approx.)
I ordered "SBC Yahoo DSL"; the deal was for 1500 Kb/s download, 128 Kb/s upload, free DSL modem and cables, for $26.95/month with a 1 year commitment, activation to take place within 2 weeks. I ordered through Dell.com to get a $75 rebate, and Dell promptly paid it within 3 weeks of my submitting the rebate form. Kudos to Dell for their prompt service.
2003 October 22
A representative from SBC left me a message stating that "we are lacking necessary equipment to activate your service, so activation has been rescheduled for end of November". Strike one.
I requested to use their dial-up service on a provisional basis, because activation will be delayed beyond the time frame contracted for. SBC agreed, and gave me dial-up connectivity.
That night, I connected via dial-up to read some urgent e-mails that had been piling up. Within 5 minutes of being connected, my PC was infected with the "Wellchia" virus, and connectivity ground to a halt while the virus took up all bandwidth. One night wasted figuring out how to remove the virus. Strike two.
2003 October 23
Received DSL modem, a Speedstream 5100, with cables and filters. Dell sent me a PCMCIA-to-EtherNet adapter for free too, again, kudos to Dell. Connected DSL modem, no DSL signal detected.
2003 October 25
Modem detects DSL signal on phone line, but I cannot establish InterNet connection.
October 26
New voice message stating that service (and billing!) has begun.
Followed instruction manual to install their software. BIG MISTAKE. In following with the typical arrogance of Microsoft products, their installation program automatically tried to upgrade "InterNet Explorer" from v5 to v6 without even prompting me to confirm whether this is desired, overwriting several files and settings as a result. Uninstall manually; more time wasted. Strike three.
October 26-29
Calling SBC "tier 1" technical support every day inquiring why I cannot connect. As I would find out over the ensuing 12 months, the job of tier 1 technicians is to treat customers like idiots, always burdening customers with proving that the problem is with SBC's network.
The way tier 1 works is, they ask you what is your system's hardware and software configuration, what are your web browser settings, what problem you are experiencing, and then ignore all that information and blindly tell you to uninstall/reinstall the connectivity software, web browser, power down and reboot the computer and modem, ad nauseaum.
Only after going through this idiotic procedure for 4 nights in a row, they finally began to consider the possibility that the problem might be in their end.
So, finally on the 29th, I was miraculously referred to tier 2 support, where they have actual technicians knowledgeable about computer networking and with the tools to troubleshoot problems. In 5 minutes the tier 2 technician diagnosed that "your router bill was set up incorrectly, and I have just rectified this". My DSL service finally became usable.
FIRST MAJOR ISSUE SOLVED, IT WAS TOTALLY SBC'S FAULT.
2003 Nov. 6
My DSL service became slow and erratic. Web browser would report "page not found" on web sites known to be up and running, or would load just the top of a page, never displaying any web page in its entirety. Interactive protocols like Telnet worked, but high-throughput ones like FTP and HTTP became useless.
Again I had to go through tier 1 support, them demanding over and over that I reinstall software, reconnect cables, power-cycle modem and PC, the whole works.
Adding to my fury, they insisted that they would not allow (much less support) having a router between my PC and the DSL modem. This is coming from a network "crawling with viruses"; they don't want me to use a firewall. OUTRAGEOUS! They kept insisting that I unplug the router, recable my setup, reboot, each and every time I called. I told them: I have not changed anything in my setup, it was working fine until beginning of Nov., but it was not their job to use their brains. Router/firewall not allowed.
2003 Nov until 2004 April
Above problem persisted (with and without router), tier 1 tech support utterly clueless and incompetent. Let me stress again: every other night, connection slows to a halt, I call tech support, and they have me jump through all the hoops, over and over. I logged some 7 separate problem case numbers, all ending nowhere.
I guess the only reason I tolerated this, was that I could use the service one out of every two days, and I thought I would be subject to early termination fee if I disconnected.
In the mean time, I was doing research about this problem on another web site:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,8500666
...but the information I received did not solve this problem.
2004 April 20 (approx.)
By another miracle a tier 1 technician offered to send me a line technician to check whether anything was wrong with my line. 2 days later the technician arrived, and found that I was given too much bandwidth, and my physical line could not handle it. Coincidentally I had run a speed test on my line and found that my bandwidth reached 4000 Kb/s down, 768 Kb/s up.
He sent an order for my modem to be re-provisioned, and after a day my service restabilized, now with speeds measuring 1250 Kb/s down, 133 Kb/s up, more or less in line with what I had ordered.
SECOND MAJOR ISSUE RESOLVED, AGAIN COMPLETELY SBC'S FAULT.
2004 May-July
Service stable until end of July.
In late July, I began encountering a sporadic problem of not being able to login to the PPPoE server, neither through SBC's software nor through my router, so I could not get an IP address, hence no connectivity whatsoever.
I tried multiple products to connect via PPPoE:
1) EnterNet PPPoE client provided by SBC
2) Windows XP PPPoE client
3) LinkSys BEFSR41 router
4) D-Link DI-604 router
And SBC's PPPoE server refused connection attempts from all the above products whenever the problem appeared.
2004 Aug. to Oct.
Again, I had to resume the rigamarole with tier 1 support, disconnect/reconnect my cables and firewall, delete cookies, reinstall software, reboot PC, reboot modem. At this point, I clearly noticed that the technicians were even more inept. They were no longer based in the U.S.; all tier 1 seemed to have been outsourced to an Asian country (which I will not name as I have no quarrel with it; my beef was with SBC). They did not even seem to have administrative access to customer profiles; while they asked me to disconnect cables, reboot, etc. I could clearly hear them flipping through the pages of a blasted support manual, which probably says "if customer answers yes, go to page 2, if customer says no, go to page 3", like reading a bloody interactive novel for kids!
The worst part of it all was that this problem was intermittent; the PPPoE server would refuse to authenticate me for no apparent reason, all of a sudden, whether or not I was actively using the service. This "lock-out" would last for 2-5 hours at a time, and without further intervention, the problem would go away.
As I logged another several trouble cases with tech support, frustration was mounting through the roof, and it became painfully apparent that they were neither qualified nor equipped with the tools to troubleshoot my problem. Whenever I got locked out, I faced the difficult choice of either calling tier 1, go through the asinine troubleshooting steps that would lead nowhere except a mess on my home PC, or just sit it out for a few hours and wait for service to be restored magically. Sadly, all too often I opted for the latter and tried to find better things to do with my life.
At one point they even sent me a technician to again check my line, but when he came, service was up and running, so there was "no trouble to be found".
2004 October 22
Remembering that I was nearing the end of my 1 year contract, I called SBC's billing department and requested to disconnect service as of Nov. 1, agreeing to pay for pro-rated charges for the final few days of service.
2004 October 24
I woke up to find that my DSL modem indicated there was no DSL signal in my physical line. They had already disconnected my service.
I called SBC billing that very same afternoon, and demanded an explanation. They said there might be a problem with my line, and referred my case to "data services" to come check my line at home.
2004 October 25
A representative of "data services" leaves me a message saying that because the line is due to be disconnected on Nov. 1st, they will not do anything to restore my service. THIRD MAJOR ISSUE, I HAVE HAD IT!
2004 late October
I have now switched back to DOCSIS cable internet.
2004 mid November
The bill came in for the period of Oct.-Nov., and guess what? They are billing me an extra $49.95 for the period of Oct.-Nov. even though they had disconnected me one day ahead of the end of my original 12-month contract. No pro-rating, no explanation, they want to charge for services they did not provide.
I call SBC billing, and the representative argues that "since your requested extension of service until Nov. 1st, we are billing you this extra amount". Only after I tell her to dig into her computer notes, does she realize they had in fact disconnected me early. She promised to refund the $49.95 in the next bill.
2004 mid December
The bill came in for the period of Nov.-Dev., and no refund/credit appeared for the excess billing.
2005 early January
Contacted SBC billing again to complain about their repeated misrepresentations and false information. Talked to several representatives, who exhibited the most unprofessional behavior:
1) REFUSED to transfer me to a supervisor in the billing dept. and instead routed me to their sales dept., who again routed me back to billing.
2) REFUSED to confirm in writing by either mail, fax or e-mail about the offer to issue me credit.
3) REFUSED to guarantee that they would not bill me late payment charges for amounts that were improperly added to my bill.
4) REFUSED to let me speak to supervisor and insisted on informing the supervisor that the above refusals are appropriate answers to my queries.
2005 end of January
Finally received the overdue credit/rectification in bill.
Revision history
2004 11 08: Review written by and copyright Tow Wang 2004.
2004 11 09: Correct spelling errors.
2005 01 10: Update about unresolved billing mistakes.
2005 02 18: Update about unresolved billing mistakes.
2005 06 28: Add link to external discussion thread where I inquired about the erratic DSL problem.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 26.95*12
Version Number or Year: 2003-2004
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Epinions.com ID:
towwang
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Member: Tow Wang
Location: California; U.S.A.
Reviews written: 43
Trusted by: 8 members
About Me:
Rabidly passionate about computers and electronics!
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