FRUSTRATED AND NEED TO VENT

cowboy357 · Oct 2, 2008

We had a similar Problem untill Recently ( att&t ). But it was Very Sporatic . I finally bitched enough They sent a Line tech out for Our area . I Caught up With Him & He gave Me a Card with His Personall cell phone 3 on it .

It Was tough at first to get Him out here While it was acting up . But He Came out within 30 minutes Each & Everytime I called . After about the 7th time. He Resolved the Problem temporarily . The Next day They were out putting in a mile or so of new lines & a few new poles That were damaged by the winds months ago . Also Told Me Call him anytime I ever have a Problem Even inside the house & He,s fix it at NO charge .

The Bonus was He Also told Me DSL was now available to Me, That the Att&t offices said it Wasn,t . He Made the Proper contacts & had a Modem Shipped to Me within 2 days & I had DSL. a flat $19.00 a month Unlimited use . Bottom Line is There are STILL some very nice people out there. I Was very Impressed.

So best of Luck to You . Hopefully You,ll get as Lucky & find the right Person to deal with .

kthompson · Oct 2, 2008

Will be surprised if you don't have a state agency who can help you. As they have a monopoly the utilities have strong oversight in most states. Find them and give them the history. It is amazing how quick they can act. Probably can file it on line (if it is working of course). kt

DANOCHEESE · Oct 2, 2008

Call and ask to speak to a manager. Document your service issues. Jsut a simple note of call time. Give them another chance than fire an email off to yoru PUC. Verizon is responsible for the maintenace of the line IF IDT can't force them to repair the issue than I would have no confidence in IDT.

Veriszon is still making good money on these CLEC lines. They will repair it if pushed.

AlanB · Oct 2, 2008

What Cowboy said, and the others really, Dad danced with the same problem a long time (and what is funny is he was the supervisor for the part of the phone company that handled difficult problems) Finally took a call to get an old hand out there and go down through each junction or terminal box till he found the right one. Everyone else just seemed to want to rush through the job.

Same thing with my phone, the guy I got was excellent, he gave me his card and said call him next time the lines got cut and he would straighten out the problem.

Sometimes you get the right guy, and they make it right, unfortunately all too often you have to work through five duds to get too that guy.

Tig · Oct 2, 2008

Our phone company had half the neighbourhood redoing their house wiring to make sure it wasn't our fault. They ended up replacing some lines after I got a bit ugly with them.

4720 OWNER · Oct 5, 2008

Are the lines copper? If they are it now just a matter of time before they are stolen and have to be replaced!!

ultrarunner · Oct 5, 2008

The best thing I did was get DSL from ATT after living with on again off again static for years... complaints got no where.

Funny thing is the DSL wouldn't work with the existing line... I wonder why???

ATT ran a new dedicated line in from the main road and no more trouble in 5 years.

frank_f15 · Oct 5, 2008

ultrarunner said:
The best thing I did was get DSL from ATT after living with on again off again static for years... complaints got no where.

Funny thing is the DSL wouldn't work with the existing line... I wonder why???

ATT ran a new dedicated line in from the main road and no more trouble in 5 years.

I would love DSL ut they tell me it is not avaiable in my area but funny my buddy 3 miles away can get it but i do know his line comes fron a different location.

Bird · Oct 5, 2008

I've encountered a serious problem with a telephone company twice; once being in 1972 that I mentioned earlier. One day I noticed a local newspaper article about the number of complaints and the fact that the city might consider trying to get GTE's "franchise" revoked. So I wrote a letter to the city manager outlining all the problems we'd had and told him I'd be willing to volunteer my help anytime to get rid of GTE. I sent a copy of the letter to GTE. And a GTE manager promptly called, gave me both his home phone number and direct line office number, sent two technicians to my house the next day, and we never had another problem for the next 5 years that we lived there.

The other time was in 1995 when I was going to move my parents' mobile home onto my 10 acres in Navarro County. I called the phone company (GTE again) a month or so before we moved their mobile home to order a telephone for them, was given an installation date, and even the new phone number. The date for installation arrived, a technician arrived and asked if I wanted my phone moved to my parents' home. When I told him it was an additional line, he said they didn't have the capacity to add another phone; that more equipment had been ordered, but he had no idea when it might arrive. He also told me 5 other people in the area had been waiting 6 months or more for a telephone. So I called the Texas Public Utilities Commission in Austin, explained to a gentleman there what had happened, told him my elderly parents, with some health problems, needed a telephone and that we would not have moved their mobile home if the phone company had told me in advance that lines were not available. The next day a crew was out there putting in new lines, a manager called me to ask IF we could manage for 3 days, and within 3 days, both my parents and the other 5 people who had been waiting had telephones. Some of them wanted to know what influence I had in Austin (which was none at all more than any of them would have had).

But the PUC obviously has some influence.

Blagadan · Oct 6, 2008

I've been there. Had problems with the telephone company for years. Spent countless hours on hold waiting to speak with one tech or another...

I eventually had enough, I got the landline disconnected and had wireless broadband installed in the house. I had two choices, to go with the cheaper antenna type service which had a local transmitter up on a hill 20 miles away (I was barely in the catchment area but was covered). The other option was to have a sattelite dish on the side of the house that pointed up to the sattelite but that was a bit more expensive. I went for the cheaper option.
I now have a high speed internet connection and telephone through the broadband service and it has perfect sound quality, no crackling and no weather interruptions. The kids are happy to have the incredible fast download/upload instead of the 14kbps dialup we used to have...

I get calls from the phone company every so often to know if I'd like to have my landline connection reactivated, but I am pretty sure I wont be taking them up on the offer.