“Outage in your area”
Sep 23rd, 2008 by Cory
These are the second most-feared words to someone that works from home. It means that no one in your neighborhood can access the Internet. If the problem doesn’t get fixed quickly, then chaos can erupt.
The most feared words for the telecommuter are “no known outage in your area.” Sure, your Internet connection may be down, and possibly a couple of your neighbors are down as well, but it’s not bad enough yet for your provider to give a shit. Now the real fun begins. Time to call Time Warner Cable’s customer service.
Press 1 - I’m having a problem with my service.
Press 2 - I’m having a problem with my Internet service.
Press 1 - I cannot access any site.
An agent with an accent of unknown origin answers and asks for my name, phone number, address and pin number. We then go through the routine of power cycling the modem, disconnecting my wireless router, and restarting my computer. Connection may or may not be (temporarily) restored. An appointment with a technician might be scheduled.
Repeat the scenario above nine times and you’ll get a sense of my last seven days. Each time, Time Warner assumes that it was my fault or a problem with my router or computer. Each time I had to deal with another clueless customer service agent that struggled to find the right script from their binder to respond to my complaints. Each time I was treated as a hassle, not as the customer.
Seven days without consistent Internet connection other than on my trusty iPhone. It’s not only incredibly frustrating and a waste of my time, but also a threat to my livelihood. I work from home; I have to maintain a stable and fast connection. My Time Warner cable modem connection was so bad that I had to work from the local sales office in Richardson yesterday. I had to interact with people. In person. It was that bad.
Two of the three technicians that visited my house used the word “notorious” to describe the network node in my neighborhood. Not a good sign. On my agenda for tomorrow is signing up for AT&T’s Uverse service. I’ve always been happy with AT&T’s mobile service, so hopefully their Internet service won’t disappoint.
