[ale] Recommendations/Caveats re: acquiring DSL service

[Jeff Hubbs]

God have mercy on your wretched soul if DirectTV goes out on you. Â You'll
receive no help. Â Your screams will be ignored. Â You will call and call,
remaining on the phone for an hour or more each time, and you will receive
first level tech support and no matter how hopeless your situation is, and
no matter how clear it is that someone needs to get into a freaking truck
and figure out what died, you will be forced to answer mindless questions
about your DSL modem lights. Â Every. Â Freaking. Â Time. Â There will be no
truck, for such a truck would say "Bellsouth Fast Access DSL" on the side.
 The people who manage the people who dispatch and drive those trucks do
not want your DirectTV DSL service to work again. Â Ever. Â 

And they will eventually forget you existed, happily billing your account
just the same. Â Finally, you will call to cancel your account and demand
a refund, and they will act all shocked and hurt that you're leaving them
(only then, you observe, do they even express even a molecule of concern).
 They will ask why, and you'll tell them, yet still they will not really
care. Â 

While you await the total loss of service that will eventually come, they
will do things like change DNS addresses and mail server names, and they
will not tell you these things, for they have decided you do not need to
know. Â You will try to upload content to your personal Web site and it will
not work, and when you call and wait an eternity to actually talk to a zero-morale
first-level tech, you will have to explain your problem to them in great
detail, for they will know less about it than you do. Â And they will just
tell you that it will be corrected someday, whatever it is - they have no
idea where the server is, who runs it, or anything about it. Â 

And you will decide, yes, I have descended into DSL hell.

And you will learn that cable modem hell is little better.

And you will pray for a deliverance that may not come for years. Â 

- Jeff

Ken Kennedy wrote:
20020311013612.GE9642 at kenzoid.com">
  On Sun, Mar 10, 2002 at 07:24:28PM -0500, Jim Seymour wrote:
  
    Courtney Thomas wrote:
    
      I'm in Atlanta and would appreciate any/all responses to theprospect of getting new DSL service at home.
      
      
      I've used DirectTVDSL (formerly known as Telocity) for about a yearand a half. No complaints. Recommended.