Random Stew It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Customer Service….NOT! Part VI

So my local telco field technician, Todd, came out to my house this morning. He hooked up his equipment to the box outside my house and reported a good strong signal there. He then came inside the house and and plugged his equipment into the jack I'm using for the DSL modem and reported a good strong signal there also. He said I should be receiving 6Mbps download speed. He then hooked up his laptop to the DSL modem and ran a speedtest; he got about 1.2Mbps. Now, he's feeling really stumped and I'm feeling joyously vindicated.

BTW, the DSL modem does have a built-in, primitive firewall but it was not enabled. Todd was surprised at that and said they should always be enabled as no unprotected PC should be put on the Internet. Again, I am intoxicated with a surge of vindication.

Todd tries another DSL modem with the same results. He says there must be a problem up the line with "the programming" in the switch. He also tells me that I'm the first 6Mbps customer on this switch. He sends the problem back to the guys responsible for the programming and says he will give me a call later when they have resolved the problem. Todd then leaves about 10:45 AM.

About 4:00 PM, I receive a call from Todd. He reports that they have now set up my programming exactly like another customer that is using (and receiving) 6Mbsp download speed. He asks me to try another speed test and call him back. I do so with the same results.

So, here I am exactly 2 weeks into my attempted use of the telco's high-speed DSL service and they still have not delivered their product. In fact, they can't figure out why they can't deliver their product. Even if they find and fix the problem, this fiasco does not bode well for when I experience service problems in the future.

Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for. A product is not quality because it is hard to make and costs a lot of money, as manufacturers typically believe. This is incompetence. Customers pay only for what is of use to them and gives them value. Nothing else constitutes quality. --Peter F. Drucker