Guest deadzombie Posted May 30, 2002 Share Posted May 30, 2002 For several weeks I had been experiencing breaks in my cable connection. When I was online, my bandwidth had decreased to 1/20th of the norm and I was experiencing heavy packet loss...here's the 7 day story of how Time Warner fixed the problem. The following story is true. Thursday. Fed up with not having a connection, and no longer believing that the Time Warner relay station had experienced a fire (as I'd been told the week before by a customer service rep.), I call tech support. They have me reset my modem, which I know isn't the problem, and then schedule a field tech to come to my house the next day. Friday I wake up, no connection. At noon, I have a connection! Equivilant to a 14k modem, as I struggle to load Neowin I receive a call from the field tech. He asks "Is your connection still down?" I say "No. it's up...but it's a poor.." and he interrupts me saying "well nothing I can do, I'll cancel your ticket." :mad: I immediatly call Time Warner, nicely explain what happened, and the the customer service guy contacts the field tech. The rep PROMISES the field tech will be back at my house by 5:00. 5:00 comes, no tech. Midnight comes, no tech, no internet. Saturday My Mother-in-law has taken my children to another city; my wife and I are FREE. We spend all day shopping, spending money, and finally seeing Attack of the Clones in the local stadium theater! (We sat in the middle of the audience...sweeet!). Coming home with new shoes and a load of goodies, I notice my connection is still dead. I remind myself that my computer is strong and powerful without the internet and go to bed. Sunday Things get fun. On the phone with Time Warner service rep, he tells me my service ticket was closed the previous Friday and that it records that the tech came to my house and fixed my connection! What the hell? The rep explains that they do that sometimes, and that he tells me "if you make a large white sign and sit out in front of your house it helps." I am not making that up. I'm still being nice, although amazed at the sheer insanity of this, I remind myself this guy is a service rep on a phone and that this is probably a summer job...I have the rep make another ticket for a field rep to come out Monday, between 8-1. Monday. Monday is a holiday in the States, and most people are home. At noon I'm BBQ and realize that the field tech hasn't shown up. I call to confirm...and I am told that my service ticket number isn't valid! Then I am transferred to phone tech support, who wants to walk me through resetting my modem again! I tell him that's not the problem, and he tells me that "if you be quiet and pay attention I can fix your problem!" I freaking lose it. I read this tech his rights, insist he start recording our call if he hasn't already been, and insist he put his manager on the phone. His manager PROMISES me that I will have a field tech first thing next day, and gives me his own name and extension number to verify service. Tuesday I'm getting tired of tourney Q3A and solitaire, but hopeful ( :s ) that I will have an internet connection. I call to verify with my new 'friend' (the manager from Monday), and I find out that not only is he on a vacation, but I don't have a (DAMN) ticket scheduled! It was cancelled! No field tech support! The service rep I talk to wants to argue that even though I have a valid ticket, and have (his managers) extension number, I didn't actually schedule a field tech to come out. After 30 minutes of explaining to him that I was thinking of having my frontal lobe removed to apply for work at Time Warner, I talk to his manager, his managers manager, and a few other people that I don't even know if they worked at Time Warner, but caught an earful anyway. Not yelling, not screaming, but constant rantings about their poor service and continuous musings as to reporting them to various local news agencies... Wednesday I am awakened to the phone at 8:00 (yes, I can sleep in whenever I like). The tech is 5 min away! He arrives, comes in, looks around my living room and bedroom for a min, then leaves without saying a word! I'm about to freak out! What's wrong with this companies employees? He comes back with his equipment box. Replaces every splitter and coax in my house, reconfigs the coax layout, and when he's done...I HAVE INTERNET! He then explains how RF signal strength is degraded and how the install techs usually screw up a splitter situation (which I understood this as I design wireless sites...apples and oranges)...the guy actually did an awesome job! My bandwidth is better than before and my RF strength is awesome! Turns out that Time Warner adjusted its RF frequency a few weeks back just slightly, but it was enough to knock my setup over the line. So anyone else have a fun story like this? Am I making too much of them not showing up for 6 days straight? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kusanagi Posted May 30, 2002 Share Posted May 30, 2002 Wow, good to see you actually got it fixed... Those companies are a pain in the ass you know. My ISP is something like that itself. Stuff like that happened to me already, but I'm too tired to remember it, and tell you all. :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OrangesOfCourse Posted May 30, 2002 Share Posted May 30, 2002 Where do u live? I have TimeWarner Houston RoadRunner.. it only requires me to call like 3 times.. then i get the job done :p I have started to notice that when i am uploading... my download speed decreases.. by a huge number.. so i have to call them.. (:s) My house is pretty old now.. so i will try to convince my dad to rewire the house :p I am sorry mate.. last time that happend to me.. i got $20 off my bill.. but then they charged me $40 for labor.. BUT HE NEVER CAME!!! :mad: My dad seriously got mad and kicked their ass :p so we got a month free.. plus rewired some parts of the house.. not all.. for free :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest deadzombie Posted May 30, 2002 Share Posted May 30, 2002 I live in Houston (The Woodlands specifically). They just laid down fiber optics out here a few months ago, and apparently thats the reason for the slight RF switch. I don't know. It just seemed like something out of an old RoadRunner cartoon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OrangesOfCourse Posted May 30, 2002 Share Posted May 30, 2002 I live in Southwest.. it came out a few months ago here.. so these are brand new fiber lines :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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