gee, *thanks* Telerama

[cellio]

I understand that sometimes DSL service fails for hours on end. It can happen to anyone.

But. You should answer the damn phone when people call to report problems, or say that you're closed (though at 7:30PM that would be unreasonable for a local ISP). What you should not do is have your voice-mail system claim to be routing the call to a representative and then go our to the movies or something while the customer waits. (And, psst: doing this after offering someone a rep for "new sales" is especially braindead.)

Telerama used to have clues. I hope to learn in the morning, via my then-working connection, that they still do and that they've been somehow hacked. That's not how I'm betting, though.

It is, of course, not in the least Telerama's fault that access from work is severely curtailed (even if I bring in my own machine so I can't possibly expose corporate assets to the wilds of the net). This merely adds to the frustration. There's a free hotspot at Pita Pit near work, so I think I know where I'm getting lunch tomorrow. :-) (Suggestions for free hotspots near Squirrel Hill welcome, in case this goes on for a while. I already know about T-Mobile at $6/hour.)

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Panera has free wireless at most of their locations.

The Carnegie library offers free wireless.

[cellio]

Thanks!

[sui66iy.livejournal.com]

Glad to know it wasn't just me. (I actually thought it was a billing issue or something and they had cut my service.) I called them several times and pressed 3 for billing, and just went into an "on hold" black hole. No hold music. No answer. After about 9am, the robot stopped even picking up, and now all I get is a busy signal. Plus, their website is unresponsive.

Maybe they've skipped town and it's time to call speakeasy.

[cellio]

I tried all the phone-system options (and multiple phone numbers that I found in the phone book); all produced the effect you described. I, too, also got busy signals around 9 this morning (haven't tried since).

At this point I assume it's a widespread problem and they know about it. Last night I thought it wsa just our DSL connection (not their entire domain), and I was pretty annoyed that there seemed to be no way to report that problem and try to get it fixed.

I left Telerama (as a shell provider) because of bad support, but their DSL support seemed better when we got it a few years ago. Now, well...

[sui66iy.livejournal.com]

Rich said that a friend of his ditched them a few weeks ago because he anticipated that they were going to go under. Maybe they have. (Of course, the rumors of Telerama's demise have been around for years...)

[alfiechat.livejournal.com]

Did you try the Barnes and noble in Sq hill? or Panera bread? I know that both have free wifi hotspots. Good luck.

[schulman.livejournal.com]

Me Too, to all of that, especially the tech support phone routing that gave me 10 minutes of silence, then disconnected me.

I ordered Verizon FiOS this morning.