DSL Quest
June: Call AT&T, schedule phone and DSL service to be moved to new apartment on Monday, July 9th. Process is relatively painless. I am asked for, and I give, an alternate number where I can be reached.
Monday, July 9th: Phone and DSL do not work. Order status online says the due date for the order has changed to Tuesday, and not much else. Nobody calls me at the alternate number where I can be reached.
Tuesday: Phone works. DSL does not. Patient man that I am, I give it another day. Order status online still says due date is today. Nobody calls me at the alternate number where I can be reached.
Wednesday: Order status online says the service is completed. DSL still not working. I suspect it hasn't been hooked up. Call customer service to see if DSL was hooked up. Woman on phone says I need to reinstall the CD they gave me when I first got DSL, to get the new line to work. I am fairly certain this would not be true even if I did still use their crappy login program from when I first got the modem five years ago, rather than my router or the PPPoE built into Windows XP, but she's customer service and not tech support so I don't push it. She transfers me to tech support.
Tech support recording indicates there is no DSL connection associated with my phone number. First-tier (possibly offshore) tech support guy does a line test or something, and walks me through the basic stuff they always make you do: check cables, power-cycle everything, try connecting directly without router. I humor him. I mention the bit about the recording saying there was no DSL on this number; he notes that yeah, my info didn't pop up on his screen automatically when I called, but it did appear when he looked it up in some other system. He seems to treat this as a bit of random trivia rather than an indication of what the problem actually is.
First-tier guy finally passes me to second-tier guy. I mention my suspicions that they just never gave me DSL service at the new address. Second-tier guy does line test or something again. Eventually he finds out that yes, the thing I've now suggested to three different people is true, and my DSL line was never provisioned. So he says he'll open a ticket.
Apparently whatever they use to track tickets is having problems. I spend a large amount of time on hold, while he figures out how to open the ticket. Finally he opens a ticket, which he says will be addressed tomorrow morning. Gives me another number to call to check the status, and also helpfully provides me with the series of buttons to push to get to the department I need so I don't have to listen to the recordings.
Elapsed time on phone: About an hour and a half. In the process I am asked for, and give, an alternate number where I can be reached, at least once and maybe twice. Nobody calls me at the alternate number where I can be reached.
Thursday: DSL still not working. I call the number that second-tier guy gave me (AT&T Advanced Solutions). Wait on hold. Give up. Wonder why it's up to me to follow up on somebody at AT&T not doing something they're supposed to do. Nobody calls me at the alternate number where I can be reached.
Friday-Saturday: Out of town. Surely they'll have the problem licked by the time I get back, right? Nobody calls me at the alternate number where I can be reached.
Sunday: DSL still not working. Call the number that second-tier guy gave me again. Amazingly, I don't have to hold. I give the person my ticket number, but either I've written it down wrong or the guy gave it to me wrong, because it's not my ticket. She looks up my phone number, sees a provisioning ticket. It's been closed and marked as completed. She says they'll do some tests -- usually takes four hours but I should call back in two. She's actually very nice and apologetic. She asks me for an alternate number where I can be reached.
Call back two and four hours later. Give up after waiting on hold. DSL still not working. Nobody calls me at the alternate number where I can be reached.
Monday, July 16: DSL works! Message on machine (main line, not the alternate number where I can be reached) asking me to contact them at such-and-such number between the hours of such-and-such. I call, wait on hold for about five seconds, then hang up.