[ale] Inexpensive broadband recommendations

[Michael H. Warfield]

On Tue, Feb 18, 2003 at 08:56:25AM -0500, Michael D. Hirsch wrote:
> On Monday 17 February 2003 09:47 pm, Transam wrote:

> > Even if you explain that the problem is unrelated, such as "I think you
> > keyed my MAC address wrong during the initial install," they will insist
> > on an answer.  Answer other than "WinBloz" or "Mac", they will hang up.

	Not in my exprience.  Never had them hang up on any of us.

> > Their service goes out for 48 hours at a time every few months.

	Once, in several years, and it was several years ago.

> Here's another data point: I've used them for about 4 years, now, and never 
> had a problem with the service.  The only time I've ever had to deal with 
> them was when I change routers and need to provide a new MAC address.  
> I've done it by phone and via on line chat and never had a problem with my 
> OS.

	And another datapoint (actually several).

	I have had occasional problems with their service (more in the
past than recently, other than Thursday's fsck in their routers).  My
son has also had his share of problems in the past.  With recent
incidents (like last Thursday and when I called them this evening)
I have not spent more than 5 minutes on hold.  Two years ago, that would
not have been the case.  A couple of years ago, Scott sat on hold to
some of their shumcks over over an hour.  About 6 months ago, when he
reported a routing problem and provided documentation, their NOC called
him back.  Yes they knew very clearly that he was running Linux.  Not
a problem.  Especially after he identified a misbehaving router that
they missed.  They were rather appreciately.

	IAC...  I have NEVER EVER had their service people either ask
me (or my son) what operating system we were using or hang up after
it was readily apparent that we were not using Windows.  As soon as
you start quoting traceroutes to them, that's rather obvious that
they are no longer in Redmond.  They have always taken our information
and been nothing less than curteous and professional.  Sometimes you
have to convince them that you are beyond first line service.  I told
the guy Thursday that they needed a menu bypass for guys like me since
I really DIDN'T need to hear step by step instructions in IVR on how
to power cycle my cable modem when I'm trying to report a ROUTING
problem.  He laughed and agreed.  I called them tonight to cancel
an appointment they had set up to come out because of Thursday's
call (they had the problem fixed by Friday).  No long wait.  No
big problem.  And I have never run into any antagonism toward Linux.
Apathy, yes.  They don't care.  They won't support it.  Meaning you
are on your own if your Linux system is broken.  But if it's their
problem, they will take your report and work the call.

> Michael
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	Mike
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