[ale] Inexpensive broadband recommendations

[Pete Hardie]

rhiannen wrote:
> Pete Hardie wrote:
> 
>>rhiannen wrote:
>>
>>>A quick way to lose the interest of any NOC is to claim it can't possibly be
>>>your machine because (pick one) it worked fine yesterday
>>
>>Any NOC that ignores this when *I'm* calling in will get calls up their
>>supervisor line. 
> 
> 
> The "it worked fine yesterday" line is the most common line any support hears,
> usually followed much, much later by the discovery that new software was loaded,
> "but it loaded fine and everything worked, I just can't get to the web or my
> email Now."  On win machines, it is an Extremely common occurrence to have
> software load "improvements" which hose the fragile win networking stack.  

When I hear the similar line "Nothing has changed" while fielding a support call 
from customers, I ask "Are you sure absolutely nothing has changed?  No new 
software or hardware?".  I don't discount the entire problem.

> 
> If you can't give anything better than "it worked fine before" don't hold the
> poor sod on the other end over too much heat for not believing you.  OTOH, if
> you can provide a tracert that shows the packets getting past the gateway before
> wandering off into the wild blue yonder, then a tech ignoring you deserves to be
> handled by his supervisor.

The tech's job is to determine the point of failure.  Then, if that point is not 
  part of the network, the tech can rest easy.  But making a blanket assumption 
that all non-obvious failures are due to customer action is an unacceptable 
behavior from a customer support department.



-- 
Pete Hardie                   |   Goalie, DVSG Dart Team
     posting from, but not     |
	speaking for:             |
Scientific Atlanta, Digital Video Services Group



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