[ale] OT: Charter Broadband

[Christopher Fowler]

On Sun, 2007-04-22 at 20:31 -0400, Mark Wright wrote:
> I have been using Speedfactory, a local dsl provider for many years  
> now.  They have local tech support and they don't freak when I tell  
> them I have no microsoft computers.

I'm going to throw this out here and I know the BS apologists will be
quite pleased with it.

Last weekend Atlanta had some rainy and cold weather.  I woke up on
Sunday to find my DSL down.  It happens rarely.  I know that SF does not
have 24 hour support.  Only M-F during business hours.  I call to see if
there is a recording of a BS outage.  No recording.  I leave a message
for an on call tech.  After a couple of hours I call back and leave
another message.  I decide to go to the store and about a mile a way I
see the problem.  There was a very small local power outage and it
appeared that Jackson EMS was on the case.  Nearby at a outside phone
box was a cingular and BS van.  Obviously they were waiting on
something.  Later after lunch DSL was operational.

Back to the point.  My DSL keeps me from driving 60 miles round trip to
Alpharetta each day.  When it goes out I get nervous.  When I leave a
message and _NEVER_ get a call back I get upset.  

Well at least they don't freak out when I say Linux and a few years back
helped me configure my firewall for PPPOE.  I probably on avergage pay
about $20/mon more for SF then people do for BS.  I still don't care for
BS because they block ports and classify me as a windoze general user
like 99% of their customer base.