So here’s the story… Emalee and I moved apartments in Madison. A week ago Tuesday I placed an order with AT&T to have my phone and internet service moved from the old apartment to the new apartment with the effective date being March 31st. The guy on the phone put everything through, gave me my new phone number, and told me they’d call me if there were any problems.

So… Yesterday, I find that my DSL had been disconnected at the old apartment, but hadn’t been connected up at the new apartment, though, the phone line was active. I figured, OK… They said by 8pm, so I went about doing things. Well, when I got back to the apartment after 10pm, the DSL was still not active. So I got pissed. I waited until this morning and then checked things again. Still no DSL.

Finally, I decided to call AT&T to figure out what the problem was. Well, the first person told me that my phone number had changed because they couldn’t assign me the one they originally had said they would but that they had no record of a DSL order. Ok fine… She told me she’d transfer me to a different customer service person because she couldn’t deal with DSL. So I got this next tech on the phone and he told me to hold on a second and apparently proceeded to transfer me back to the repair department that I had originally talked with, but who couldn’t fix my DSL. Well, this third tech, though, was able to fix a problem with an incorrectly activated voicemail box. She then said she’d transfer me to AT&T Yahoo! support. Well, that call got dropped with a recording of the hours that DSL support is open and to call when they’re open. Hmm…. This is 2:45 in the afternoon, they should be there. So I try the number listed on the bill in the internet section 2 times to get the same recording. Well damn… At this point I’m royally pissed and chucked my cordless phone across the room. After I went and retrieved it, I proceeded to call a *different* number that is listed on the bill, in a different section, labeled DSL support. Ok, so which number is the actual support line? After swearing at the automated computer because it couldn’t understand what I wanted, I finally got a tech who not only was able to tell me my actual phone number but process the DSL order correctly. She also offered to look into getting the order expedited because it was supposed to have been turned on yesterday.

So anyway… We’ll see how things go with getting things turned on. At the worst, this should get turned on Thursday.

But this brings up another issue… Wasn’t AT&T broken up in the 80’s to provide a better customer experience? Of course, my dad tells me that back in the Bell System AT&T days, customer service was a thousand times better and they actually cared about getting things right. Too bad not all monopolies work that way (here’s looking at you Microsoft!). Honestly, I hope that the next democratic administration, and god willing it will be that of Barak Obama, will seriously consider looking into AT&T. The FTC, DOJ, and FCC should NEVER have approved the merger of SBC, AT&T and whoever it was that basically brought back nearly 3/4 of the pre-break-up AT&T. Unfortunately, they’ve retained SBC’s customer service. On the plus side, I don’t think I talked to anyone in India this go-around… or if I did they really found people who understand and speak English. One guy had a northern Wisconsin accent and the lady that helped me get everything straight sounded like she was from the south.

Anyway… I’ll update once I get my internet on and I’ll let y’all know how things turned out. Sadly, this is not one big April Fools Joke.

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