The Telecom Digest

29 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981

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The Telecom Digest for February 25, 2011
Volume 30 : Issue 48 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Re: Verizon screwed me, again (Gary)

Re: Verizon screwed me, again (Sam Spade)

Re: Verizon screwed me, again (Fred Atkinson)

Re: Verizon screwed me, again (Fred Atkinson)

Re: Verizon screwed me, again (Jack Myers)

Re: Verizon screwed me, again (Jack Myers)

Re: Verizon screwed me, again (Scott Dorsey)

Re: Verizon screwed me, again (David Lesher)

Re: Verizon screwed me, again (David Kaye)
====== 29 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
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Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 08:21:23 -0500
From: "Gary" <bogus-email@hotmail.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon screwed me, again 
Message-ID: <ik5m0m$qu6$1@news.eternal-september.org>

***** Moderator's Note *****
>
>Nothing has changed. The restrictions were never removed. I just
>hanged up the phone after talking to yet another minion, who told me
>that his supervisors were all "in meetings" and that it would be
>finished by midnight tonight.
>
>I'm going to write a snail-mail letter to the Massachusetts Office of
>Consumer Affairs & Business Regulation's Department of
>Telecommunications and Cable:

Over in DSL reports, there is information about the Verizon "Chronic 
Trouble" (a.k.a. "Presidential Appeals") phone number:  (800) 483-7988.

http://www.dslreports.com/faq/7551

Information about it was also posted on alt.online-service.verizon  (see the 
thread "Verizon presidential dispute?" started on 1/11/11.)  I've no 1st 
hand experience with this number.  I've seen reports that it gets fast 
results.  It is described as being for the old Bell Atlantic territory, but 
it still might be worth a try for you.

Good luck,

-Gary

***** Moderator's Note *****

I dealt with the "Presidential Appeals" staff fairly often when I was
a technician at N.E.T.; if I do say so myself, I was fairly good at
solving unusual troubles.

The only thing I remember was that I always felt like I was dealing
with another world: a place where all they wanted was to solve a
problem and keep a customer happy. It always seemed like someplace I
could seen in a vacation brochure, but never visit, and it saddened
me.

In this case, though, I'll stick with the Commonwealth's process: I
want someone to keep a record.

Bill Horne
Moderator



Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 06:11:36 -0800
From: Sam Spade <sam@coldmail.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon screwed me, again 
Message-ID: <u7KdnbYyLtGE-vvQnZ2dnUVZ_gmdnZ2d@giganews.com>

> I'm going to write a snail-mail letter to the Massachusetts Office of
> Consumer Affairs & Business Regulation's Department of
> Telecommunications and Cable: what used to be called the PUC when
> utilities made a pretense of actually serving the public. I've done it
> before, and it produces quick results: it's sad how Verizon only pays
> attention to people with real, demonstrable power.
> 
> Bill Horne
> Moderator
> 

I proceeding through a formal complaint against Cox Communications and 
AT&T over the failure to honor my Caller ID privacy flag.  California 
makes it relatively easy for reasonably educated consumer to file a 
formal complaint without having to have an attorney.  And, it's free, to 
boot.

The law in California is quite clear:

2893.  (a) The commission shall, by rule or order, require that
every telephone call identification service offered in this state by
a telephone corporation, or by any other person or corporation that
makes use of the facilities of a telephone corporation, shall allow a
caller to withhold display of the caller's telephone number, on an
individual basis, from the telephone instrument of the individual
receiving the telephone call placed by the caller. However a caller
shall not be allowed to withhold the display of the caller's business
telephone number when that number is being used for telemarketing
purposes.

This is the state legislature speaking, not just the PUC.



Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 10:41:00 -0700
From: fatkinson.remove-this@and-this-too.mishmash.com
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon screwed me, again 
Message-ID: <fb63194a496b459cec4c298c0c086b0f.squirrel@webmail.mishmash.com>

>> I'm going to write a snail-mail letter to the Massachusetts Office of
>> Consumer Affairs & Business Regulation's Department of
>> Telecommunications and Cable: what used to be called the PUC when
>> utilities made a pretense of actually serving the public. I've done it
>> before, and it produces quick results: it's sad how Verizon only pays
>> attention to people with real, demonstrable power.
>>
>> Bill Horne
>> Moderator
>>
>
> I proceeding through a formal complaint against Cox Communications and
> AT&T over the failure to honor my Caller ID privacy flag.  California
> makes it relatively easy for reasonably educated consumer to file a
> formal complaint without having to have an attorney.  And, it's free, to
> boot.
>
> The law in California is quite clear:
>
> 2893.  (a) The commission shall, by rule or order, require that
> every telephone call identification service offered in this state by
> a telephone corporation, or by any other person or corporation that
> makes use of the facilities of a telephone corporation, shall allow a
> caller to withhold display of the caller's telephone number, on an
> individual basis, from the telephone instrument of the individual
> receiving the telephone call placed by the caller. However a caller
> shall not be allowed to withhold the display of the caller's business
> telephone number when that number is being used for telemarketing
> purposes.
>
> This is the state legislature speaking, not just the PUC.

In this state (New Mexico), I was told that to file a complaint with the
PUC required getting an attorney involved.  Of course, that's when we had
the lame Governor Richardson in office.  Now that we have Susanna Martinez
(Republican and a trim the fat approach to state government), I wonder if
that might have changed.

I've dealt with PSCs in different states.  I've involved the MD, NC, SC,
and GA PSCs in disputes I've had with the telephone companies in their
states [for my own personal telephone service].  And I've involved HI, OK,
and a few others in my dealings with telephone companies on behalf of one
of my employers from years back.  In all of these proceedings, I always
got satisfactory or better results.  Never did I have to involve an
attorney.

I think it is sad that I've had to resort to this so many times.  It says
a lot about the state of management of our telephone companies, doesn't
it?

I've heard some people say that divestiture made our phone system worse. 
I don't agree.  I was seeing the same kind of things before divestiture. 
I don't think that there is really all that much difference.

It shocks me that economists are the high ranking people in the telephone
companies.  The engineers should be near the top as well.  After all, the
phone company wouldn't run without them.

***** Moderator's Note *****

I think there are very few cases where a citizen must hire a
lawyer to deal with his government: of course, most such claims really
mean "We're lazy and incompetent, so hire a lawyer to do all our work
for us." If anyone who works for the government told me I had to
hire a lawyer to deal with them, I'd get really busy proving them
wrong.

It may be sad that "Ma Bell" only respects naked political power, but
it's also understandable and inevitable. Ma Bell is still a monopoly
for practical purposes, and with that status goes a legacy of
arrogance and callousness that expresses itself in racism, cruelty,
viciousness, and let-them-eat-cake hauteur.

I was part of it; I ought to know.

Bill Horne
Moderator



Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 12:36:31 -0700
From: fatkinson.remove-this@and-this-too.mishmash.com
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon screwed me, again 
Message-ID: <5ab584dac313851b4fd7889a203b2b19.squirrel@webmail.mishmash.com>

> ***** Moderator's Note *****
>
> I think there are very few cases where a citizen must hire a
> lawyer to deal with his government: of course, most such claims really
> mean "We're lazy and incompetent, so hire a lawyer to do all our work
> for us." If anyone who works for the government told me I had to
> hire a lawyer to deal with them, I'd get really busy proving them
> wrong.
>
> It may be sad that "Ma Bell" only respects naked political power, but
> it's also understandable and inevitable. Ma Bell is still a monopoly
> for practical purposes, and with that status goes a legacy of
> arrogance and callousness that expresses itself in racism, cruelty,
> viciousness, and let-them-eat-cake hauteur.
>
> I was part of it; I ought to know.
>
> Bill Horne
> Moderator

Bill,

     I was briefly part of it.  I worked a temporary job for Ma Bell. 
When MCI made me an offer, I was gone.  And I worked for them for
seven years, six of which I did work at MCI Central Offices.

     I dealt with a number of Ma Bell companies.  Some of the folks were
great to work with.  Others had an attitude about working with MCI. 
I heard about some who actually told a few MCI people that they would
not work with anyone from MCI and handed their call over to someone
else.

     I worked for SkyTel for eight years.  I really believed they hired me
because of my experience in battling with the telcos.  I used to
solve problems no one else could (I even resolved some problems by
telling some telco technicians how to troubleshoot them when they
kept insisting that there was nothing wrong with the circuit(s)
involved).

     I taught my colleagues about escalation and when to resort to calling
a state PSC for a resolution.  I don't remember that we ever went
above a second level escalation to get a problem resolved on a
trouble ticket.  That excluded the times that the telcos would not
allow us to escalate (yes, you heard right.  They wouldn't let us
speak to first or second level).

     Once, I had to call the vice president of the RBOC.  We were turning
up our paging service on our second paging channel.  That RBOC gave
us a single POC for all orders in their service areas.  We gave them
a list of what we needed six months in advance of when we had to have
them and they assured us that they'd all be installed by then.

     Our regional manager called them a month before their deadline and
asked for status.  Two had been installed.  All of the others did not
even had service orders written.  At that point, they handed
responsibility for this over to me.

     Little progress was made.  I was requiring them to give me daily
status updates.  After a few days with unsatisfactory progress, I
tried to call them.  No matter which one in their office (the
supervisor or any of her worker bees) I called, I got their voice
mail.  So I pressed zero and got the operator's voice mail.

     I called the RBOCs corporate headquarters and was handed over to the
executive assistant to their vice president.  When I told her what
the problem was, she assured me she would take care of it
immediately.  And she kept her promise, too.

     Within an hour, I received a call from that supervisor who was
freaking out because of the call from her vice president's office. 
She asked me not to do that.  I told her that I wouldn't have called
if I was seeing acceptable progress, which I so far was not seeing.

     Things started happening.  Circuits went from service orders to being
fully installed within a week.  When the deadline came (the deadline
that had been placed upon us by our BOD), not one circuit was late.

     I got a very nice call from the regional manager that I had handled
this for.  He thanked me (you had to know him, he didn't say thank
you very often.  In fact, that's the only time I remember him
thanking anyone) for getting it resolved.  He really thought we were
going to miss the deadline.  I'm glad I was able to prove him wrong.

     Yes, I've smashed heads with telcos many times.  But if you know the
escalation procedures and the ins and outs of how telcos do things,
you can generally work it through to a resolution in a short time.

     Regards,

                                          Fred Atkinson

***** Moderator's Note *****

Yes, I know that drill, only too well, although I was usually on the
receiving end (no pun intended).

The question, though, is "Why"? 

I once working with a phone company tech who took a second job as a
phone tech at a large insurance company. This was forbidden by Ma
Bell, but he had some problems at home that required quick cash and he
had no choice.

I talked to him after he'd gotten the money he needed and quit the
job, and asked him how he had felt, dealing with us from the
outside. He just shook his head, and said "We're so arrogant ...", and
left it at that.

Bill Horne
Moderator



Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 21:29:55 -0800
From: "Jack Myers" <jmyers@n6wuz.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon screwed me, again 
Message-ID: <jv6h38-mu8.ln1@n6wuz.net>

Lisa or Jeff <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:

*Premise:*
> Actually, due to the many changes since Divesture, ...
> Likewise, ... most services are not regulated.

*Conclusion:*
> Competition has not improved service, rather, it has lowered it.

Lisa or Jeff: This line of "reasoning" has emotional appeal, 
but I don't buy it.

Bill: Speaking of competition, how many vendors did you identify who 
could provide you with a static IP address at your residence address
and a MIR (=minimum information rate) at or above 128 kbps? 

-- 
Jack Myers / Westminster, California, USA
This posting conforms in every respect to the official written 
policies of my employer.

***** Moderator's Note *****

Jack,

I have only Comcast and Verizon as "Physical Layer" options(1): I
could have retained another company to sublet their wires for me, but
those are the actual carriers.

Static IP would be nice if I were still running a server, but it's not
essential, and I want a "MIR" of 1.5Mbps, so my choices boiled down to
Verizon twisted-pair or Comcast Co-ax, since Sharon, Massachusetts
hasn't been blessed by their majesty's award of FiOS yet.

Bill Horne
Moderator

1.) I rejected satellite out-of-hand because of the high latency. It
    makes editing the Digest very difficult, since I use an "old
    world" character interface via SSH to do it, and every character I
    type has to make a round trip to and from the T-D server at
    M.I.T. before I see it on my screen. 
    



Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 11:56:53 -0800
From: "Jack Myers" <jmyers@n6wuz.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon screwed me, again 
Message-ID: <5ppi38-6hn.ln1@n6wuz.net>

>***** Moderator's Note *****
>... I want a "MIR" of 1.5Mbps, so my choices boiled down to
>Verizon twisted-pair or Comcast Co-ax

Most residential IP services are simply "best efforts" so there is no
defined MIR (nor guaranteed latency, for that matter.)

The point I was trying to make is that in most parts of the country
there is no competition at all, so it's disingenuous to attempt to
blame problems on competition. Ineffective state regulation and lack
of a level playing field for new entrants seem more to the point.

-- 
Jack Myers / Westminster, California, USA
Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans. --John Lennon 



Date: 24 Feb 2011 09:47:33 -0500
From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon screwed me, again 
Message-ID: <ik5r25$oa0$1@panix2.panix.com>

 <fatkinson.remove-this@and-this-too.mishmash.com> wrote:
>      It was my understanding that almost all Verizon people are unionized.

Yes.  But correspondingly, most Verizon customer service is not handled by
Verizon people.

It's interesting, if you call for FiOS support, you get one out of (I think)
three US tech support facilities.  The Hampton one seems to be the best of
the set.  These people are generally clueful in all of the centers, and it
is a relatively easy matter to escalate a difficult problem.  These people are
all union.

If you call for Verizon ADSL support, you get to talk to someone in India who
has no idea what they are talking about and is very unwilling to escalate the
call to a clueful person.  None of these people are union.

I don't know about the POTS support but I would imagine that again
Verizon goes out of their way to shave costs on the service.  And that almost
certainly means contracting it out to clueless bozos.
--scott

-- 
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."



Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2011 01:59:02 +0000 (UTC)
From: David Lesher <wb8foz@panix.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon screwed me, again 
Message-ID: <ik72d6$l57$1@reader1.panix.com>

kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) writes:

>It's interesting, if you call for FiOS support, you get one out of (I think)
>three US tech support facilities.  
...
>If you call for Verizon ADSL support, you get to talk to someone in India who
...
>I don't know about the POTS support but I would imagine that again
>Verizon goes out of their way to shave costs on the service.  And that almost
>certainly means contracting it out to clueless bozos.

Hint: Watson, or his sidekick. It's easier to reach the governor
of Wisconsin than a human at Verizontal Repair.
-- 
A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433



Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 23:16:14 GMT
From: sfdavidkaye2@yahoo.com (David Kaye)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Verizon screwed me, again 
Message-ID: <ik6ors$nke$3@news.eternal-september.org>

Telecom Digest Moderator <redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu> wrote:

>This is getting obscene. Verizon did it to me again. 
>

Just a reminder that this is Verizon (the former GTE et al) and not Verizon 
Wireless, a different (and more competent) company.

***** Moderator's Note *****

Verizon is the former NYNEX/Bell Titanic merger, and it picked up GTE
etc. after that.

I can't speak about Verizon Wireless' competence, since I haven't been
their customer for many years, but at the time I changed to another
cellular company, their rates were exorbitant. Sorry, but I don't feel
like I should give them a pass on competence when they handed the
market over to Cingular by gouging their customers.

Bill Horne
Moderator




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