SBC... Yahoos of the worst kind
Written: Jan 15 '03 (Updated Apr 07 '03)
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Pros: Ummmmm........ It's cheap if you purchase the right phone services?
Cons: It didn't work reliably. Staff reluctant to explain why.
The Bottom Line: Buyer beware! Don't rely on these guys to be forthcoming or helpful.
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| gracef's Full Review: SBC Yahoo |
I hope that you will humor me because I am about to rant. Before I begin, you might want to grab your beverage of choice and a snack, because I think this is going to take a while. I am one very ticked off consumer, and by God, I'm going to rant about it!
Recently, my family moved to the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Since both my husband and I are avid Internet users (and since I do freelance web development from my home on occasion), we wanted a high speed Internet connection. We have used both cable modem access and DSL in the past. So I looked at the providers of these services in the area, looked at the demographics of my neighborhood, and decided that DSL service would be the best option for us at our new home.
Do I have a deal for you!
For those who don't know, SBC Yahoo! is the union of Southwestern Bell and Yahoo! Southwestern Bell supplies the connectivity and Yahoo! provides content. And, as they proudly announce, Southwestern Bell is now known as SBC.
Since the convenience of fewer bills is worth the few dollars that we would save through a separate DSL provider, I asked SBC about their DSL package when I called them to have our phone service connected. Ordering phone service is one of the most headache-inducing experiences. Ten billion options, all called by whatever name the marketing people invented, names that have NOTHING to do with what you're actually getting, all with different prices depending on what options one buys. I have to admit that the SBC salesperson was quite patient with me as I made her slow down and explain to me exactly what she was trying to sell me.
Finally, after about 15 minutes, I understood "the deal". Normally, SBC charges a certain rate for basic local phone service and charges extra for things like voice mail (which is calls "Call Notes" for some obscure reason). DSL is sold at various price levels depending on the upload and download speed that is being ordered. If I purchased basic phone service with Call Notes, they would give me a discount on the DSL service. Since the discount on DSL was roughly what the increase in phone service charges, I felt that the package deal was the way to go. And, as the salesperson cunningly whispered to me, if we later cancelled the extra phone services, we would still get the $29.99 DSL because the DSL billing doesn't check after the initial purchase. "Sign me up!" I said enthusiastically. Soon, I was told that SBC would send us their self-install package for the DSL and that the DSL service would be active on or by December 19. Even though that meant a two-week wait, I was still happy. (By comparison, our DSL install in Illinois required a 45-day wait. So I wasn't complaining... yet)
Oh look! A package!
About a week after I placed the DSL order, the self-install package came in the mail. The package contained some instructions, a 2Wire HomePortal 1000S residential gateway, some cables, a number of DSL filter wires, and an installation CD. My hubby, who is very computer savvy, ran through the instructions in short order. Connect the DSL filters, which look rather like phone cords except they have two plugs (one for the DSL signal and one for the phone signal) to the phone jacks. Run the wires from the HomePortal to the computer and DSL filters. Install the software, and wait for the DSL service to be activated. We both groused about having to put DSL filters on every phone jack, since we didn't plan on using the DSL signal outside the home office (the rest of the house is on a wireless network). But that's what the instructions said, so that's what he did.
People should be warned that the installation adds some software to your computer. First, it installs a customized version of the Yahoo! Messenger to your computer. If you already have Yahoo! Messenger installed, it will over-write the older version and change the icon for Yahoo! Messenger to some fancier SBC version. In the process, it zaps some of the previous Yahoo! Messenger settings. So the user has to re-select themes and privacy settings. The installation also adds the Yahoo! Messenger toolbar to IE. This was particularly annoying to me because it somehow conflicted with my installation of the Google toolbar. Deselecting the Yahoo! Toolbar (so that I didn't have to look at it) caused the Google toolbar to go away. (I finally uninstalled the SBC Yahoo! Messenger toolbar to correct the problem.) Finally, some HomePortal software is installed to allow monitoring and resetting of the HomePortal. This will come in handy, as you will see later.
We knew it couldn't be that simple!
The HomePortal 1000S has 3 status lights. According to the instructions that came with it, if the top and bottom lights are green, the self-install is done correctly and the system is ready for DSL service. If the middle light is yellow, it means that the service is ready but authorization for the service is needed. If the middle light is green, all systems are go.
On December 18, we noticed that the middle light had turned yellow. So hubby madly ran through the final part of the install process, which authorizes the computer to use the DSL service. It didn't work. Oh well, we thought. We weren't supposed to get the service until the 19th, so we went to bed, just a couple excited geeks waiting for the pay-off of fast Internet connectivity.
The next day, we ran through the authorization process again. This time, we got to a screen that asked for a username and password. We rummaged through the install information and the notes that I had taken when I ordered the service. We didn't receive any usernames and passwords!
So I placed my first call to SBC support. After bouncing through a number of voice mail menus, I was transferred to the Advanced Solutions Data Center, which handles the support for SBC (at least in these parts). There, I went through some more menus until I reached the ultimate destination and was placed on hold for the next available customer service representative. When a living, breathing human being finally answered (about 5 minutes later), I was told that my account record said that the service would be turned on December 20 rather than the 19th. When I pointed out that the HomePortal hardware and software that we had installed indicated that we had a DSL connection, the representative seemed confused. Finally, I convinced him that we needed a username and password, so he gave me a set for first time users. But when I tried these, I received a message indicating that there were no ATM servers available. I asked the rep what this meant, and he said, "Oh, I just checked my records. It seems those are down for your area. Those handle the authorization process. You'll need to try again later."
So again, we waited.
Later that evening, my husband, in what I'm sure was a geek-obsessed desire to have faster than not-quite 56K dial-up service, tried again. And, when he was still unable to get authorization, he decided to uninstall the software and start all over. Bingo! He was able to get connected.
Now we were pretty happy. Not completely, though. I had ordered 384/128 access, which means that we were supposed to receive content at 384 kbps and send data at 128 kpbs. But according to the HomePortal status page that is a part of the software we installed, the DSL connection only allowed up to 192 kbps. What's more, according to speed tests at dslreports.com, we were only receiving data at something like 121 kbps. This was MUCH slower than what we were promised.
Any concerns about the actual speed disappeared a few hours later when the DSL connection dropped. Later that night (and another uninstall/reinstall by my now desperate hubby), the connection was restored. But by the next morning, the connection was down again.
Unfortunately, because we had to leave town for the holiday weekend, we didn't have the opportunity to look into the problem again until after Christmas.
Just a minute. I need to check my resources.
When we returned, the DSL service was still down. Once again, we were getting messages about unavailable authentication servers. So I waited until the next business day (to give them a chance to get them going again) and called support again. Much to my surprise, the direct number for the Advanced Solution Data Center that I received during my previous call gave a busy signal. So I went back through the rigmarole of the main SBC voice mail menus to get through to my final destination.
Finally, a very nice fellow named Ryan helped me. Now, Ryan was, as I said, very nice. But Ryan knew as much about DSL as my daughter's hamster. I explained to him that we weren't able to get authentication and read the error messages that we were receiving slowly. "Well, try this URL in your web browser," he said.
"But wait. We don't have an authenticated DSL connection. That's a URL on the web. We can't get there." I said.
"Oh, try it. I'm sure it will work," said Ryan.
I tried it, and, of course, it didn't work. When I reported the failed attempt, Ryan said, "Just a minute. I need to check my resources." Click. I was placed on hold again.
The next 45 minutes went much in the same manner, with Ryan telling me to try things that were doomed to failure because we didn't have an authenticated DSL connection and with me telling him that this idea would have no more success than his previous suggestion. After every failure, he would say, "Just a minute. I need to check my resources." His "minute" was never 60 seconds. Usually it was longer than that.
Finally, Ryan said, "Well, it must be some problem with your HomePortal set-up. You'll need to call them." When I asked him for their number, he said, "Just a minute. I need to check my resources." A few minutes later, when he returned with the number, I asked him for the number of the person who handled refunds for downtime. "Just a minute. I need to check my resources," he replied. I languished on hold for 5 minutes until he came back with the main SBC phone number. "You'll have to go through the voice mail menus."
It took him 5 minutes for that? Those must be some resources!
An install is only as good as the instructions
At this point, I was beating my head against the monitor. My hubby meandered into the room and said, "Well? What did they say?"
I was speechless. All I had received from my talk with Ryan was the distinct impression that SBC didn't know what it was doing. So I told my hubby, "Here's the next number. You call them. You're more patient than I am, and at this point, patience is what is needed." And I left the room.
About an hour later, he came to find me. "I got it!" he boasted. "I got it working!" When I asked him what he did, he said, "I ignored the instructions!" Apparently, the instructions said to use auto detection on the connection type. He ignored that and selected the PPP option. Like magic, the connection popped on.
Is this a DSL connection or a pogo stick?
Again, we were mostly happy. The speed wasn't any better, but at least it was connected. That feeling of euphoria lasted about 3 hours, when the connection went down again.
Over the next few days, this became the standard for our SBC Yahoo! existence. The connection went down. We waited for it to return on its own. Eventually, we shut everything down (HomePortal and PC), waited for a couple minutes, and then tried again. Usually, it worked. In some cases, my hubby found that disconnecting the phone wire from the wall, waiting 10 seconds, and then plugging it in again would bring us happiness. But the happiness was never long-lasting.
Finally, tired of the mood swings, I called HomePortal and asked the support person there if this was normal. The person there chuckled and said, "Uh... No. That sounds like a line problem. Did they tell you how far you are from the call center?" When I said that they hadn't, he said to call SBC and tell them that they needed to do some more extensive line tests than whether the DSL connection was up before they could conclude that the HomePortal was at fault.
Now, I'm going to digress a minute to talk about the "distance from the call center" business, because some people might not understand why this is important. DSL is a great service for people who live within a certain distance from what is referred to as the call center, or the point from which the DSL signal originates. The DSL signal attenuates over distance. After a certain distance, the signal becomes too weak to maintain a stable signal. The distance is measured in wire feet, the distance the signal has to travel through wires to get to the destination. Most DSL companies can only give an approximation of this since wires aren't always laid in one long straight path. So to determine if a resident qualifies for the service, they draw a circle around the call center with a radius equal to their cut-off distance. If your home lands in that circle, you qualify. If it doesn't, you're out of luck (unless your neighborhood has some special hardware installed). My experience with DSL technology told me that most companies cut-off qualification at 15,000 feet from the call center. I also knew that many companies are reducing that distance to something around 14,000 feet to decrease the likelihood of dissatisfied customers.
So I understood that the HomePortal service rep was asking a valid question. But I had no idea how far we were from the call center. We live in a pretty big city, well within the city limits. So I just assumed that we would be OK. (Silly me.)
So I called the Advanced Solution Data Center again. This time, I talked with someone who actually understood the problem. She gave me a couple suggestions (move the HomePortal greater than three feet from the computer to avoid interference) that did seem to help a bit. When I asked her how far we were from the call center, she said she didn't know and that I'd have to call another number for that. But, since my connection was now up, it probably wasn't an issue.
Still, the connection went down at least once every 12 hours or so, sometimes for hours. The only way to correct the problem was to cycle power on everything or to disconnect and reconnect the phone wire. This wasn't foolproof, but more often than not, one of the two worked.
After an outage that lasted several hours, I called the Advanced Solution Data Center again last Friday morning. Again, I asked to know my distance from the call center. Again, I was told that the service rep didn't have that data. Frustrated, I asked to talk to someone who did have the data. Finally, I was told that we live over 15,000 feet from the call center. "Actually," the rep said, "closer to 16,000."
"But isn't the cut-off 15,000 or something like that?"
The lady replied, "Oh, our cut-off is 16,000. You should be just fine. Why don't I send a tech out to your house?"
You know it's a bad sign...
To SBC's credit, I have to say that once you prove that you NEED a tech to come to your house, they will send one quickly. And they will do it at no charge. So later that afternoon, I had a tech on my front doorstep.
I knew the news wasn't going to be good even before the tech said a word. As I opened the door, he was shaking his head and wearing an expression that said, "Why did those idiots send me out here?" And when he told me that he had his doubts that we would get a stable signal "all the way out here", I was pretty sure he was right. Still, the tech did his job and checked the signal strength.
Surprise! Surprise! The signal strength fell well below the tolerance of what should have been the cut-off... around 2/3 of what it should have been.
The other thing that SBC does well is cancel services. Before the tech even came back to deliver the news to me, the tech had called SBC to tell them to cancel my DSL service. Before the tech finished delivering the news to me, the phone was ringing with a call from one of their folks in the accounts department. This person collected all my information, provided me with an RMA number with which I can return my HomePortal hardware, and promised me a full refund for the amount spent on DSL services to date.
We'll see how long it takes for the credit to hit my account.
When I asked how long it would be before we lost DSL service for good, the person handling the cancellation said that it would take a few days to process. This was fine with us because a DSL connection that goes up and down is better than no DSL connection at all, and it will take the cable modem folks a couple weeks to get service installed. As of this morning, we still had DSL service.
Since the tech left on Jan 10, the DSL connection was flawless with the exception of one 5-minute outage after which the connection came back all on its own. (No reboot required, either!) The rest of the time, it was fast and reliable. That is, until it came time to post this review. Then it died again, probably for the last time. How's that for irony?
Why did SBC sell me services I couldn't use?
Since the tech left, I've been rolling some things around in my mind. Why did these people seem so reluctant to tell me how far I was from the call center? Why didn't SBC offer to send a tech sooner? Why did the tech seem so certain that SBC should know that we couldn't use DSL service "all the way out here"? By the tech's admission, he was familiar with this area. If he knew, certainly SBC must have known.
Well, the answer to that might be in their packaging of services. If you recall WAY back at the beginning, I mentioned that SBC offered me a special package. Buy more phone services and get the DSL service for less.
What happens if DSL is installed and the signal isn't stable? Less technical people might not even know that the up-and-down-gotta-reboot silliness isn't normal. They might accept that the problem is somewhere beyond SBC's control and be totally forgiving of the run-around. The worst that might happen is that the customer will demand a refund. But so what? If enough people don't demand refunds, they could still earn a handy profit, especially if the customers don't cancel extra phone services that were purchased to get the DSL discount.
Remember also that I mentioned that the speeds that I was able to achieve seemed to be capped at 192/128. I've since done some reading on message boards that discuss DSL, and it seems that SBC has a habit of capping new lines at the much lower speeds. People who aren't hard-core Internet geeks might never know the difference, and SBC has increased the speed to the promised level when called on it. But how many people never know or never think to ask?
Sure. Our case might be an honest mistake on SBC's part. But I doubt it, especially in light of another incident of SBC money grubbing that I encountered since I signed up for services through them. One night, an SBC rep called me and said, "As a new SBC customer, you're entitled to a free two week subscription to this newspaper." I forget the name of the paper, but I do distinctly remember the caller's assurance that I wouldn't need to remember to call the paper to cancel the subscription at the end of the "free" period. A few days later, someone from the newspaper called and said that SBC had given them my number. When I again asked about the automatic cancellation of the account, the newspaper salesperson said, "Oh no. SBC knows better than that."
It seems like lots of people think SBC should know better. Obviously, SBC doesn't.
Final recommendation
I wouldn't trust SBC with a penny of my money if I had a choice. Their tactics have been suspicious from the first day, with everything from confusing product packaging, a missed installation date, less than forthcoming staff, and uninformed support people. If you have a choice, even if you do fall within the magical 15,000 feet from the call center, try to find another option. If you opt for SBC anyway, please make sure that you ask the distance from the call center and run the other way if they say anything over 15,000 feet. You'll be saving yourself lots of time and aggravation!
Update - 03/20/2003
Blast SBC!
I have been a Yahoo! user since the earliest days of the company. So I have had the gracef@yahoo.com address for years.
Today, I found out that my gracef Yahoo ID had been cancelled.
Apparently, when we installed the SBC software, one of the questions it asked was if an existing Yahoo! ID should be merged with the SBC user ID to create a Yahoo account capable of receiving more mail and accessing other SBC services. I said "Yes" because I was so comfortable with my existing ID.
What I didn't understand then was that cancelling the SBC service cancels the Yahoo! ID as well.
This morning, I attempted to log in to Yahoo Messenger using my normal ID. However, it never completed the operation. Instead, it popped open a message box with "System" inside and nothing else. It wasn't until I attempted to log into my Yahoo mail account that I found out that my gracef user ID was gone forever.
Update - 04/07/2003
SBC just called and tried to sell me DSL service. What do you think I told them?
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 30 / month
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gracef
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Location: Lost in Texas
Reviews written: 206
Trusted by: 313 members
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Well, bless your heart!
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