The Morning Rant: “Typed On A Phone Because Of Internet Problems” Edition

Thanks to AT&T I’m getting the opportunity to write and publish a post entirely on my phone. I had some ideas for big essays or posts with lots pictures and links, but that’s not happening today, because I have no internet.

After about 2 hours on the phone Saturday, including several transfers and extended holds, it was determined that my fiber box has failed and needs to be replaced. Only an ATT certified technician can do this, I was told, and the earliest one could come out would be on Thursday - 5 days out.

After I advised that that was completely unacceptable because I need home internet for my job, I was assured that an ATT supervisor was going to find a tech who could get out sooner, and then call me back.

You won’t believe what happened next. That call never came. I’m about to call up and fight the battle some more.

I have a few thoughts:

Is there anything on earth more delicate and prone to failure than cable/internet company modems, routers, and receivers. I have to change my car’s oil less frequently than I find myself calling ATT to replace a stationary plastic box that has stopped operating. Are they made of gossamer and tinsel?

Seriously, how is that over the past 30 years, I’ve never had a car fail to get me where I wanted to go, despite thousands of miles of bumping and jostling, but an inert ATT modem is more fragile than a dropped egg?

While I’m griping about ATT, how is it that they cannot prevent fraud from occurring on their phone lines? In addition to my cell phone, I still have a landline. (Don’t laugh. The purpose is to have an alternative phone number to give out when I do not want to give out my cell phone number. It’s also helpful when I call a business and don’t want my cell phone number going in their record of me.)

Both my cell phone and landline receive incessant calls from hustlers and spoofers engaged in fraud…fraud that uses ATT’s network. Because ATT won’t commit the resources to stop it, it sure seems to me that they are somewhat complicit.

If ATT would divert a little money from its obscure little disinformation network (CNN), perhaps it could then find the funds to source better fiber hardware, or maybe even find a way to stop providing a platform for phone fraudsters to rip off ATT customers.

(buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com)

posted by Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM

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