🚀 go-pugleaf

I don't remember what the original thread was, or even if it was in here
(chi.internet) but I posted a message a couple months ago about receiving a
letter from ATT about having 45 days to contact them to change my dsl
service to uverse.

At that time, after getting transfered to 3 different departments, it ended
up with them telling me to toss the letter because there is no uverse in
this area and no projections when it would be available.

Well, well, well.

I still have been getting "your time is running out" letters with one
arriving the other day saying if I don't get this changed by 3/23, the
internet service will be turned off as a warning and will be totally
disconnected (becoming an ex-customer) by 4/3.

So I tried calling the number again and got a slightly different story this
time. What it sounds like to me, uverse availability or not, they do want to
move the old dsl customers to uverse, which basically involves not being
billed on your phone service anymore.

Instead it being charged to your home phone service, they actually set up a
new account from att/uverse, new account number and the dsl/internet service
is removed from your monthly phone bill.

They still need to have someone come out to replace the modem/router, which
they didn't have any information on, it's mandatory for "S" customers, the
ones on static addressing, and whatever "professional" they are sending, is
supposed to be here next tuesday, the 13th.

The only thing they had for hard-core facts was pricing, currently I'm
paying $70 a month for 6mb/784kb and 5 usable static addresses, the service
level stays the same but the price drops to $19.95 + $15 for the statics for
the first 12 months ($34.95). That also increases the bandwidth cap from
150gb a month to 250gb.

After the 1st year, it goes up to some goofy amount like $53.72 including
the statics, so it's still about $17 cheaper a month.

But that was it, they had no clue if my current ip addresses would be
carried over, new ones issued or what the story is. Also, besides telling me
it's not the same router they give to residential, they had no info about it
either. Make, model, features, nothing. But there is no "self install" for
it, they have to send out a "professional installer" to put it in.

They ate the costs of the replacement router, the service call and all other
fees. It's just a new account number for the dsl and a reduction in rates.

The only plan I have is before the installer does anything, make sure he has
the list of ip's, paperwork for the router and who to call for the reverse
dns updates. They missing any of those, I'm going to send him packing with a
customer cancellation and risk losing the service later. It's going to be a
lot of work changing everything to new ip's around here and I don't need a
tech that can get all green lights saying he's done, leaving me hanging.

Thats what happened in Jan of 2002 when I first ordered the dsl with static
addresses, back then it was like a $200 service charge for "professional
installation", not optional. Fucker came in, plugged the power pack in,
hooked the phone line up to the router and called it a day when it synced
up. When I asked him about the static addresses, he didn't know anything
about it and suggested I call some 1-800 for any questions about them. 

It's still stupid but they have something up their sleeve with this billing
change, which is really all it comes down to. 

-bruce
bje@ripco.com