🚀 go-pugleaf

Recently, I had my DSL Elite bill go up to 43 dollars, and in calls to
customer billing and finally customer retention, both of them
tried to get me to switch to Uverse, which surprised me since Uverse
isn't in Park Ridge (TV Uverse, at least - WOW and Comcrap are the
only companies w/the franchise in PR.)

I wondered why they are pushing for this transition and remembered
others here wondering the same thing.

(as an aside, they dropped me down $10 for a year, but that is still
8 bucks more than I was previously paying)

I got my phone line repaired (&%$%^#@%@^@Y#$ ATT customer service
procedure) for static and dial tone drops (as well as horrible DSL
outages/syncrates), and after the very competent tech fixed
the problem, I asked him to investigate a DSL slowdown (the repaired
line synced back at 6+, but I was only getting 2.7 down.  After 
removing everything but his laptop, and getting the same datarate
he was leery of my Westell Tri-Link modem.  I dragged the still-in-
plastic-bag-piece-of-garbage Siemens/Efficient out, hooked it up,
and got the same results.

At this point I asked him about Uverse in Park Ridge.  He said
it would not be true uverse, but a new kind of customer location
modem and central office DSLAM that used something other than ATM
for data transfer.  This uses only a single pair of wires, not
2 pairs as "real" Uverse has, so no bandwidth for video.

I forgot to ask him if my voice sevice would be analog over the
single pair, or converted to VOIP on the modem.

Oh yeah, he did mention one thing that is probably a big reason
for AT&Ts push to U-verse everything:  The techs who install and service
it are on a different pay grade!!!

"if you get uverse, it will probably be installed by some Polish guy".

#$&(^%^# union busting?

So they are using DSL price increases to get customers to switch
to uverse so they can lay off the expensive DSL techs.

Hope the corporate board gets their bonuses!

--Ken

-- 
Ken R. Dye                               an optimist is a guy             |
Chicago, Illinois                        that has never had               |
http://dye.datsun510.com/index1.html     much experience                  |
dye1146 at g mail dot com                                    archy        |