🚀 go-pugleaf

dye <dye@adsl-64-108-195-217.dsl.chcgil.ameritech.net> wrote:
> 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 tear open the bad uverse modem to see if it had 2 or 4 wires. 
I've heard about the two pair stuff, but it's vague.

> 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?

sounds good to me. Nobody needs union phone company assholes.

hell, fire everybody at the phone company, then shut that shit down.

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

works for me.