Over on CNet News.com, Senator Rick Boucher has written an editorial on why it’s time to rewrite the DMCA. Among other things, he states that,
Given the breadth of the DMCA, the fair-use rights of the public at large also are at risk.
the neverending installation
If you’re as bored reading this as I’ve become writing it, then you’ll be thankful that this is coming to a swift conclusion. I’ve lost the notes (those that I kept) of the 30 some calls to Verizon customer service, repair center, and customer advocacy center that would have made this a passably interesting story. Suffice it to say that, on the day of installation:
1. I called customer service every hour, on the hour, to find out when the installer was dispatched.
2. I was told each and every time that it would occur that day, before 5 o’clock.
3. Customer service keeps track of these calls, so I get the occassional, “didn’t I speak to you before?”
4. No one shows up.
I call customer service at 5:50PM, extremely peeved.
“Someone will be out there before noon tomorrow,” I am told.
night comes, night passes, morning comes.
But the installation crew does not. Repeated calls to customer service are met with paltry placations and promises of prompt resolution.
Huzzah! An installer has been dispatched, and at 2:50PM it is reported that the phone is connected and working.
I get home, and it is not (connected, or working.) From a cell phone I call customer service, a scant 10 minutes before they close for the evening. Some nut-job suggests that I, “disconnect your portable phones, computer and all other phones, wait 5 minutes, and then plug them back in.” Oh that’s rich. But I do it anyway, just to humor the jack-ass. Of course it solves nothing. Now I’m outside, in the dark, opening up the telephone interface box and plugging a phone directly into what should be my newly connected line. And do I find a working line?
Yes!
Alas, it’s not my working line. Instead I pick up the receiver to drop in on someone else’s conversation, mid-sentence. The numb-nuts have managed to splice me into someone else’s telephone line. So I tell this to customer service.
“Oh, that’s not a customer service issue, it’s an issue for a repair crew. Please hold while I (dis)connect you.”
Much pleading, whining, firmly insisting and finally declaring that I will not leave them alone until a repair crew is dispatched (ostensibly, I am told, from the cradle of their warm beds, from which they must be roused at this late hour.) Someone will be there by 9pm.
And of course, no one arrives.
On the third day (of installation) I’m home from work, waiting for a repair man to arrive, calling the local dispatch center director every 20 minutes to inquire as to their status. Eventually someone shows up (I’m hoping it’s the same crack-head that screwed it up the day before, but no such luck) along with a supervisor, presumably to ensure that the job is done right this time. Much hemming and hawing, there is eventually a dial tone…. to half the jacks in the house. (remember that one? See Part I).
Well, that’s a problem for the electrician, isn’t it.
Got a similar tale? I’d love to hear it.
Hell on the Verizon, Part II
Wherein we place an order for phone service
So the time comes for us to get in touch with our local phone company and place an order. Now over the past few years we’ve all been treated to various forms of telecom deregulation. The 1996 Telecom Deregulation Act was supposed to provide consumers with more choices in their local and long distance service, increasing competition, driving rates down, blah blah blah.
6 years later we are witness to the true effect: A massively confusing and highly disorienting (not to mention minimally usable) online interface for ordering new phone service, the major purpose of which seems less to deliver a high quality telecommunications package from a wide choice of vendors quickly and conveniently, than to totally overwhelm the new customer with a menagerie of services so confusing that you just give up and order the most expensive package.
I know, there are plenty of places online that I can go compare long distance rates. But that wasn’t really the purpose of this excercise. All I wanted was a dial tone.
45 minutes later, after plowing through a list of nearly 300 providers of long distance, local exchange, non-local exchange and intra-state calls, I give up and choose “Verizon” for everything. Yeah, I’m probably getting screwed. But I’ve got more important things to do than mess around with this ordering system.
Phone number’s selected, install date is set, and I’m sitting pretty.
Or so I think.
OK, this is exactly the sort of thing that I’ve been wanting to post here. Unfortunately, the damn thing had to happen to me. But here’s the story:
We’ve moved into a new apartment, bigger than the last one, with a second bedroom that’s going to get used as an office. Plus, it’s less money than the last place, which is always good.
The trouble starts and, believe it or not, has nothing whatsoover to do with the phone company. The building we’re moving into was rebuilt nearly from scratch, with nothing but about 25% of the original brickwork on the outside remaining. Everything else is brand spankin’ new. Now, it was originally supposed to have 6 apartments in it, two on each floor. But the landlord, for his own reasons, decides instead to combine them into three. The first floor is one apartment, with two more bi-level apartments each taking half of the second and third floors.
Unfortunately, no one tells the electric company this. And so upon trying to hook up electrical service, we find that there are twice as many meters in the building as needed, two for each apartment. And get this: one day, as we’re moving some stuff in, the power goes out…. in half the apartment. Apparently, half of the meters are fed from one pole, and the other half from another. In each of the 3 apartments in the building, half of the power is out (so we have electricity in the living room and kitchen, but not the bedrooms or bathroom. Cute.)
This proves to be a portent for things to come.
