[ale] ATT Broadband and DHCP Help Requested

[Byron A Jeff]

> 
> > Date: Sat, 19 May 2001 14:19:45 -0400
> > From: "Michael H. Warfield" <mhw at wittsend.com>
> > To: Jeff Dilcher <dilcher at hiddenworld.net>
> > Cc: "Ale at Ale.org Org" <ale at ale.org>
> > Subject: Re: [ale] ATT Broadband and DHCP Help Requested
> > References: <MMEBIMHOPFECNGBIHAOAAEAIDAAA.dilcher at hiddenworld.net>
> 
> > On Sat, May 19, 2001 at 12:43:21PM -0400, Jeff Dilcher wrote:
> > > Hello,
> 
> > > (Apologies if this went out a couple of days ago-
> > > I have been having a bit of difficulty joining the
> > > group.  I hope this hasn't been discussed recently...)
> 
> > > I am an ATT cable subscriber in Dekalb county.
> > > Formerly Mediaone.
> 
> If you have trouble with those lazy morons at AT&T (IMHO), be sure to tell
> them you have Winbloz95 or something BUT NOT LINUX.

Absolutely. That's their support policy.

BTW Bob, you can't call them lazy. And while ignorant is probably correct,
it isn't very helpful.

AT&T's nee MediaOne's policy is very clear and makes sense. They do not
support any configuration outside of a single machine running Win 95/98/ME
or MacOS. So do otherwise is a support nightmare.

On the flip side AT&T doesn't prevent one from doing anything they want on
the Ethernet side of the cable. You can run Linux, BeOS, FreeBSD, NT, 
Solaris, or anything else. Just don't ask them to support it.

> 
> When they "configured" my Cable modem account by keying in "my" MAC address
> so I could not connect a second computer, they miskeyed one of the digits.
> Of course they were too lazy to double check their work when they did this,
> even though Indira handed the "technician" a PRINTED copy of the MAC address
> of the NIC card.

I ran into exactly the same problem. It was complicated by the fact that the
windows machine that I borrowed for the install decided to toss its hard
disk. So I didn't even have a working machine for the tech.

My tech got on my nerves. He wanted to leave everything the way he found it
and blame the original tech. I insisted to him, and to his supervisor via
phone, that they get the modem to a "all lights on" state before leaving.
The tech then tried to weasle out by saying that since he didn't have a
working windows box, he couldn't complete the install. I told him not to
worry about that.

Eventually they relented, fixed the MAC key, and got my modem "all lights on"
and left. 2 minutes later I was online. Just plugged the Linux gateway into it
and booted.

But I do see it from their side. 99.999 percent of the folks the techs deal
with on a daily basis are totally clueless. The techs (both in person and
by phone) are working by scripts. Any disturbance to their script environment
takes them totally off into the weeds.

So you should stick to their scripts, especially when you are sure that the 
problem is the modem or upstream. Reproduce the error with a supported system, 
call them and let them go through their script. I find it annoying because
I know where the problem is, but it keeps the techs in their comfort zone.


> 
> 
> Indira & I wasted the better part of a day trying to get a Customer
> NOservice person to care but when we said "Linux" as our OS they refused
> to even try to find a problem.  "Our drivers must be out of date was
> the most technical answer we got even after asking them to escalate
> the problem."

Shouldn't have mentioned Linux. They had neither the ability nor the desire
to support it. It's easiest to blame what is unknown, instead of investigating
what is known. Note that's exactly what they did.

> 
> Finally, Indira said "Winbloz 95" and they checked the MAC address and found
> THEIR TYPO.

Exactly. That's what you guys should have said from the jump. When you get
a minute take a read of their service contract. It states in perfectly clear
leagalese ;-) that they only support Windows 95/98/ME and MacOS. You'd have
gotten the same response if you were running NT or 2000.

> 
> (We are too far from our phone central office for decent DSL or I NEVER would
> have dealt with MediaOne/AT&T.)

So don't deal with them. BTW Bellsouth isn't much better. Only telocity IMHO
had decent Linux/UNIX tech support, but their service was flaky. At least
with AT&T it get really reliable service. Only two long outages in over a
year of service.

Honestly you're asking too much of them. Part of being eccentric means bearing
some of the cost of being eccentric. And with less than 1% of the total cable
penetration, Linux users are eccentric.

AT&T has the service model I want: Do what you want but we only support what
we consider "standard". 

The only thing I wish is that they could be a bit faster answering service
calls. 45 minutes to an hour is a long time to wait to talk to them.

BAJ
> 
> After this misery we usually get good bandwidth and good uptime.  We still
> keep our Mindsproing account as a backup, though.

And this is why I keep them. I need to start thinking about a backup. I
cancelled both my Bellsouth dialups. Any suggestions that's ultra cheap?

BAJ
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