Ain't Technology Great!

Last year we switched everything to Uverse:  phone, Internet and cable TV.  Took the install guy over half a day, but he got it done.  New wiring from the main box, new line into the house, and remote boxes that work of the primary, plus a new wireless router for Internet.  Everything has been awesome, with a glitch, here and there. 

Every now and then, the signal would drop.  To the surprise of the spousal unit, she lost a phone call in the middle of a conversation.  Recently, we have been experiencing signal drops much more often.  Finally, we decided it was time to put in a service call.

Uverse is part of AT&T.  Typically, for customer service, you call one number for a repair. Ah, but not with AT&T.  Uverse has its own separate customer service unit.  We learned long ago that making a phone call is pretty much an effort in futility.  First you have to find the right number, have your account code, and sit on hold and wait, and wait and wait.  There has to be a better way, right?

With this service call, I got smart.  OK, I thought, just go online, and contact AT&T Uverse through their website.  Ha!  Getting to the website was the easy part.  Next, you have to sign in to your account.  Well, your Uverse account is different from your AT&T account, which now is just the cellular service.  I got through all of this.  Now to make contact!

After about fifteen minutes of searching, I finally get to the customer service section of the site.  Everything is automated.  It push me into doing "self diagnostics".  This merely validated that I had a signal feed connected to Uverse, well DUH....  I then accidentally find the "live chat" link.  The sucker is now flashing "all customer service reps are busy".  Gee, I could have gotten that over the phone!  I initiate a contact and begin to wait.  Guess what, signal drops!  Starting all over again....

I reconnect with the customer service link once the signal comes back.  I have an online chat with Ieesha.  I tell her our issues of the signal dropping.  She is able to confirm that I have a signal.  She asks me to verify the color of the lights displaying on the equipment.  Up the stairs I go.  After 40 minutes of online conversation, she decides that Uverse needs to send a technician out to monitor the line.  If he has to enter the house, there is a flat $99 fee.  I have been at this now, from start to finish, for over an hour and a half, and she finally decides to send a technician.  Ain't technology great!  The technician  would be here the next day, from 4-8 pm to monitor the signal activity.

Technician arrives, and jumps right in.  He hooks into the smart box, the the words :you gotta be kidding me" come rolling off his tongue.  It seems that Ieesha "reset" our system.  "Resetting" the system ERASES all of the signal activity that has been stored in the box.  After shaking his head, he looks at us, and says, "congratulations! you get all new equipment". since all the history has been wiped clean!  He was not happy.  We just wanted an uninterrupted signal!  Hour and a half later, we had all new equipment, even new wiring from the outside box to the inside equipment.  Ain't technology great!

Technician packed up his equipment and apologized for the length of his stay.  He said, if this doesn't fix your problem, then the problem  would be at the switch box down the street, and that would be a "bugger bear" to figure out.  Ain't technology great, buggers and all!

So far, so good.   Two days later, and no signal drops.  Ain't technology great!