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Just how stupid are ISP tech support personnel?


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Just a rant. Just got off the phone with ATT about a connectivity issue that has plagued my mom for about the last week. It comes and goes. While troubleshooting they ask me to clear my cookies and cache. WTF is that going to do to fix my connectivity issue? :realmad:

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Clearing the cache also clears the DNS cache - if it magically fixes things, it actually does give the tech a clue about what's wrong. I may be being overly optimistic in believing the tech knows this, but it is in fact true.

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On what browsers does it clear the DNS cache? I have my dns cache service disabled as I have looked at the entries in it and they are usually less than 10 if I remember correctly. I don't see how that will help anything as what is up with the entries? Are they currupt? Are they somehow pointing to the wrong IP? I don't buy it.

What about cookies? Jesus lord wtf is that supposed to do but make you have to re-setup all your site preferences and logins.

Edited by -X-
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I was in the call center business during the time the switchover happened. All the tier one reps are pretty much CSRs. They are handicapped by what they are allowed to do, they don't have the technical or applied knowledge of the systems and mainly operate off a script. There used to be a point where you could get an engineer on a first hit on the call center, but even then the script and support limitations were in effect. And they were surely enforced. Something happened where the real techs got pushed out and the cheaper (salary) CSR type person took over that job.

It isn't just ISPs either. The real problem is when someone with some technical knowledge (like us) would call for something specific. This is a situation that the tech support person is not prepared for an often won't respond properly. As an example, I was having trouble with my internet connection. I was able to verify, on my own, that the problem was not on my own end and had identified which portion of the ISP's network was having an issue. I called into their tech support and reported that specific link was having a latency issue and it should be reported to their engineers. However, since all the rep had "heard" was that my internet wasn't working, they said to reboot the modem and to connect my PC to the modem and not use the router! :rolleyes:

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Answer to initial question/Topic - http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4129/5070200770_4ec7edbb53_z.jpg

Don't get me started - Having a NIC connection, they STILL asked "What is your OS". Answer was "irrelevant". They didn't like the answer so I just said "XP" to continue the convo.

Use CCleaner to clear it all out (regardless of browser?) and call them back. Truly, the Phone Lines (since you said ATT) could be getting "static" (electrical interference) from outside. This was the problem when I had RR-Cable (dumped it for ATT - $) after they FINALLY got a tech to "fix it". They kept insisting "connect directly to modem and reboot".

Straight-forward method -

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/ipconfig.mspx

Then let's see them deny it...

Edited by submix8c
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On what browsers does it clear the DNS cache? I have my dns cache service disabled as I have looked at the entries in it and they are usually less than 10 if I remember correctly. I don't see how that will help anything as what is up with the entries? Are they currupt? Are they somehow pointing to the wrong IP? I don't buy it.

What about cookies? Jesus lord wtf is that supposed to do but make you have to re-setup all your site preferences and logins.

Most browsers keep a DNS cache separately from the OS cache, and while I don't have specific documentation for other browsers, Microsoft talks about IE and DNS here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/263558

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  • 3 weeks later...

Okay I am going to say, this all ISP are morons. I went to mine in person, it looked alot like that facility from "Terminator 2" that was blown up. I am not saying that is how I feel about them, but you go pass the barb wire, and parked trucks, and staff waiting for calls to pick up non-paying boxes. Deep inside what do you find??? Like a whole room of fifty tubby, fat, old, or not young at all women. I mean that just sucks, when you see one throw a persons equipment into a pile, after returning it.

Nowadays I call them, they just seem to have an attitude on the phone, always suggesting to send an worker ( a person who you pay usually ) or they keep reminding me ( everytime I start to speak up ) that their is a recording, and blah blah blah law blahb lah blah used against you blah.

The one greatest joy I had in a long time, was canceling every other service not including internet, and then saying no to any other offers including, price reducaitons, and higher speeds. It was like a sweet talking, punk on the phone, trying and practically giving me dumb reasons to get back all the services.

We will give you free storage space

We will give you a modem that has more features

We willl give you free international calling for ten year

blah blah blah blah what will the children do for television

Don't you want fiber optics, fiber optics if the future. ( Thank you I prefer my copper line )

We will give you everything for ten dollars a month.

blah blah blah blah you have been with us for such a long time why the big hurry.

I mean whatever happen to the days, when a service center had like less then ten people, and

not the entire cyberdime facility with terminators walking back and forth at look out points, and

fully loaded.

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dunno how its in your countries, but in mine on ISP phone (tech support) are students that work as part time jobs
and their knowledge is less than zero

its hilarious when I heard them (this was 2 yrs ago) still list paper scripts to find answer
nowdays its probably fast search inside MS word :puke:

so yeh, never expect professionalism and/or knowledge from phone support :P

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nowdays its probably fast search inside MS word :puke:

Well, no. :no:

You can't use the words "Ms word" and "fast search" in a same sentence.

You cannot even have "Ms Word" and just "fast", obviously. ;)

jaclaz

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I had to post and say that even though most of my experiences with ISP tech support has been marginal at best, every once in a while you end up with a good one. :)

Just last week I had a problem where my internet went down for several hours after having been up and down occasionally over the last several weeks, though the phone and TV of my combined bundled service seemed fine. So I figured it was probably the cable modem, even though it was fairly new, but I put in a call to tech support anyway. I got someone on the phone very quickly, (after I bypassed the automated help system which I still detest). The tech, who was from and located in my country and was a native speaker of my language, was able to verify that the modem was indeed off line, and also was able to look back through their history to see that I had been off line far more often than I knew I had been, along with verifying the times that I knew about. The tech said that he could also tell that at least one of the signal levels seemed a bit off and thought that it was more likely a problem external to the house rather than the cable modem, but of course he couldn't be sure since he couldn't access the modem remotely to access it's logs. I asked why the internet would be down when the TV and phone remained up if it was a problem external to the house and everything came in on the same cable, and he said that they were on different frequencies and the internet was sometimes a bit more finicky than the other two. He went ahead and set up a service call. I said I could run to town and swap out the cable modem anyway "just in case". He then asked how long that would take, and, after I told him, he suggested that he call me back when I expected I would be back so he could talk me through the installation and handle the activation of it for me, which is required here. That surprised the heck out of me but I said sure, OK, even though I figured I could handle it on my own. Anyway, before I could get ready and go out to exchange the cable modem, the internet came back up again, (of course), so I didn't go. But a few hours later, at the agreed upon time, the tech called back! He went ahead and confirmed everything, said that some of the signals were definitely not up to spec, and was able to confirm an earlier time for my service call with a tighter scheduling window, (2 hours instead of 4). A day and a half later the service guy showed up on time. (My internet had remained up in the meantime.) He couldn't find anything wrong out on the pole, but thought that the line from the pole to the house looked rather old, so he changed it out. Afterwards, he said that when he took the old line down that he thought it was likely that it had gotten some water in it, affecting the signal transmission. That definitely seemed logical to me since this has been the second wettest year on record for this area. He also changed out the box that is screwed to the side of the house, installed a new ground wire, changed out the signal splitters used inside the house, and changed out every single cable connector throughout the house to the ones that the cable company currently approved. He even left me a dozen or so extra connectors in case I wanted to make any wiring changes myself later. All told, the work he did improved the signal strength about 4 dB, measured at the input to the cable modem, which is significant. When he left, he gave me his card with his personal cell number so I could call him directly if I had any problems or questions. I haven't had any problems since then. This was the most professional and pleasant ISP service experience that I have ever had. It kind of reaffirms my faith in humanity. :)

Cheers and Regards

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I do call my ISP tech support around once a month and i laugh when they ask for my OS because my answer is "linux", then they go to the hardware and i say "the cablemodem is wired only, power unplugged for minutes or all night because there is no button reset". That takes less than ten minutes to have it fixed by increasing something where they are or just get the answer "a technician is heading to your home tomorrow".

The problem has been that technicians do a barely good job when they come to check and/or repair, the bad thing is an expensive monthly billing with any kind of tech support included, needed or not.

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