The AT&T Fiber Upgrade Pt. Two

This is the only fiber I might ever get. (Photo by Rachael Gorjestani on Unsplash)

When we last left the story, after the initial call on March 10, 2021 I had been visited twice by AT&T technicians and three times by cable contractors hired by AT&T to install fiber. Where this picks up, it's still April 13th, and those cable contractors have just left, and I still am on DSL with a line of non-functioning fiber sticking out of my wall. Now I was pretty angry, but I was also laughing at the same time that the situation was so ridiculous. I decided to call AT&T and since the on-hold announcement said I could contact AT&T via web chat, I tried that at the same time. I got through on the chat first, I pulled up my notes, started typing.

The Chat

Note that the chat started a 6:11pm and stopped at 6:52. There were lots of pauses during this chat. And yes, these were the actual names as they appeared in the chat.

Agent Pansy enters chat

Pansy: Hi .! My name is Pansy. I'm happy to help.

Pansy: How can I help you?

Me: Do you need my account number?

Pansy: Yes

Me: xxxxxxxx

Pansy: Thank you

Pansy: Give me 2 minutes

Pansy: I see that you are checking the status of the upgrade

Me: Correct. I am not happy with the contractors that keep coming out to do the fiber run. The techs are fine, but not these contractors.

Me: The last I knew was that when I called on April 8th, the issue of the contractors installing the fiber was being taken over by another group, the Buried Wire Center where it was escalated to.

Pansy: I understand, I will exhaust all of my resources to help you with your concern, specially that today is my birthday!!

Pansy: Give me 2 minutes

Pansy: checking on this for you

Me: The contractors keep showing up unannounced in the evening. March 22nd, they installed the fiber. March 26th the tech said it was done wrong and that the contractors would be back. They came back April 5th unannounced (again). They asked me why they were there! They had no idea it was done wrong!

Pansy: I am escalating this for you

Me: That is when I called and things were escalated. I was told the Buried Wire Center had escalated it and that those technicians would be back.

Pansy: Give me 2 minutes

Me: Anyway the same two cable contractors who I was told would not be back just showed up today, This was after they said they'd return on the 6th, but I called and said I didn't want them. This third time they showed up unannounced yet again.

Me: All I want is fiber guys that know what they are doing to install the cable properly.

Pansy: please wait

Pansy: I am checking on this for you.

Me: Ok

Pansy: Thank you

Pansy: I was able to to get time slots on 19th april between 8-4 PM

Pansy: Shall i reserve it for you?

Me: Is this for the physical install of the fiber cable itself? That needs to happen first.

Pansy: Let me get you connected to my supervisor

Pansy has left the chat

You are being transferred, please hold...

Agent Clement enters chat

Clement: Hi! My name is Clement. I'm happy to help! Let's get started

Clement: Allow me 2 minutes, let me review previous conversation.

Me: Thank you

Clement: You're welcome.

Clement: Thank you for waiting.

Clement: I am working on it. Allow me few more minutes.

Me: Sure

Clement: Thank you.

Clement: I am sorry for the delay.

Clement: I checked with my resource and found that this is a Business account and we are unable to reschedule the appointment due to limited access.

Clement: May I know the best number to reach you to connect with the Business team?

Me: xxx-xxx-xxxx. I wish someone would have noticed 45 minutes ago when this chat started that this was a business account.

Me: Will I be contacted today?

Clement: I am sorry for that. Yes, You will receive a call in next 15-20 minutes.

Me: Thank you.

Clement: You are welcome.

Clement: Thank you for your time and patience.

Clement: Thank you for choosing AT&T. We appreciate your business. Have a great day!

End of Chat

Phone Company on the Phone

Fifteen minutes later, a supervisor called and the very first thing they said was "Let me me transfer you to someone else that handles business accounts." Because of course.

Once I was connected with the business center person, I explain the entire thing from the beginning. The business center person has to web chat to yet another department because he couldn't help me either. Whoever was on the other end of that web chat could not give certain information over the chat, so I was given the phone number to call them. I was apparently going to have to call the cable contractors' boss' boss. Here's the punch line. The people responsible for the cable contractors' work orders? The Buried Wire Center.

You remember them from part one of this tale. I was under the impression that the cable contractors were dispatched via the mysterious group, "The Back Office". No, they were dispatched by the Buried Wire Center.

I asked "Is the Buried Wire Center still open?"

"Yes."

I called. They were not.

Another Day, Another Call

It's April 14th, and I call the Buried Wire Center. I spoke with Daniel. Per their records someone came out and checked the line and it was working on April 10th. I advised the only time the line was tested was March 26 and it was not working, no one had been in my house to check the line as the far end of it was already in my house, just non-functional .

There was still a lot of waiting for responses from their internal web chat thing as Daniel was asking questions to someone else. He finally stated they were going to send someone to repair the line, and they would be a team of two contractors, and...

"Wait a minute. This isn't going to be those same two incompetent contractors who've been out three times, is it?"

Well I think you, fine blog reader, know the answer to that question.

I very calmly asked for someone else to come out, and quickly reminded them that repeating the same action without changing anything is going to deliver the same results. More typing. More chatting. I would get a call within 48 hours. Of course I would. I waited for that final question of this call, which finally came.

"Is there anything else I can help you with?"

I asked if they were updating a ticket, and if so I wanted the ticket number.

"You will not be able to view the ticket yourself."

I didn't care, I wanted the ticket number to help speed up future calls. Daniel gave it to me. And I had a few additional questions involving their internal structure, since I did not understand how and why they kept using the web chat thing. Apparently this was their main communication method during the pandemic.

My last question was simple. The Back Office that they chatted to, could I have their number so I could call directly? The answer was no.

Ironically on April 19th I received a call from AT&T, they wanted to let me know that I was eligible for a fiber optic upgrade, and if I wanted to get started. I guess no one had updated the cold call list.

A Long Pause, Then Another One

On May 11th I received an email from Laticia, the woman that had initiated the entire thing, letting me know I could earn money for referrals, and hoped I had a good experience. Due to life and other happenings I did not reply to this email until May 17th, when I brought Laticia “up to speed”.

She seemed shocked and asked two questions - did I have fiber service yet, and did I know the names of those contractors or had their ID numbers. No to all questions. The last one was interesting, as it never occurred to me that I could ask for ID numbers. That could be interesting. Laticia replied on May 18th that she was going to be “looking into the situation to see where the ball was dropped and why.” At that point I think she dropped the ball.

…And a Late Edit

I originally had another couple of sentences where I made a joke or two, and set this up to publish automatically on Friday July 2nd. I did that on June 20th, so it was a full month’s wait at that time. This post is long enough, but just to prime the pump for the next post I got a cold call from AT&T’s Business Center on June 21st about - you guessed it - a fiber upgrade, and I said yes. I have absolutely no faith since I’m typing this on June 30th, the day they were supposed to arrive at 8am, and it is 2:46pm in the afternoon. I am tempting the gods by even typing those words. Will they show up? Will I have 50mb down 10mb up on DSL forever? We’ll see in part three….