The following is a transcription of a complaint I am filing with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and possibly with the Federal Communications Commission. It is in regard to my internet connection provided jointly by SBC California and SBC/Yahoo Dial.
I would happily pay for DSL, but according to one of their tech people (who was frantically backpedaling after one of their rabid telemarketers told me it was available in my area and I was fed up with trying to make it work), it is not available if I am more than 3000 feet from their vault downtown. What that indicates is that if normal dialup service will not work on SBC's sorry phone lines, then DSL certainly will not. Anyway, I let another of their telemarketers sell me SBC/Yahoo Dial instead.
I have only the dialup service again, which one of their telemarketers sold me, claiming I would have unlimited service (see if you call what I am describing below unlimited). Please, SBC, do NOT send me any more cookbook instructions as to what I can do on my end. I have done everything there is to do. I have spent a considerable sum (for me at least) for a telephone line and an internet service that are totally unacceptable. If you cannot live up to your end of the agreement and provide the service I was told I would have, then just say so and tell me why you cannot.
Where to start? The problem concerns my internet connection in general and is different every time I try to sign on. Please be advised I am a disabled senior citizen shut-in who needs this connection for online banking, bill paying, and medical consultations for a crippling disease. The SBC/Yahoo service was sold to me by SBC itself, with the assurance that it would be available 24/7 for these purposes.
Some (but not all) of my problems:
The modem connects, usually at 28.8 kps. This is way down from the consistent 40.1 I had before, when I did not have the line noise I have had since moving. It often connects at speeds as low as 12.1 kps. Even when I can sign on at those vastly reduced speeds, the connection manager refuses to sign me into the service. Either the SBC/Yahoo browser refuses to open at all, or the browser opens but cannot load my start page. SBC/Yahoo tech support claims this is most likely due to noise on the phone lines, only on MY INTERIOR phone lines, of course.
Often the modem connects and the browser opens, but I get an "action-cancelled" message while waiting for my start page. On other occasions, the modem connects, the browser takes 1 to 3 minutes to open, and then there is no start page. Again I am told this usually results from excess circuit noise.
Then there are the times when the modem connects, the browser opens, and the start page comes up, but then I cannot navigate. I cannot access my mail, either through my email client or directly through my SBC/Yahoo mail service. Many, many times it takes so long for my email client to access my accounts that it times out before the passwords can be verified, thereby denying me access to my email. It is the same with sending emails.
The DU meter shows less than 10 kilobits per second download speeds, while uploads are a fraction of a kilobit. That is BITS, not BYTES. Totally unacceptable.
The connection goes away while I am typing in forums or during downloads, which, with the service I am getting, are the ONLY kind of downloads there are. Data transfer simply stops in either direction for minutes at a time, sometimes for good, or at least until I give up, manually clear the connection, reboot the computer, and sign back on. Half the time, when I give up in disgust and try to sign out, it cannot even get to and activate its own signout routine, and I have to manually clear the connection and shut down each running process individually.
I suffer dropped connections at approximately 5-minute intervals, especially during work-intensive operations such as opening email or during hours of peak traffic. The service level plainly varies with time of day and day of week, which indicates a traffic jam in the pipe somewhere. With my weak signals and slow connect and up/down speeds, I (the collective "I") am the first person sacrificed when the clog needs to be cleared a little. I tried from 6:45 AM to 12:10 pm to get online today. For all practical purposes, I get no service at all on weekends, at least during the peak hours.
In response to one of their form letters blaming everything in my home for these problems, I have done the following:
I completely replaced the interior wiring and the cable from the phone jack to the SBC junction box outside with heavy-duty, outdoor-rated phone cable.
I have three different new 56k modems and have tried them all with the latest drivers, with and without tweaked protocols. Two have V92 protocols, and none work any better or worse than the others. I replaced all connection cords with communications-grade shielded phone cords, none of which are coiled or any longer than they need to be (12 ft. maximum).
I do not have a toaster (one of the things that got blamed in the form letter), my refrigerator is propane powered, and I do not use the radio or TV while online (although I always could before). All fluorescent lights are turned off when attempting to use the connection. There are no power transformers close enough to the house to make a difference.
All this got me yet another form letter, giving me MORE things to look for here at home or adjustments to make to my equipment. It is the same exact equipment using the same exact protocols that I have always used.
Not once have these people even hinted that SBC and/or SBC/Yahoo may have a problem. From the number of complaints I am reading on online forums concerned with tech issues, mine is not an isolated case.
Getting nowhere with either customer service group, I decided to consult with an old-time Pac Bell installer/lineman friend. He informed me that little or no effort has been made, either by PacBell prior or SBC after the merger, to adequately maintain or improve the lines in the rural areas of our county in at least three decades or more. He specifically referred to outdated splices, cracked or dirty insulators, and corroded lines due to cracked insulation, all of which can greatly contribute to degradation of signal due to noise and decreased conductivity of the lines themselves. While a certain amount of degradation of signal can be expected due to distance, in a properly maintained circuit the degradation could at least be minimized to the point that the connection would be reliable and at least as fast as could be expected.
According to this person, all of SBC's efforts are going into providing new services (especially DSL) to new residential subdivisions closer to the downtown business districts in order to counter the growing popularity of cable internet services, which in most cases can outperform DSL and are generally available anywhere in the cable service area, while SBC cannot guarantee a decent dialup or DSL signal beyond 3000 feet???
This is discrimination at its rankest, since we pay exactly the same amount for our services, both phone and dialup internet, as those customers in the more favored areas. Others, then, are reaping the benefit of the charges we incur for third-rate service. The PUC and the FCC both need to address this issue.
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