SBC California (and SBC/Yahoo)
SBC, Aka Multi-tier service levels, single tier rate schedule Unknown California

Thursday 3/18

As the latest chapter in my long history of taking over for Quixote, I decided to ask SBC a question or two about their neglected and sorry phone service in the rural areas of California (and, I at least assume, other states). Since I've moved out to the sticks (only three miles out of town mind you), the phone service has degraded to the point that I've gone from 40k connection speeds to as little as 14.4 with an average of about 26. I'm also having dropped voice calls on a CORDED telephone. Understand from the beginning that SBC is my phone comany AND my internet provider. There are no third parties here.

Now I kinda sorta understand a slowdown in service based on your distance from the phone company's little vault thingy there in town although I don't see it as something that they couldn't fix if they wanted to badly enough. When this little patch of farmland here is a brand new subdivision in the city of Tulare with 2000 homes, 4000 SUVs and several thousand yuppies and their various forms of larva on it... Well, you can damned well bet the telephones are going to work right and it's STILL gonna be just as far from here to that little vault thingy.

My new goal is to find a way to get them to want to provide a decent level of service badly enough to do something before then and to that end, I'm attempting to question their practice of charging rural customers the same rates as they do their urban and metropolitan customers.

Those people are going to look you right in the eye and tell you that your service is going to be significantly inferior to that enjoyed by other (more important?) residential customers, that it's just a function of their system and niether you nor they can or will do anything about it. Then they tell you that you're going to have pay just as much for it as those other customers do. This ain't a cool thing, folks.

My service is not only markedly inferior, it's non-existent throughout most of the day. I have a small window of opportunity during the wee little hours of the night, when most sensible people are asleep and dreaming about all that email they're going to get and the surfing they'll be doing at their liesure tomorrow. The rest of the time it's a indefinite maybe and if I do get on, it's only after 10 or so tries.

I'm assuming that this is because there are fewer calls jammed onto a system that hasn't seen a significant increase in carrying capacity in the last 50 years or so at two to four in the morning than there are during the other 22 hours a day.

For this (by SBC's own admission, remember) inferior service I give up a rather large percentage of my very meager fixed income. Seems to me that if my service is going to be downgraded by a certain amount automatically for every mile I live from town, I should have my rates downgraded by a proportionate amount. Y'all wouldn't pay the same for half a sack of bull puckey for your garden as you would for a full sack, now would you? Same thing.

It's been years since I watched a connection time out before you even got to your home page. I've watched this thing sit here for five minutes without receiving a single packet while it's grunting and shaking like a dog passing a peach pit trying to get my SBC browser open and my home page downloaded, something that never took more than a few seconds when I was a "townie".

This goes far beyond "inferior" service. This is basically no service with my "rural" money being used to add new urban and metro customers and upgrade those new yuppie subdivisions on a daily basis. Again, this ain't cool. If I'm going to be charged the same, I want the same service as everyone else. That ain't too hard to get yourself around now, is it?

Addendum: Friday 3/19

I got an email from sbcytech@sbcglobal.net trying to assist me. Nice fella but he blamed my problems on everything from my toaster to a cat walking across the floor in the house next door. Just made sure he didn't mention that little disclaimer on their support page where they admit that the service will deteriorate in proportion to your distance from their machinery.

Told me a bunch of things to do to my network settings. I did 'em all, just like he instructed me to do and WOW!

It connected almost instantly, and in less than a second the browser was open. Then, just as instantaneously a message popped up on screen telling me that someone had cancelled my requested action, which was the opening of my home page. Nobody here but me but I looked around the house anyway, just in case. I knew I didn't cancel it.

Told me to hit the refresh button. I did that and it said it couldn't FIND my home page. Been doing it ever since. Since about 6 this morning and as of 2:30 this afternoon I have been unable to access SBC at all.

SBC is my $22 a month ISP. I also have a $10 a month ISP I hadn't cancelled yet. Used it to get on line although it's also very slow and the connection is shaky. Used my $10 ISP to access my $22 ISP and get my mail and such. Using it now to file this report.

The problem is the phone lines folks. SBC is a monopoly and we can't get cable or DSL from anyone else out here and they know it. If we want internet services at all, it has to go over THEIR phone lines and they know that too. Until they decide to bring a system that was installed here almost 80 years ago, when only maybe one house in ten even HAD a phone, into the 21st century, we're being ripped off in the rural areas and it's time to make it known.

Tom
Tulare, District of Columbia
U.S.A.

Company: SBC California (and SBC/Yahoo)
Country: USA
State: Nationwide
Site: www.sbcglobal.net

  <     >