So now I’m on the phone talking to someone else at the Business High Speed Internet office at Island Tel. She tell me that Watts Communications does the “first tier” technical support for Residential High Speed Internet. I explain to her my current frustrations. I offer to upgrade to the Business product if it will let me talk to a technician. She thinks this doesn’t make sense, as I would be paying more for exactly the same service. She offers to transfer me directly to “second tier” support. So I get to talk to Cindy. Cindy is very capable, obviously understands exactly what the problem is, makes sure she understands all of the details, and tells me that she will call me back in 20 minutes to 1/2 an hour. I no longer feel like a jerk. Cindy even says “this is obviously time-sensitive as you have some work to get done on that server.” This is good.

So I called the Island Tel High Speed Business desk to see if I moved to their Business as opposed to their Residental High Speed Internet product, could I get better technical support.
What I was told, in essence, was the Island Tel has nothing to do with the technical support for Residential High Speed Internet. In fact the guy I talked so said that he had no idea who offered technical support for Residential High Speed Internet.
Apparently, if I sign a three-year contract (although I was told that this is a “meaningless” verbal contract that I could easily get out of), I can get Business High Speed Internet for $59.95 a month. This gives me all sorts of cruft that I don’t need (domain name, etc.), but also apparently lets me talk to actual Island Tel technicians (as opposed to the mystery guys that handle Residential support, that is).
The question is, should I continue to date Island Tel at this point, or look at the Eastlink offering?

So I’m having another problem with my Island Tel Internet. Last time I had problem like this, Island Tel threatened me with legal action for talking about it, but I think they were just frustrated, so I won’t let that bother me.
The current problem is weird: I maintain a server for Yankee Publishing in Boston. I use my Island Tel High Speed Internet to ssh to the server to maintain it. I’ve been doing this with no problems for over a year.
Yesterday at 2:30 p.m., I could no longer reach the Yankee server, and I haven’t been able to since. After contacting Xensei, Yankee’s Quincy, MA-based ISP, it became evident that the problem was on this end: for some reason, the Aliant/Bell/ITAS network was rejecting packets from the ypi.com server.
Weirder still was the fact that only packets directed at my IP address were being rejected. I could get at the server with no problem from other machines on the Island Tel network. Heck, I could even get at the server from another machine plugged into the same DSL-connected hub here in the office.
A simple problem to solve, one would think. Or hope. So I called 1-800-773-2121, the Island Tel technical “support” line. And talked to a guy who, through no fault of his own, could neither understand the problem, nor offer to do anything but “escalate to second level technicians.” They would be back to me “in a couple of days” he said. (this couple of days thing seemed so absurd I ignored it, thinking it was some sort of joke or worst-case-scenario thing).
So last night I naively sat back and rested easy in the notion that the problem was being addressed by the crack second level guys.
Until 8:46 p.m. when I got a call back from the first level guy looking for the IP address of the ypi.com server. He’d forgotten to ask for that.
Or until 11:10 a.m. this morning when I called in again to see how the big escalation was going only to be blown off with a comment that I should just sit tight and be patient.
Or until 11:20 a.m. this morning when another first level guy phoned back to ask for that ypi.com IP address again.
At this point, any goodwill that Island Tel has earned over the last year by providing me with good service is now gone. My overall feeling is that they wish I would go away.
The funny thing is that this is all about attitude, and has little to do with technical issues. I know that the Internet is a complicated jungle to figure out, and I would be naive to think that anyone can make it work all the time. But I also know, from my universally positive experiences with both Xensei and ISN that it’s possible to run an Internet company without making your customers feel like jerks for bothering you.

Looking a Oliver’s immunization card, I realized that, being born on October 1, 2000 as he was, the abbreviated version of his birthdate is 10/01/00, which is binary number 36 if you take out the slashes. Hmmmm.

Telecommunications is complicated. It’s getting more complicated as telephone companies become cable companies and vice versa. It’s things like this that only make it worse. Surely there must be simpler ways to help businesses save money? Why don’t you just lower the prices?

On the CeeDees 1986 self-titled album there’s song called France which goes, in part:

To see you would be thrilling, but I cannot take that chance.
What’s the time in France?
What’s the time in France?
Where in the hell is France?

Once you get over the whole swine-metaphor laced nature of radio station KPIG (and you do have to admire the extents to which they go in this direction; my favourite is the Lard Card), it’s probably the best radio station in the world. I’ve been listening solidly for about 5 days now, and I continue to be amazed with the breadth and quality of music they play. Especially of note is their Sunday morning live music program Please Stand By.