One of the most arduous tasks in moving in the US invariably seems to be broadband setup. Ever since my first experience with US West/Qwest in Des Moines back in 1998 setting up DSL, it is a process I dread. One would that in a decade things had improved. My two experiences in Troy, NY were mostly positive. The first time setting up a cable modem wasn’t bad, but required more than a week of waiting and eventually the price of service rose so high that I dropped it in favor of Dry Loop (no phone service) DSL from Verizon, which again, aside from a roughly week long lag time in setup served us very well, and at a lower price point.
I hoped that my experience here in Athens might at least match those of Troy, but I was sorely mistaken. Which brings me to my current travails, and a realization that “monopolies” as a monolithic category that people tend to throw around really doesn’t get at the underlying systems and structures that make us so (typically) frustrated with them.
At first I thought I must have been mistaken, when I called Charter Cable on the Monday after our arrival here in Athens. They told me that I could get a cable modem installed, basic cable, all completed on Wednesday. They said that a technician would arrive at our house between 8AM and 10AM. I dared to believe that it might happen. They seemed so on the ball. We sheduled a meeting with our realtor for Noon that same day, figuring that two hours of buffer would be sufficient.
Then the fun and games began. At 9AM I recieve an automated call saying that the technician will arrive between 9AM and 10AM, which I assumed, because he hadn’t shown up between 8AM and 9AM thus leaving the remaining window of opportunity for 9AM to 10AM. 10AM passed. I called Charter at 10:30AM and they weren’t sure what the status was, but they assured me that it would get fixed and that the technician would be by the next day between 10AM and Noon.
The following day 10AM to Noon passed with no technician. At 2PM I recieved a phone call telling me that the technician was on his way to the office to pick up my equipment and would call when he was on his way. He never did. I call Charter again and they tell me that the earliest they could get a technician out to me was on Sunday between 6PM and 8PM. This time a technician did come, but at 9:30PM. He was very nice, but said that the cabling at the house was out of date and would need to be updated, but he couldn’t do it, because it was dark.
The next morning I called and “canceled” my “service” with Charter. One would think that the story would end there, but it really hasn’t. I had to call two weeks later when I realized that I’d been charged for my “installation” to have those fees refunded. When several more weeks had passed I attempted using Charter’s online support to figure out why I hadn’t gotten my refund yet. I was told that they wont cut me a check for six to eight weeks. So now I’ve given Charter a six to eight week loan, which they were happy to charge me for, but couldn’t just credit back to my card? What planet are they on or what year are they in? 1997?
So, obviously if I’ve been dealing with Charter’s poor support online, I must have solved my Internet dilemma, right? Indeed. In doing so though, I’ve entered into a relationship with another Monopoly, AT&T. Of course I’m an iPhone user, so this wasn’t so much of a new relationship, as it was the extension of one. I called AT&T on a Friday afternoon, the day after I was told by Charter that I couldn’t get service without upgrading the cable of a house which I didn’t own. The AT&T operator checked the address and said that the location was qualified for any of their DSL bundles, all of which were cheaper than Charter’s cable Internet service.
I asked how quickly the service could be activated, as courses were about to begin at UGA and I needed to pull my fall syllabi together. She asked if I would be needing a modem. I asked if I could use my old DSL modem. She asked me what brand it was and I told her that I had a Westell modem which I’d been using with Verizon. She said that it shouldn’t be a problem and that they would make sure my service was turned on at Midnight that night. After my previous experiences with DSL I was skeptical.
It turned out that the expediting process wasn’t properly done, but a customer support call on Saturday assured me that it would be activated Saturday at midnight. Again, I feared I was treading down a Charter-like path. Thanks to my iPhone though, I began to glean more information that would likely help me get online. Like the default username and password that the modem would need to direct me through the registration process (attreg@att.net with password “attreg”). Again, after midnight on Saturday I tried again. Still no luck. Again my iPhone gleaned more answers: VPI=0 and VCI=35; ATM Encapsulation = Bridged LLC. The modem rebooted and the DSL light stayed green. Slightly more than 48 hours after calling AT&T, I was up an running.
What I didn’t really realize at the time was that my new home DSL connection with AT&T would also provide me with the ability to get online for free at any Starbucks or Barnes and Noble in the US. Because of their monopoly, I was actually getting better or more service. This is where I became distressed, this reminded me more of Google’s monopolistic practices rather than those Telco’s I have become so accustomed to.
So I began this note, hoping to think through a bit precisely what makes a monopoly bad, good, worse, or better. No conclusions, simply the thought that I must be a bit more thoughtful about the whole concept.
Additional Note: I actually started this post in mid-August after having arrived in Georgia. It has taken me until now to finish it. C’est la vie.