AT&T - No internet is fine?

[mariasama16.livejournal.com]

Just have to get this off my chest. I work as first tier (yes I know) tech-support for a large global company (and provide support for other large global companies... we're their outsourced helpdesks). One of our users just called in having troubles getting onto the VPN. They had just talked to us about half an hour prior and one of our techs told them to contact AT&T (their provider). AT&T claims the problem is not on their end, since the modem is sending and receiving fine but neither home computer nor work computer are able to see the internet, they're giving the nice little "limited or no connectivity". Now, I can see them foisting the guy back on us for his work computer, but for the home computer to not be able to get on the internet when we don't touch them? That's a deal breaker in my book. Luckily, it appears that the problem was resolved by powercycling both modem and router (and dear lord do I hate those individual boxes that combine the 2 and wish I knew of a way to turn off their wireless capabilities if the user has a separate router).

I guess my question is, is it normal to have someone get off the phone with their provider with no internet? To add backstory to this, apparently he'd been on the phone with AT&T for several hours today over a couple of periods to get his internet fixed. Now, there was also some minor issues with one of our techs trying to set up his wireless (fixed in 2 minutes remotely and on-site couldn't do it in 2 days) way prior to this. Upshoot was, I got both computers working, wireless set up and secured and him on the VPN, in only 30 minutes.

Still grumbling about that AT&T tech though.

Comments

[fearrett.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, sounds like my work at IBM supporting Zurich.

[omg-teh-funnay.livejournal.com]

Support Boundaries are really common and are a shield to protect us, the techs, from a whole maelstrom of problems and grief.

[jecook]

Not to mention legal action.

There are things I cannot do at work to certain machines, for example, because of various legal restrictions surrounding the software that the hardware runs, even though the hardware is completely bog-standard (as far as I'm aware) the best we can do with them is have the end users reboot them, and if that does not work, then we call the vendor out to fix it.

[fnordx.livejournal.com]

If they're former Bellsouth techs, then I'm not surprised at all. I work in a web hosting department for what used to be Bellsouth, and, literally, half our calls are from DSL techs transfering people to us for no good reason.

Have a business account? Transfer to web hosting. Can't load up a web site? Transfer to web hosting. Having a problem with your home page? Transfer to web hosting. Having a problem with your phone? Transfer to web hosting.

I wish that was an exaggeration, but it's not.

[whitewolf3399.livejournal.com]

It could be worse, at least you're not in ISP Security. They get all the calls from the NOC ;)

[fenrirvallin.livejournal.com]

Our techs are really pretty bad most of the time. If I really need anything done, I have to warm transfer and yell at them.

When a billing rep from the same company calls up and ends up asking for your manager, you might be doing something wrong...

[justwalker.livejournal.com]

The first person this customer talked to at ANY company (AT&T or yours) should have had him reboot both the modem and the router. That's just common sense. In AT&T's minimal defense, if the PCs both say "limited or no connectivity," then it's the router. No question. Tech support 101.

[superbus.livejournal.com]

Seconded. Bounce the router. A monkey could tell someone that in between throwing his own dung at the phone. *SPLAT* OOK OOOOK AAAH!!! (BOUNCE THE ROUTER!) *SPLAT*

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

Thirded. Since when has anyone one rung up any kind of support without rebooting everything rebootable in sight? It's tech support 005 (remedial).

[ace-brickman.livejournal.com]

+1

Funny thing is, right about the time I'm at the point of describing the user's issue in our ticketing system (after getting name, numbers, etc..) the computer's re-started up and their issue has disappeared.

[canray.livejournal.com]

Rule one: Unplug EVERYTHING!

Rule two: Wrap the house in Tinfoil to prevent the alien mind-control devices attached to satelites from taking over your thoughts.

Oh... Sorry, wrong tech support solution.

[mariasama16.livejournal.com]

Actually, it was the first thing I had the user do. :) It just frustrated me to basically have a user with no working internet whatsoever and my contract says to not touch home computers if at all possible. I actually used the home computer to verify internet connectivity before even working on getting the work computer to function.

[spacebird.livejournal.com]

I guess my question is, is it normal to have someone get off the phone with their provider with no internet?

Having previously worked at a company that did some support for AT&T....

yes.

[zzyzx.livejournal.com]

I have a good idea of where you worked, and you sir, are correct.

[abstrak-tokatl.livejournal.com]

heletech sucks!


ruuuuuuuuuuun!

[mogaribue.livejournal.com]

"I can ping the cable modem, it's fine!". I go through this all the time, and we have small offices hanging off Comcast as a back up. I try to explain "yes, but it's losing 5% of those pings and that's not good" and they don't listen. Ugh. I hate Comcast.

[kyidyl.livejournal.com]

I guess my question is, is it normal to have someone get off the phone with their provider with no internet?

Yes, but, normally it depends on what the user tells them, especially if they've talked to application support first. What the user to AT & T was probably "I can't get onto my VPN." Or something of those lines. Obviously, the ISP isn't going to support VPN software, and so because of the way ISP helpdesk are run (AHT, call volume, factory-like, etc.) they don't even has any furthur questions, they just boot them back to you.

I've found that it greatly helps the user to tell them "when you talk to X other company tell them _________" and give them very specific phrasing. While I was at AOL I went as far as to say "Don't even mention that you have this unless they ask. As soon as they hear the words they'll boot you back to us." This is especially good when it's something flaky like, they can get to websites but their VPN won't connect, but you've figured out that it's because the ISP blocked the port that the VPN needs. This happened a few times at Verizon. Or when they can get to websites...but you do a tracert and everything comes up stars. I used to tell them, especially when at AOL and sending them to Bright House (who absolutly hates AOL. And oh, explaining to idiots, "yes...I KNOW they're the same company, but we don't have an tools with which to access and fix their network."), to leave the ping/tracert screen up to show their ISP.

So, yes, it's common (especially w/ companies like HP and Dell, where most of their techs are indian and the customers can't understand a damned word they're saying. HP has some meeeeean techs.), especially since the customer doesn't really know how to communicate the problem correctly.

[mariasama16.livejournal.com]

I can't say what the other tech told them to do when the user contacted AT&T, but notes on the previous ticket does mention the internet light was out on the modem and the user thought he might have had a message from AT&T about a problem with the bill. Presumably, our tech told them to get the internet working first :P

[sassyblu]

I work in software support and our products interact with a whole host of other websites, applications and email servers. Sometimes things bounce everywhere before they get fixed, and sometimes they never do get fixed. The least favorite part of my job is explaining to a grey haired granny that their ISP has blocked their email because they are on a SPAM list. Or that the app simply doesn't work with some mail servers because they require SSL encryption (not yet supported by our apps). The reaction is usually H-u-H?!? followed by "your software sucks!"

[jesus1310.livejournal.com]

See, here's the thing. "Limited or no Connectivity" means "not pulling an IP." Since the computers are connected to a router and not (at least directly) to the modem, this means that either 1. The router is not assigning IP addresses, or 2. The computers are having their own issues with DHCP.
Bear with me here.
Since AT&T has absolutely nothing to do with third party routers, being an ISP and all...why were they even contacted?