Fucking Qwest...

[bdinger.livejournal.com]

I'm a Network Admin for a healthcare distributor. I've also previously worked for an ISP, and been a geek for as long as I can remember.

Our offsite location is in a city served only by Qwest. Recently they rolled out a new DSL package that offered 1536k down and 896k up for some insanely cheap amount. After getting a /26 I think it ended up costing us around $60/mo. We previously had a 128k frame-relay and a 640/640 qwest DSL.

Since I've started this job, that location was the bane of my existence. There was a Novell Netware 4 server up there with one windows 95 PC and a couple printers. Connected via 10 fucking base 2 to each other. I ditched all of that shit in favor of two linux servers, a 3Com switch, a HP Jetdirect print server, and a Win2k workstation.

So four weeks ago the DSL starts bouncing. Previously it had been perfect. The line quality was great, and it had been up for a month. Never a problem since we cut to the new DSL (and DMT encapsulation). Now it's randomly timing out and retraining.

For two hours I try to convince this damn phone monkey that it's a physical line problem, not a problem with our equipment. Finally they agree to send a tech out. I accept the 24 hour wait with pride, I'm used to low-priority tickets that DSL's merit.

At the same time, the POTS lines begin to fuck up. They will randomly start buzzing, and doing weird shit in general. I call repair. They immediately blame inside wiring. I point out the building is about 5 years old. OOps on them.

...Long saga ensues...

Two weeks ago today I finally got pissed off. It had been two fucking weeks, and I was going on vacation the next week - so I needed it fixed. I turned into mean-evil-customer. I mean, seriously. One of the techs they sent out ASKED ME IF YOU COULD MAKE A PHONE CALL ON THE LINE WHILE THE DSL WAS ACTIVE.

Finally they tell me, that friday, that it's fixed. Looks beautiful. Great. Happy. I go on vacation...

...and Monday morning my cellphone rings at 8am while I'm snoozing in a cabin on Leech Lake in Minnesota. It's fucked again. I let the office staff deal with it..

...and Tuesday they call me saying that Qwest says it's our equipment.

this may be the point where i lost my temper...

From Minnesota I called the "local supervisor" and tore into him the minute he blamed our equipment. I shouldn't say blamed, he downright said to me "Your shitty equipment is the problem". Finally I told him that I would have an electrican come replace the lines in the building for the DSL (no biggie, it's a max 50ft run), and if that wasn't the problem - Qwest would pay for it. He agreed.

Electrician came in - and guess what? SAME THING. The whole time this was happening I kept asking them if we were on an overloaded pair. They kept denying it.

So today I get a call. It's a Qwest tech from Minneapolis who is "here to clean up this mess". Guess what those assfucks did? The local assfuck techs put our DSL on the same binder group (25 pair cable) as a T1. Duh. DUH.

They apparently had the shit SO FUCKED UP that this group was brought in to repair it. Contrary to what they had told me, as well, we were not the only ones with problems. Basically everyone in the area was having problems. And the incompetent local techs kept fucking it up worse.

Nice, huh?

Fucking morons. Fucking bloody ass-fucking morons. I could kill them all.

Comments

[bdinger.livejournal.com]

I agree fully.

I'll note that they only really finally started moving after I threatened to move to a different provider and move the three lines up there to VOIP (not that hard, only two lines are voice, and i can route the faxes through our fax server in our main location).

But seriously, I've never experienced that level of incompetence. I thought Alltel was bad, but they are nothing. In our main location our primary POTS and Data is through Alltel, with a seconday connection through Time Warner Datacomm. Hell, with TWD I get a 30 minute commit time to any request.

It's very sad when a glorified cable company beats out a major telco.

I am serious, though. As soon as TWD/TWC Biz can get fiber run out to where our offsite is at (by the local airport), I'm giving Qwest the finger. Troubleshooting VOIP over a WAN is nothing compared to those assfucks.

[bdinger.livejournal.com]

I was much more impressed with TWC.

Like I said, in that respect it really is sad.

Hell, Alltel is even better than them. Alltel kisses our ass, and while they may be incompetent, at least they stick to the problem.

Qwest, OTOH, is notorious for either not fixing the problem, or half-fixing it.

Fuckers.

Qworst

[dubhain.livejournal.com]

I know (socially) a Qworst Admin who's clueful. He seems to be a rarity in their organization.

Even back when Qworst was US Worst, they had a reputation for constantly perpetrating this sort of clusterfuckage.

At [previous employer], we had to fight with them for an average of three days, each service call, and line-item-verify that it wasn't our equipment causing the problem every step of the way. The general process went something like:

- Call Qworst.
- Report problem.
- Listen to calltaker bullshit us that everything checked out on their end, so it must be our problem. Listen to asshat suggest problem.
- Call Qworst.
- Yell at them we'd troubleshot our network again, and didn't find a problem.
- Listen to calltaker patronize us and imply that we don't know how to manage our own network. Listen to asshat suggest yet_another_problem.
- Call Qworst.
- Yell at them that we'd troubleshot....
- Lather, rinse, repeat.

Eventually, after several days (sometimes after a couple of weeks), they'd send a tech out to trace the problem and find out that they'd mistakenly reconfigured one of our T1 lines as a voice line, or cut the dammed thing entirely when digging, or...you get the idea.

I passionately hate Qworst, even though I'm still dealing with them (and their lousy support) at [current employer].

Re: Qworst

[bdinger.livejournal.com]

- Listen to calltaker patronize us and imply that we don't know how to manage our own network. Listen to asshat suggest yet_another_problem.

Glad to hear it happens to someone else :P.

Hell, just to prove them wrong I got a new (well, new-refurb) Cisco 2912XL-EN. No solution.

[azraelsdaisy.livejournal.com]

I work for Covad and have to deal with Qwest on a regular basis.

ILECs are assfucks. Complete assfucks. They should die.

[j-digi82.livejournal.com]

You think that's bad ... try the CLECs ...

[azraelsdaisy.livejournal.com]

Well Covad is a CLEC... The problem is that the CLECs are at the mercy of the ILEC for a lot of stuff. I'll admit though that there is much in my department that needs great improvement... Like how the QA should be done by people who actually troubleshoot...

[err-umm.livejournal.com]

I used to do ADSL repair in Az. What you were told that the DSL line is messing up becuase its on the same binding group as a T1 is BS. A T1 has never caused an issue like that while I was doing this work. They need to do better testing on those freaking lines. Look for Bridge Tap on the line, maybe a ground or high open. They should also look at the equipment inside the damn C.O. too. See if the same thing is going on at the cable head. I cant wait until they get bought by who evers they're talking to right now! Things should get better. But then again they said Qwest was going to be better than US West. And we all see where that went. Anyway! I agree, they should all be beat down!! blahh!!

[bdinger.livejournal.com]

Actually, I have heard of it before. When I worked at an ISP it came up once with an Alltel DSL, and hell was raised. Alltel apparently just plain won't put a DSL and a T1 in the same group. This can, and usually does, cause cross-talk problems whenever the T1 is actively used.

It's a really, really, really strange problem - but eh.

And it could have been any other number of problems. All I know is that they phsically ran a couple new groups out to that business park, and put us all alone on one - and everything is fine.

And yeah, I agree. Qwest is pretty sad.

qworst

[irishmasms.livejournal.com]

hey... think I could get a job with them?