PacBell Internet: Total Waste of Money
@hotmail.com Shrodinger's Cat
One, is you're using PacHell for business mission critical uses, and
#2 you're using PacHell for e-mail.
They are OK for connectivity, but they're a PHONE COMPANY, of course
they are clueless about e-mail, usenet, etc.
If it's that important to your business, get a nailed-up T-1 line and
run your own mail server.
On Wed, 29 Mar 2000 23:16:59 -0800, Garry <gar...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>I heavily rely on my service for e-mail purposes. Problem is that my
>e-mail has NOT WORKED for 4 days now..
John Navas
PacBell Internet is an unfortunate combination of good connectivity (for
the past several months at least) and poor services (particularly email).
Rather than jumping ship entirely (which might cost you that good
connectivity), consider supplementing PacBell Internet with a good
third-party email service.
Garry <gar...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>I have to add my name to the ever-growing list of disgruntled...rather,
>extremely pissed off PacBell Internet subscribers that have grown very
>tired of the consistent technical problems that this Internet service
>can't seem to fathom and correct.
>
>I heavily rely on my service for e-mail purposes. Problem is that my
>e-mail has NOT WORKED for 4 days now...it started on Sunday and I can
>imagine just how many e-mails I probably lost due to the head-in-the-ass
>engineers at PacBell. Last time, this occurred, I lost business, and of
>course, as always when I don't respond to e-mails, I get phone calls
>from people wanting to know why I'm not responding. I'm getting alot
>now....
>
>Is there someone on this NG that's in the Los Angeles area that can
>recommend another ISP that has a much better record that PacBell (which
>isn't saying much) and gives a whit about making their customer base
>happy??
--
Best regards,
John Navas <http://navasgrp.home.att.net/>
CABLE/DSL TIPS: <http://navasgrp.home.att.net/tech/cable_dsl.htm>
John Navas
Garry <gar...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>I have to add my name to the ever-growing list of disgruntled...rather,
>extremely pissed off PacBell Internet subscribers that have grown very
>tired of the consistent technical problems that this Internet service
>can't seem to fathom and correct.
>
>I heavily rely on my service for e-mail purposes. Problem is that my
>e-mail has NOT WORKED for 4 days now...it started on Sunday and I can
>imagine just how many e-mails I probably lost due to the head-in-the-ass
>engineers at PacBell. Last time, this occurred, I lost business, and of
>course, as always when I don't respond to e-mails, I get phone calls
>from people wanting to know why I'm not responding. I'm getting alot
>now....
>
>Is there someone on this NG that's in the Los Angeles area that can
>recommend another ISP that has a much better record that PacBell (which
>isn't saying much) and gives a whit about making their customer base
>happy??
Alternatives to PacBell Internet for email:
* Use a reliable third-party email service.
* Switch to a better ISP.
* Run your own mail server.
* Hire a good consultant to run your mail server.
* Install a turn-key server (e.g., Whistle InterJet).
* Outsource (e.g., IBM Small Business Connections).
Cheap ... fast ... reliable -- you only get to pick two (at most).
PacBell Internet is cheap and fast.
eddi...@my-deja.com
John Navas <spamf...@navasgrp.dublin.ca.us> wrote:
> [POSTED TO ba.internet]
>
> PacBell Internet is an unfortunate combination of good connectivity
(for
> the past several months at least) and poor services (particularly
email).
>
> Rather than jumping ship entirely (which might cost you that good
> connectivity), consider supplementing PacBell Internet with a good
> third-party email service.
Nah, jump ship! You'll be better off. What "good connectivity" are you
talking about? I sure as hell haven't seen it.
I'm a dial-up customer of theirs and I'm completely fed up with their
incompetence. Pacbell's server status page seems to consistently show
"impaired" or "down" conditions. I don't recall that page address, but I
made it my home page (on my home computer) so I see it every time I log
on. I've complained several times and once they tried to blame it all on
their DSL problems (which are apparently much worse) but I'm not even a
DSL customer! I've even had to send complaints via alternate e-mail
services because their e-mail service was down!!!
The other night I sent e-mail to a small distribution list and kept
getting "can't connect to mail.pacbell.net" errors. Little did I know
that the e-mail was actually being sent. Everyone got 5 copies of my
distribution and I got several angry replies. Some of those replies were
turned away, receiving "not allowed to send to that e-mail address" from
the pacbell postmaster. That's it! No more Pacbell for me.
--
Edward R. Smith
ATS Project Leader http://www.ibmuser.com
SMUG President and Webmaster http://attila.ibmuser.com/smug/
AftershoX Rocks! http://attila.ibmuser.com/aftershox/
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Mike Sullivan
person. But....I just have to let it go right now.
PacBell has nearly driven me insane! How frickin' hard can it be to
process email on a semi-reliable basis? Today is absolutely the
worst. I read their systems summary page all day yesterday,
indicating that they found the "root cause" and it would take approx.
5 hours to spool all the un-sent email. I had to laugh because I
knew damn well they couldn't spool all that email in 5 hours. Sure
enough, at the end of 5 hours it said 3 more hours, at the end of that
3 hours it said they were simply "in the process", which is what it
said when I checked this morning. Shortly thereafter their systems
summary page is nowhere to found. My guess is that they intentionally
took it off line. I still haven't received several important email
messages that were sent to me days ago.
They have had so many problems in the past six weeks that it would be
funny if I weren't so miserable over not getting my e-mail. I just
called their support department to lodge a complaint and try to
ascertain what their plan is to makes this right. I was politely
greeted with a recording indicating that I would be on hold for "at
least 45 minutes". No way, I'm just not going to do this anymore!
I'll find another ISP. One that gives a flying flip about their
customers.
I've been reading some posts lately that claim their internet service
sucks pretty bad but the connectivity is good. I'll let you be the
judge. I came on line in early December with their DSL service, my
first dealings with PacBell. I'll try to be brief and summarize my
problems/concerns about their service and connectivity.
1) It took two weeks from the date they installed the line until I
was up and running. They dropped the ball. It took ten phone calls
from me until they realized they gave me an incorrect IP address. Two
weeks!
2) My DSL line lost it's bandwidth and shut down every night between
roughly 6 and 11 PM EVERY SINGLE NIGHT FOR TWO MONTHS! It took
countless phone calls and service visits to get the matter resolved,
though I'm still experiencing daily problems, but I can live with
them. I was soooo tired of having to follow-up with them to see where
they were at with the resolution because they kept closing the service
tickets out. The absolute daily problem didn't start until 6:00 every
night, naturally when they eere there at noon they saw no problem. I
asked them to please leave their ticket open and not close it untill
someone could followup with me to ensure the problem was resolved. I
was informed by management, believe it or not, "that it is not our
policy to provide followup ".
3) I have yet to go a week without e-mail problems, theirs, not mine.
The last two weeks have been totally absurd. They clearly are not
competent enough to resolve the situation as they continuously tell me
they have solved the underlying issue. Baloney!!!
4) I screwed around with my news reader software for 4 days starting
last Friday thinking I must have a problem with my software even
though it had been working. Their System Status page indicated the
news service was okay for 4 days even though nearly everyone was
experiencing the problem
5) My DSL line was hard down for 45+ hours last week as were others in
my local area.
6) I've been on the internet since the 80's with a number of ISP's.
The instant my DSL line came up, the amount of spam I received
tripled. I hadn't sent any email yet! Where on earth did all those
spammers get my address?
So, in my view, their connectivity stinks, their service is poor,
their email is a catastrophe, lies are commonplace, the left hand
never knows what the right is doing and on top of all that they are
indifferent as hell to me. They truely don't seem to care.
So, now you can see why I'm nearly insane after all of this. I've had
it! I'm going back to my trusty dial-up. And if those bastards even
think of trying to collect money on their one year contract, they can
eat my shorts!
One Distinctly Unhappy Customer,
Mike
On Wed, 29 Mar 2000 23:16:59 -0800, Garry <gar...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>I have to add my name to the ever-growing list of disgruntled...rather,
>extremely pissed off PacBell Internet subscribers that have grown very
>tired of the consistent technical problems that this Internet service
>can't seem to fathom and correct.
>
>I heavily rely on my service for e-mail purposes. Problem is that my
>e-mail has NOT WORKED for 4 days now...it started on Sunday and I can
>imagine just how many e-mails I probably lost due to the head-in-the-ass
>engineers at PacBell. Last time, this occurred, I lost business, and of
>course, as always when I don't respond to e-mails, I get phone calls
>from people wanting to know why I'm not responding. I'm getting alot
>now....
>
>Is there someone on this NG that's in the Los Angeles area that can
>recommend another ISP that has a much better record that PacBell (which
>isn't saying much) and gives a whit about making their customer base
>happy??
>
>Thanks.
>
eddi...@my-deja.com
eddi...@my-deja.com
Bob Daniels
Mike Sullivan <mrs...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:38e511f3...@news.pacbell.net...
Mike Sullivan
Thanks!
Intesting sidenote. My own post never appeared on PacBell's news
server! Neither did yours! I read in another post this morning that
swbell.news was much better so I just now gave it a try. Lo and
behold, both yours and my posts magically appeared. I then pulled all
headers available for this group back to back on swbell & pacbell's to
see what the difference was. When I pulled swbell I recieved ~3400
headers. When I pulled Pacbell I received only ~1800 headers. My
heavens have I been missing that many posts by using Pacbell????!!!!
Mike
On Fri, 31 Mar 2000 22:33:30 GMT, ma...@malch.com (Malcolm Hoar)
wrote:
>In article <38e511f3...@news.pacbell.net>, mrs...@pacbell.net wrote:
>>I rarely bitch about anything as I consider myself a fairly patient
>>person. But....I just have to let it go right now.
>
>And what a nicely written rant it was too! Good job.
>
>IMHO, the issues you describe are typical of just about any
>ISP that is focussed on market share (versus quality of
>service). Sadly, far too many fall into that category.
>
>--
>|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
>| Malcolm Hoar "The more I practice, the luckier I get". |
>| ma...@malch.com Gary Player. |
>| http://www.malch.com/ Shpx gur PQN. |
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John Navas
mrs...@pacbell.net (Mike Sullivan) wrote:
>Intesting sidenote. My own post never appeared on PacBell's news
>server! Neither did yours! I read in another post this morning that
>swbell.news was much better so I just now gave it a try. Lo and
>behold, both yours and my posts magically appeared. I then pulled all
>headers available for this group back to back on swbell & pacbell's to
>see what the difference was. When I pulled swbell I recieved ~3400
>headers. When I pulled Pacbell I received only ~1800 headers. My
>heavens have I been missing that many posts by using Pacbell????!!!!
For the most part that is just a difference in retention.
Bill Robbins
wrote:
>I rarely bitch about anything as I consider myself a fairly patient
>person. But....I just have to let it go right now.
>
>PacBell has nearly driven me insane!...
Gosh, Mike, haven't you seen PacBell's latest TV ads pushing DSL?
"The Internet is once again your friend."
You've got to at least applaud their sense of humor. I'm not
surprised that, with all the installation problems they've had, they
wouldn't wait to clear some of those before paying big bucks for TV
ads to bring in ever more subscribers. Can we all say "AOL"?
I had made an appointment for a DSL installation some time ago but
after reading all the horror stories, I've decided to cancel and wait
out the tidal wave. I can do without "friends" like that.
Bill
John Navas
lit...@ibm.net (Bill Robbins) wrote:
>I had made an appointment for a DSL installation some time ago but
>after reading all the horror stories, I've decided to cancel and wait
>out the tidal wave. I can do without "friends" like that.
Why not go with a PacBell "partner" for DSL? Some of them have very good
reputations (e.g., Sonic.net, Orconet). No reason to condemn all DSL and
deny yourself the benefits just because of the growing pains of one ISP.