DSL Installation Fail 371
An anonymous reader writes "Here's an example of fine Qwest workmanship. In our business park, they just installed a DSL connection for our neighbors, for which we share an exterior utility space. They left: a DSL modem stuffed in a cardboard box, wrapped in a Wal-Mart bag, sitting outside in what will be below-zero (F) temps, on top of a bank of ten natural gas meters in some of the driest air of the year. They also left it plugged into an exposed exterior power outlet above a snowbank, with network cables running around the building, through snowbanks, coupled and protected by zip-lock baggies, and into our neighbors office. Not to mention the hack-job of patching the phone cable directly into the demarcation box. And if you're wondering — I was told upon calling them that this is not their problem, and I need to contact my primary phone service provider."
Call the Fire Marshal (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously. Call the Fire Marshal, tell them this is what Qwest did as electrical/phone work, and ask if it meets safety standards. Try to control your laughter as you ask.
Why submit anonymously? (Score:5, Insightful)
Joke? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, I call bullshit.
Not Suprised (Score:5, Insightful)
Note: I'm a low-voltage tech.
This kind of stuff doesn't suprise me. It's the nature of the industry. People don't want to pay $200 for a decent quality install, so a lot of the independent guys try to lowball where they can. Contractor companies will hire anyone to do the work, and they'll be lucky if they get a half a week of training. Most ISP's contract out their installs to these companies. (Mine is the exception to that fortunately.) This installer was probably never trained on this stuff, and his employer probably expected him to do it anyways or they wont use him anymore.
Quest probably leases the lines and contracts the installations through AT&T, who then contracts the installs through someone else. (Can't confirm this though.) That's why Quest told the customer to call their "primary phone service provider", although I think Quest should have done this work for them.
Re:Call the Fire Marshal (Score:2, Insightful)
Not that I'm letting the installers off the hook or anything.
. o O { What if the investigators of the Philadelphia explosion find out it was caused by a router?! }
Call the phone service, huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
You're trying to help them out and they tell you to call someone else. I guess you did your job.
I saw a fire hydrant spewing water once, called the fire department, they said, "call the water department." I said, "OK." Hung up and didn't think about it again. Until now, I guess.
Re:Responding professionally to bad customer reque (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But then what kind of asshole (Score:2, Insightful)
Hah! The Tea Party wants less government interference, not more. They would never agree to a public-owned wire service. Instead, they would eliminate the limits on the number of services with access to public rights of way. Thus, you would have eighteen different companies digging up your streets to run their own lines. Because they would not be required by law to repave the street, the streets would gradually be replaced by a patchwork of heavy steel plates covering the open trenches below. Because the open trenches would fill with water in the rainy season, you would have eighteen companies digging new trenches again the next year.
Enjoy your train wreck.
Re:But then what kind of asshole (Score:0, Insightful)
Of course, if the Tea Party were in power, we would still be farming with ox drawn carts, and cowering in fear when our angry God blots out the sun during an eclipse, so internet ownership would be the least of our worries.
"Some kids stole it" (Score:4, Insightful)
Just call Qwest and let them know you just saw some kids or crackhead steal it.
Re:But then what kind of asshole (Score:4, Insightful)
Uh huh. Just like telephone dereguation brought me dozens of companies for my landline, and cable TV deregulation brought me dozens of companies competing to offer me cable TV.
Chortle. Guffaw.
Re:Some weasel of a tech is now shitting his pants (Score:3, Insightful)
Without union protection, the installer responsible can be fired immediately, without the company having to provide fully-documented proof of how many different ways this is wrong.
Unions don't protect customers. Unions protect unions at all costs.
Re:Horatio Caine says (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:NOT QWEST AFTER ALL (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's an example of fine Slashdot submissionship. In the idle section, they just submitted a picture for our readers. They left an anonymous submission that links to a picasa album displaying their own name , blamed the entirely wrong people, failed to identify the correct people despite apparently knowing who they are, and generally wasted everyone's time with a crap story. And if you're wondering — ah fuck it, thats as far as I can go with this.
Re:Hmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
I have no idea what could possibly get a tech to do a hack like this, but I wouldn't deem it completely impossible without knowing the whole story behind it.
Quotas.
SB
Re:But then what kind of asshole (Score:4, Insightful)
No, not really. The problem is that there are some areas of commerce that naturally trend towards monopolies, and no amount of deregulation can ever prevent them from degrading into a monopoly. Therefore, the only options are either harsh government regulation to prevent the monopoly from abusing its monopoly status or government ownership of that area of commerce.
I've seen places where the government allowed a second cable company to move in. Invariably, the incumbent cable company, having the advantage of owning all of their infrastructure free and clear, cuts their previously exorbitant rates dramatically to undercut or match the cheaper rates offered by the newcomer. Competition thrives and everyone is happy with their lower rates... until two years later when the new cable company is still operating hopelessly in the red (despite raising rates once or twice) and is forced to cease operation, whereupon it sells its brand new lines, antenna tower, and office space to the incumbent cable company, and exits the market. On the plus side, everyone in those towns now have newer, higher quality coax with newer amplifiers, etc., but there's still no competition in any of those towns, and their cable rates skyrocketed almost immediately after the exit of the competitors.
As for the S&L debacle, I wouldn't say regulation was "uneven", though. That implies that if you just removed a whole lot more regulations, we'd be in better shape. In reality, they merely removed the wrong regulations. Unfortunately, there really aren't a lot of regulations that are safe to remove.
In general, regulations are put in place to prevent abuses that are already happening, so removal of any of those regulations almost invariably leads to bad things except when those regulations truly are no longer relevant due to some significant change in the landscape (e.g. laws about texting while driving will become irrelevant when cars drive themselves; if there were laws requiring cellular carriers to lease access to their towers, they became irrelevant now that we are no longer limited to one A and one B analog carrier in any given area; etc.).
Re:This is a bad idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Then name the contractor or the sub.
A lot of competent electrical/handyman types are looking for work now. Punish the bad ones so the good ones can get their foot in the door and get back on their feet.