RANT & CHAT - No Politics

[greg s]

OK, i'm usually a fairly mellow fellow, BUT I GOTTA RANT!!

My place in southern Arizona is WAY out in the boondocks. My max. connection speec via dial-up has always been about 24 Kbps but I figured, "Hey, I'm way out in the boondocks, what do you expect?"

I finally got a 2nd line a few years ago and experienced the same speed: 20-24 Kbps. Sure wasn't good compared to my DSL line in Phoenix, but I lived with it.

Well, over the last two months, I have seen my connection speed drop to 19, then 17, then 11, then 9, and now 7 Kbps. Makes the internet darned near unusable.

I have checked everything. I talked to my ISP - no prob. on their end. I tried to use my voice line for dial-up. I get 18-24 Kbps.

So yesterday, I sent a repair order to my local telco: QWEST. I should have known better. I'm so mad, I could spit bullets!

Here is their reply to my problem (this is verbatim, I only cut out the personal info. stuff) You will notice that they say they do not guarantee high speed data service! $hi*, I don't want high speed service, I just want some kind of service that works at a basic level! Also note that I cannot get DSL here, even though they mention this as a possible solution:

Dear XXXXXXXXXXXX,
Thank you for choosing this forum to communicate with Qwest Repair.

I apologize for the inconvenience you are experiencing with your phone service. The Telephone Systems in the United States were originally designed to transmit voices rather than transfer data between two points. There is no guarantee that any line will support more than a voice. Qwest does not charge high-speed data rates for voice telephone service, and therefore cannot offer support for high speed data transfers. Qwest will ensure that every telephone line meets the basic requirements for voice telephone service. We do offer other options for high speed data, however, not all options are available in all areas. If you are interested in high speed services you may contact our business office for pricing and availability. They can be contacted at 1-800-244-1111, Monday through Friday, from 6:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. mountain standard time.

Other options include:
- Checking with your ISP, advising them that the telephone line is okay.
- Checking with your equipment vendor, advising them telephone line is okay.
- Cordless telephone jacks and some cordless phones as well as other types of equipment may negatively impact data speeds. You may wish to remove all other equipment when attempting to improve data speed.

The most effective way for you to determine if the line is okay is to plug in a regular (not cordless) telephone set and use the line for voice calls. If the line works for voice calls, the line is okay.

If you are experiencing problems using a regular telephone for voice calls, please contact us to report them. You may contact us by either entering the repair request on our web site or by calling our repair department at 800-573-1311.

For more information about data transfers on voice grade lines visit the Qwest Technical Support web site at: www.qwest.com/techsupport Click on the link to Modems and Data Communication link..

Once again I apologize for your inconvenience, and want to thank you for the opportunity of being your service provider.


Qwest Web Response Team

Please do not reply to this message. So that we may better serve you, if you need additional assistance, need to cancel your repair request, or need to update any information about your repair request please visit our web site and re-submit the repair form.

http://www.uswest.com/residential/customerService/reportProblem.html

greg
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