No more tiers

Once you're on the information superhighway, the ride can be smooth, fast, and fun. But getting on and off the exit ramps is fraught with risk, as I discovered when I tried to move my Verizon DSL connection.

Verizon get snaps for having a well designed, navigable Web site. Shiny happy people and a radiant James Earl Jones look practically giddy with excitement at having figured out how to connect their DSL. They look like people who have just been through the Landmark Forum experience or had the best sex ever in an online chat room.

The information on the Web site about my account is current, and I can easily find the answers to my questions. As an information provider, Verizon gets five stars; as a service organization, it gets significantly fewer.

I don't have just some passing interest in or experience with Verizon, by the way. It put me through school and put food on our table. My father worked for Verizon (formerly Bell Atlantic, formerly NYNEX, formerly New York Telephone) for 25 years as a trunk assignor. From him I got a good understanding of how the phone system works--or at least how it's supposed to work. He often complained about the entrenched bureaucracy at the company and especially the union, which seemed always poised on the verge of striking--and sometimes did. When he started in 1971, Dad refused to join the union but was strongarmed into doing so. Weeks later 37,000 New York Telephone workers extended the national strike from 1 week to 30 weeks, and Dad had no income other than unemployment.

After the AT&T divestiture in 1984, the telecom industry changed rapidly. For one thing, there was competition among phone carriers for the first time. Many of the old-timers were nearing retirement age or, more commonly, just couldn't swim with the changing corporate tide. Dad was always looking for a golden handshake, but he decided to stick it out as long as he could until it was worth his leaving.

My brother started working for Verizon in the late 1980s, right out of school. He was a lineman in Manhattan and worked his way up to foreman at a Brooklyn facility. He liked the job, but he too was frustrated by the rigid hierarchy and the lack of incentive. Morale among his guys was perpetually low. Verizon was always management top-heavy, and craft, the skilled workers, were like teenagers rebelling against their parents. He quit after 10 years to take another job in telecom during the Internet boom. He always said Verizon was a dying company, and if my recent experience with them is typical, I believe he may be right.

All I wanted Verizon to do was to keep my existing DSL account ID, which is tied to my Verizon e-mail address, and switch it from my old line to my new line, about 10 blocks away. To get DSL your phone jack must be no more than 15,000 wire-feet (about 2.5 miles) from a Verizon central office. This is because DSL uses copper wiring, not fiber obtics like cable. It's like hooking up two Dixie cups with a string to make a circuit. Most lines should qualify, but there's a hitch. If an area has run out of physical capacity to hook up a new phone number, Verizon may assign a virtual phone number. A virtual phone number can be located anywhere, since it forwards calls from its physical location to your designated number. DSL on such a line is not possible.

When I signed up online for a new phone number, there was no way for me to verify whether the new number qualified for DSL until after I chose it. Once I chose the number I plugged it in on the Web site and was told the line did not qualify for DSL. So I had to call Verizon support. My previous experiences with them have been abysmal, and I wasn't eager to talking with them. "Always tell them you're going to file a complaint with the PSC," my brother always said. "That really shakes them up." A few years ago I did write a scathing letter to the New York Public Service Commission after a screaming match with a Verizon supervisor who treated me unprofessionally.

This time my first contact with Verizon customer support left me hopeful. A nice young man told me the line did qualify and that it would be no problem to transfer my account. Great! He said I'd even get the first month free for keeping my existing equipment. Nice! My service would even be available the day my old service was being disconnected. Excellent! One less thing to worry about in the move.

That was the last good thing that happened with Verizon. The day my service was supposed to connect, I couldn't access my e-mail account from New Orleans. I called the night I got back to New York. "I'm sorry, sir," the rep said pleasantly, "it takes some time to transfer the account over. You can use our dialup service in the meantime." I was willing to use dialup if it meant getting connected, but an e-mail sent by Verizon with detailed procedures on how to dial up lacked a user name and password as well as an access number. Another call to tech support. "I can give you the access number," a pert woman said. "You should be able to use your DSL user name and password." Of course, because I was on the same phone line as the dialup line I couldn't test it. When I got off the phone with her, I couldn't dial up. Account disabled.

For the next 5 days I spoke with Verizon tech support, who transferred me to billing, who transferred me to tech support, who transferred me to billing, and so on and so on. My service ready date was to be Monday, even though I'd had a signal since the previous Wednesday. No one seemed to figure out that the issue was not physical but clerical. Someone had disabled my account for some reason, and no one knew why.

Saturday night I was told that my account had a message in big red letters to not activate my account. I would have to call billing first thing Monday morning at 8:00 a.m. For one thing, I'm not even up at 8:00 a.m., and for another, I'm not caffeinated yet, so that's not such a good idea.

But I did call Monday at 8:00 a.m., and I got a billing person, who swore to me that my account would be re-enabled after 6:00 p.m. She gave me some story that sounded plausible to the un-tech savvy, but I knew from my brother that the real issue at Verizon is, ironically, the disconnect between departments at Verizon.

Monday night at 11:00 p.m. I tried to log in. Account disabled, in red letters, the screen said. Tuesday morning: Account disabled. I had anticipated this and had requested a cable modem from Time Warner the night before. I knew this matter was not going to get resolved.

Tuesday morning I called Verizon, determined I was going to remain pleasant in canceling my DSL service. I got a rep who sounded like Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, but lacking one of those qualities.

"I'd like to cancel my DSL service," I said.

"May I ask why?" Jimmy Neutron said cheerfully.

"Sure," I said. "Let's review." I launched into my entire history with Verizon over the past two weeks.

"Well, Mr. O'Leary," Jimmy said, "I'm sure we can fix that problem."

"No," I said, "I'm sure you can't."

"But if you just let me connect you to Tier 3 tech support, I know they can help you."

"Oh," I said, "how's that?"

"Until now you've been talking with the Hondas of tech support--these guys are the Cadillacs." Oh, for the love of God, please tell me he didn't say that!

"That's nice. Please cancel my service. I'm not home and I can't check that I can get in until tonight anyway."

"Oh, well, then you can call back tonight and--"

"No, I'm not calling back tonight--or ever," I said, getting testy.

"I can take a number and call you back when I get a hold of Tier 3 tech support," he said, almost pathetically.

"No, cancel my service."

"If you'll give us one last chance--"

"This was your last chance," I said. "I want to cancel my service."

"But--"

"Cancel my service, cancel my service, CANCEL MY SERVICE!" I yelled. I knew the boy was reading from a script. I could almost hear him flipping pages looking for the next "Now try this when the customer says no."

"Sir, will you just give Tier 3 tech support one chance?"

"Why? Can they guarantee I will get my service back?"

"Well, no sir, no one can guarantee--"

"Then cancel my service." I felt like I was in an annoying boxing match. "I'm appalled by the customer service. Tech support hands me to billing, and vice versa. Everyone's very nice, but no one solves my problem. I'm switching to cable."

"You do realize that cable is slower than DSL," he said. "And you already have the DSL equipment." Spurious logic from Jimmy Neutron, Boy Idiot.

I humored him. "Well, to me, no matter what, cable is faster because I can't actually get to my DSL account, now, can I? I've had no e-mail address for the past week and I can't connect at all to the Internet. So how is DSL better?"

"Well, sir, I can connect you to Tier 3 tech support."

I was weakening, but I was still going to cancel anyway. "You have one minute."

Five minutes later Jimmy Neutron was back. "Sir, Tier 3 tech support has a bit of a wait, so if you'll just bear with me--"

"No. Cancel my service."

"But--"

"I'd like to speak with your supervisor."

"Certainly, sir." On hold. Ten seconds later: "Your account has been canceled."

"Thank you."

"Is there anything else I can help you with, Mr. O'Leary?"

I could have thought of some not-so-nice suggestions but decided the problem was bigger than he. Poor guy doesn't get paid all that much for the hassle. He put up a good fight, but I got the TKO.

Ten minutes after I hung up with Verizon, Maxine from Time Warner called. I could pick up my cable modem at the Time Warner office until 7:00 p.m., she said.

So, in last night's sub-Arctic freeze, I gleefully picked up my cable modem and cradled it in my arms--my new lifeline to the world.

The instructions to connect the cable modem were simple. When I got it all hooked up I noticed the lights on the cable modem were not steady, as they should be. Worse, when I turned on the TV, I had no cable signal at all. I futzed with the connections, but I couldn't get any signal. Sighing, I called Time Warner customer support.

I explained to the rep that I had two separate issues: no cable signal and no modem signal. She happily transferred me to a cable modem support techie, who told me to unplug the power from the cable box, wait five seconds, and reattach it. Still no signal. "Looks like there's trouble," he said. "We're going to have to send a technician out." Oh, dear God, I thought. Do these people switch their Verizon masks and their Time Warner masks? "The earliest date I have is Monday between 2 and 6."

"Can't you do something earlier than that? Five days is a long time to not have cable AND Internet," I said, containing my seething postal rage.

"I'll see if there are any cancellations, but in the meantime I'm going to connect you with Tier 3 tech support. They're the cream of the crop at troubleshooting." My mouth opened to scream, but no sound came out. Are regular support techies knuckle-scraping troglodytes, while Tier 3 techies actually have certificates from DeVry's? And what happened to Tier 2 tech support?

I swear that the Tier 3 tech support guy sounded suspiciously like the Verizon Jimmy Neutron, but smarter. He mused that I may have a defective splitter or a blockage in the cable because the signal was split. "I can see your cable modem," he said. I actually looked over my shoulder to see if he was looking in my window from across the street. I was sure he was drawing a complex formula on a chalkboard as he was speaking to me.

"Funny," I said, "my cable service was working up until today."

Some light bulb went off in the Mouse-ke-Tier 3 guy's head, and he offered to pass me to customer service to see if I could get a cable signal back. In the back of my mind I kept thinking it was odd that no one had offered to refresh my cable box.

The last person I spoke with was Dimitri, who sounded very Brooklyn. After I explained my situation, he told me to unplug all my power cords. I waited about 10 seconds. Plug them all in again, he said.

The motors whirred, the power went on, all the correct lights were steady, and I had my cable signal back. I got onto the Internet with no problem. I was so happy I wanted to cry.

No more tiers. Enough is enough.