Wednesday, September 20, 2000

By CAL BEVERLY
Publisher

A couple of Wednesdays ago in this space, I asked, "Who's up to wiring Fayette for high-speed, broadband Internet connectivity?"

Broadband is tech-talk for pushing loads of electronic information through one wire at speeds many times faster than you get with a little phone modem. Right now, the digital race nationally is between two kinds of broadband: cable, through the wire that brings in your cable TV programs, and DSL, an access method that uses your regular phone line.

With the nation in the midst of an Internet-driven economic revolution, I proposed two candidates: the local EMC and local governments. I said that the monopoly cable company serving most of Fayette County's residential and business areas was moving with glacial slowness. AT&T, even shorn of its baby Bells, still seems monolithic and ponderous. When will we ever get it, and what will the service be like when we finally do get it?

It took a headline in this paper "County to AT&T: Cable service stinks" to get some suits' attention at north Atlanta headquarters about mounting customer service problems. The jury is still way out on whether a bunch of vice presidents promising to do better will really mean better responsiveness to customer complaints.

Some may have wondered why I left out another company that runs wires to most Fayette homes BellSouth.

Herein lies a sad, instructive tale in big business, bad customer service and just plain monopoly obstructionism.

Back in June, Internet provider Earthlink/Mindspring offered a residential hookup to something called DSL (digital subscriber line), a much faster way to access the World Wide Web and other services using a phone line already installed in a home.

I called the 800 number and descended into DSL Never-Never Land.

I was supposed to get a "self-installation kit" within two weeks, and my new DSL service was supposed to be up within a month of my call. Seemed like a long time in installing high-speed access, but all I have now is a dial-up account, so I sprung for it.

A DSL modem was supposed to arrive as soon as my local phone provider BellSouth "provisioned" the line to accommodate the new service. That's where I remain three months later: Un-modemed, unprovisioned and unhappy, with no one taking responsibility for the unreasonable delay.

You have to call Earthlink customer service, wait on hold for count it 25 to 40 minutes. Then customer service tells you they don't handle DSL; Earthlink DSL has a special number reachable only after waiting through the regular customer service cycle. After another 10-to-20-minute wait, Earthlink tells you, "Oh, golly, that order hasn't gone through. BellSouth turned down our request for provisioning."

No notification to me from Earthlink or BellSouth about the problem. I had to make the call.

So, then the customer service circus starts with BellSouth. After a long hold, a residential account representative tells me there's a problem with the listed name on the number to be provisioned.

I explain: I've been paying the bill on that number at my Peachtree City address for seven years; its listing was for my daughter, who hasn't lived at my house in more than five years.

Well, that's the problem. She moved back into the area recently and applied for service at her new address. That was the glitch, the customer service rep assured me.

Understand now, the "glitch" hadn't stopped the monthly bill from arriving and being paid promptly by me every month. The "glitch" didn't stop my daughter from getting new service at her new residence last month, and paying for it. The "glitch" just stopped my DSL service from another vendor, a vendor other than BellSouth, which is marketing its own DSL service.

So, I got the listing changed to my wife's name, and was assured that all problems were solved. So I waited again, for three weeks this time. Still nothing.

So I called Earthlink back and went through the interminable hold again. What's the status of my DSL request? I asked after another 30-minute wait with Vivaldi playing from my speakerphone.

Oops. No one has requested another provisioning. We'll take care of that right away. Suspicious by now, I wait only a week and call BellSouth. Another wait. Another transfer to another department where the recorded message informs me that all BellSouth DSL service in Georgia is unaccountably off-line. They are trying to find out why and will post new recordings as they get more information.

I finally get a BellSouth DSL technician. Have you provisioned my line? I ask. Oops, I can't access that number or your account. No provisioning has been done.

And that's where I sit today in prestigious Fayette: strung out between two giant corporations whose cracks so many of us fall through, and who just don't seem to care whether there are cracks or not.

I may eventually call BellSouth again, to find out why they have screwed up my provisioning request yet again. But, honestly, I have no feeling that 20 more calls times 30 more minutes waiting for each will get them straightened out.

Earthlink (and other DSL vendors) blame BellSouth (and other primary residential telephone service providers) for being the bottleneck. They contend BellSouth has no interest in provisioning their lines for other vendors' DSL resales. Even the BellSouth DSL technician admitted that provisioning could take up to six weeks after a request is made.

Such a business policy would probably violate all kinds of F.C.C. and Georgia Public Service Commission rules, but what could prove that the phone company is deliberately dragging its feet on provisioning? A class-action lawsuit?

As far as I'm concerned about Earthlink and BellSouth, a plague on both their houses. I guess I'll keep paying my regularly arriving bills. And I'll keep dialing up on my 56K modem and keep getting knocked off-line every 15 minutes for "inactivity" by either AOL or Mindspring.

Who cares if Fayette households and businesses get wired to the high-speed, Internet revolution? BellSouth and Earthlink apparently have other matters on their corporate minds. Cable provider AT&T makes promises and proceeds with the speed of global warming (or cooling, depending on which scenario of the week is in vogue).

And an item in the Atlanta Business Chronicle casually reports that Convergent Services LLC has moved into Newnan Lofts over in neighboring Coweta County to provide "businesses [with] a complete Internet service without having to invest in hardware, equipment and professional staff." The high-speed Internet access for that clean, high-tech business, of course, is provided by Newnan Utilities' fiber optics network, a city-owned and city-installed system 10 miles west of our Fayette and Peachtree City borders.

Do you think that people living in Fayette might soon suffer from a broadband gap, affecting their livelihoods and their ability to compete in business, while other counties and cities see the future and begin to act on that vision, to the benefit of their residents?

Do you think that might affect the prosperity of those still choosing to live in Fayette? Might we become an electronic backwater, stuck with 40 channels of bad TV and ancient dial-up modems?

Well, we'll still have our golf cart paths. And we can retire from competition.

Back to Opinion Home Page | Back to the top of the page