Technical Difficulties

So, I haven’t posted anything for the last 2 weeks!! Strangely it wasn’t because of the winter holiday season, but rather a series of unfortunate events.

A few weeks ago, the sync light on my DSL modem stopped working. The first thing, tech support usually tells you to do in that situation, is to turn the unit on and off. Well turning it off wasn’t much of a problem. But when I tried turning the modem on again, it wouldn’t power up. So, I ran through the basic motions. I checked the cables, everything is plugged in. Tried plugging the unit at another power outlet, still nothing. So at this point, I figure it’s safe to say the modem is dead.

I call up customer service (you don’t know how I dread doing this) explain my situation. He listens to everything I have to say and everything that I did. Says that I’ve done everything tech support would tell me to and that he’ll get a replacement modem out to me. This was on the 16th, says I should get the new unit in about 5 to 10 days.

Few days pass and nothing, don’t think anything much about, just figure it was a bit soon. Week before Christmas, still hasn’t arrived. Given the amount of mail around this time of year, I figure it’s just clogged in the postal system. So its now 2 weeks, I still haven’t receive my new modem. Couldn’t finish my Christmas shopping online, or get in on any of the Boxing Day deals. I’m a bit disappointed with Bell Canada at this point.

Call Sympatico’s customer service department again. I’m on hold for over 25 minutes before someone answers my call. Tell the CSR my problem, asks to put me on hold, while he checks my order status. On hold for another 10 minutes, before he transfers my call to Tech support. Now the Tech support worker is looking for my order, on hold for another 3 minutes. Finally realizes, that my modem was never sent!! At this point, I’m more that a bit annoyed. Tell him to put me through to billing, so I can cancel my service. So I’m talking to the retentions rep now. Offers me, no discount on my bill or anything to keep me as a customer and tries to up sell me on getting a more expensive internet service. Love how big companies treat their existing customers (which is like crap)

So I went out and got myself a cable modem from Rogers. Came home and hooked it up in 3 minutes. Took 20 minutes to call customer service and activate it (shakes head) So far, it seems to be working fine and it seems to be quicker than my old service. Did a speed test and I’m getting just a smidge under 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload.

So that’s my internet story. Along with my online problems, my iPod died (has since mysteriously started working again) and my Xbox 360 got the ill fated Red Ring of Death. So, I couldn’t surf the net, had no music and couldn’t play any of my video games. In between bouts of boredom, I caught up with my reading and developed a bit of a cookbook addiction. Watched a bunch of movies as well, don’t know when I’ll get around to posting my reviews.

Guess that about sums up my last two weeks. I wonder if I have any readers left. If your still around, leave a comment so I know I’m not talking to myself. Really sucks too!! Prior to my mini hiatus, I had finally gotten a bit of a regular posting rhythm. Way to lose momentum

…Later

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Tagged as: Bell Canada, Customer service, Digital subscriber line, DSL, Technical support, Xbox 360 technical problems