[TriLUG] Re: OT: Dial-Up ISP

[Ben Pitzer]

Ken,

They do, but the network they support ends at the cable modem.  The trouble
is that sometimes, when people call and have issues, it's hard to isolate a
problem on our network from a problem on your network, which is why support
folks typically have people connect their PCs directly to the CM for
troubleshooting.  That way, we eliminate more variables.  But if our tools
indicate that a cable modem is up and running properly, that the SNR levels
and transmit and receive power levels are okay, it gets more difficult to
identify problems.  Sometimes the customer is lying to them and still has
their computer behind a cable/DSL router.  Sometimes they just don't know
how to describe the problem properly.  Sometimes they installed a pirated
copy of WinXP on a PentiumII 250MHz PC with a 10 year old 10-Base2 ISA NIC
and 32MB of memory, and blame us because IE is taking half an hour to load
their favorite Shockwave/Flash online game site.

That being said, you're right, you shouldn't have to feel a need to lie.
But be prepared when it's difficult for the support techs to isolate a
problem when they're not familiar with methods for doing so on your
computer, even though you may have submitted patches for and custom-compiled
every network tool on your OS.

Regards,
Ben Pitzer

---------------------------------------------

"Those that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
 --Ben Franklin--




> -----Original Message-----
> From: trilug-bounces at trilug.org [mailto:trilug-bounces at trilug.org]On
> Behalf Of Ken Mink
> Sent: Monday, May 10, 2004 12:38 PM
> To: Triangle Linux Users Group discussion list
> Subject: Re: [TriLUG] Re: OT: Dial-Up ISP
>
>
> I agree, but the drone did ask. I answered truthfully before I could
> catch myself. I generally lie to the tech folks and pretend I'm using
> Windows. When they ask me to do things that are Windows specific, if I
> can't remember what the dialog box will say, I do it on my wife's Win2k
> machine and read the response from it.
>
> My point is that I shouldn't have to lie. If I'm calling with a network
> problem, they should support the network.
>
> Ken
>
> On May 10, 2004, at 12:07 PM, Jeremy Portzer wrote:
>
> > I'm not trying to defend RR here, but why did you tell them you were
> > using Linux?  It wasn't relevant to your problem.  Just use a "don't
> > ask, don't tell" policy and you should have no problem getting support
> > (for the network).
> >
> > --Jeremy
> >
> > On Mon, 2004-05-10 at 11:42, Ken Mink wrote:
> >> Hey Ben,
> >>     I completely understand your point of view about supporting
> >> Linux. I
> <SNIP>
>
> ---------------------------------------------
> "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
> safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."--Benjamin Franklin
> " 'Necessity' is the plea for every infringement of human liberty; it
> is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."--William Pitt
>
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