Much to my surprise, the auto-bot said the trouble ticket had been closed. Once again, using the magic word “Attendant” to cut through the voice recognition robot, I got a live human being [...]]]>

This morning, I called Verizon’s number to see what time a tech would be out to look at my dead landline

Much to my surprise, the auto-bot said the trouble ticket had been closed. Once again, using the magic word “Attendant” to cut through the voice recognition robot, I got a live human being who said that the line had been “fixed” at 9:30 AM.

I expressed my dismay, since 1) The tech hadn’t knocked on the door and 2) how was I supposed know that the line was fixed? Oh and 3) I still did not have dial tone.

So, we went into the rote script of “Unplug all of your phones for five to ten minutes, then plug back in a standard phone and see if you have dial tone” and if that doesn’t work — call back and ask a supervisor.

Did as instructed. No dial tone in the home. Call back. Ask to speak to a supervisor. All supervisors are busy.

“Can I have the name of a supervisor?” “They’re a pool”

“Can I have a direct number so I won’t have to deal with the auto-attendant?” “There’s no direct number.”

Call ends with me asking for a supervisor to call me back at my alternative phone number and being assured someone will call me back today.

Uh huh.

Seven days for a tech to come [...]]]>

My Verizon landline went dead on Monday. I filed a trouble ticket on Monday evening. At that time I was told that “the latest someone would be out to look at my line would be Monday, July 13, but if there’s someone free earlier, we’ll call you…”

Seven days for a tech to come out seems excessive by any stretch of the imagination. I suppose I could call the President of Verizon Virginia to complain — that’s the secret ninja trick that all Verizon employees know — but I don’t have his number in my cards.

Instead, this morning I went to the Virgina PUC and emailed in a complaint this morning. By the time I returned from the gym today, I received a response which read in part…

“As to the current service quality regulations, 95% or more of all telephone company outages should be cleared within 48 hours.  The quoted ‘seven days’ interval is not acceptable to the Commission’s standards and should not be a company policy within Verizon.”

My Verizon landline died sometime yesterday. I placed a service call last night and was told the latest someone would show up would be July 13 – seven days from the [...]]]>

If you want to know one of the supporting reasons why Verizon continues to lose landlines, it boils down to one word: service.

My Verizon landline died sometime yesterday. I placed a service call last night and was told the latest someone would show up would be July 13 – seven days from the time I placed the call.

Seriously, WTF?

A test from the CO indicated that yes, indeedie, there was a problem, so a truck roll was scheduled. Iif a dispatcher could get someone out there earlier,  Verizon might be able to get someone out there; could I please provide two (2) other phone numbers to reach someone at the household.  So they have a “work” number (which, BTW, is a Cox phone line working fine) and a mobile number.

Other highlights of my call: “Did I check the dial tone access on the box outside?” No.  When did checking dial tone on the box outside become standard operating procedure?   “Work on the inside of the house is covered, you pay for maintenance…” Yes, we do,  but this apparently doesn’t get a truck roll out to me any sooner despite paying the extra $3 and change.

All this gives me flashbacks to when I moved about 3 years ago and tried to get service to my new house. It was almost literally a move across the street — no change in CO, no restart in billing, should have been a piece of cake.

Instead, it was a NIGHTMARE.

One phone number was supposed to be transferred over the weekend, but the house owners left their service on.   I called service, took time out of my day on a Friday, and was PROMISED that would be out that day.  10 AM rolled into noon, and I called Verizon again. “Someone will be out by 3 PM”… 3 PM rolled into 4, called again … “Someone will be out by 6 PM”… 6 PM came and went. “We can’t send someone out today, we’ll send someone out tomorrow.”

Saturday came and went, nobody showed up.

Monday rolls around, the dial tone from the previous owners ends and STILL no truck roll.  I call again, am told that because the previous owners didn’t have service turned off, they have rescheduled the truck roll — because they just CAN’T turn up service without a truck roll once the line is turned off — for two weeks later, thank you very much.

Since I live in a cell phone “dead zone” and have a small child, I am not f***ing pleased. I ask for a supervisor and tell her I had a live phone line in the house until yesterday, could she PLEASE try to do something in the switch?

And… 5 minutes later late on Monday I have one of two phone lines turned on. Lot of apologies about how Verizon was switching to a new dispatch/service system…. and that’s it.  No service credit, no paper…

Line number two came up after a truck roll about two weeks later.

A month or two after that, I called up Cox and moved line number two off Verizon.   The cable company gave me a TWO HOUR window when the tech would be out and it took them less than an hour to:

1) Find the right cable

2) Install the equipment on the side of the house

3) Switch the phone number out of Verizon’s CO over to their CO.

It would have been MUCH LESS than an hour, but the installer was training a new guy, so he was taking his time showing the rookie how to do things right, including nicely cutting the cable guys. In addition,  there was about 5-10 minutes on hold with the service center because it was lunch time.

Now, which would you prefer, a two hour service window, or a seven day service window? Cable may have gotten a bad rap for customer service in the past, but they’re kicking Verizon’s rear in my neighborhood today.

At VoiceCon this spring, Sprint was talking about its love for OCS and how it would save them a ton of money since [...]]]>

Adam Uzelac — aka voiploser on Twitter — is tweeting Global Crossing rolling out Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) R2.   This makes two carriers that have embraced OCS for internal usage.

At VoiceCon this spring, Sprint was talking about its love for OCS and how it would save them a ton of money since the company was consolidating onto one PBX platform — an important thing, given Sprint’s current financial straits.

Critics of OCS hype at VoiceCon noted the platform didn’t have any good answers for survivability or E-911 support and that Microsoft wasn’t expected to roll out something with both features to make OCS a “true” PBX replacement in 2010 with Release 3.

VoIPLoser, er Adam, says Global Crossing will tackle the survivability issue with more servers and E-911 through the use of cell phones.

The two firms announced their joint sales strategy during a seminar program last week.  [...]]]>

MetaSwitch has announced a “strategic alliance” (i.e. reseller relationship) with Technology Bureau, a larger system integrator in Latin America.  Technology Bureau, headquartered in Buenos Aires, Argentine, is partnering with Metaswitch to deploy MetaSwitch technology for local operators in the region.

The two firms announced their joint sales strategy during a seminar program last week.  Technology Bureau will handle will handle provisioning, installation, maintenance and support, as well as a “range of professional services from network engineering and training to turn-key solution deployment” while MetaSwitch will provide the gear and software.  Currently, MetaSwitch has over 400 customers in North America and the Caribbean.

During its annual user group event this year, MetaSwitch said it would be expanding operations in Latin America, so there’s no drastic surprise in today’s announcement.  Last week, MetaSwitch announced a customer win in the Netherlands Antilles, a small island north of Venezuela.

Getting chopped are pay-per-view movies downloaded from the Internet and mobile data service. Customers [...]]]>

Over at TMCNet, Gary Kim has unearthed survey data generated by Alcatel-Lucent on global consumer telecommunications spending in these tight times.  People are cutting, but they’re going to keep VoIP and multi-channel video services (i.e. TV) pretty much the same.

Getting chopped are pay-per-view movies downloaded from the Internet and mobile data service. Customers plan to reduce spending on network based services if the economy – i.e. their pocketbooks – doesn’t get better, moving from fee-based services to free alternatives.  People will also shift from wireless voice to using email and text messaging to save pennies and dollars. Pre-paid voice and bundled service packs offering discounts get a thumbs up over post-paid plans.

Mixed results when the economy improves: 29 percent of consumers will increase their spending on network-based services while 13 percent will tighten their belts regardless.

Under an agreement rolled out earlier this [...]]]>

Among the remaining titans of ICT (Information and Communication Technology), HP has taken advantage of the failings and chaos of other companies (i.e. Nortel) to expand its positions in the telecom and UC arenas.  In the convergence between IT and telecommunications, HP may have the upper hand.

Under an agreement rolled out earlier this month, HP and Alcatel-Lucent have established a 10 year global alliance to help customers “leverage the convergence of telecommunication and IT,” meaning the companies will jointly market solutions and capabilities for service providers and enterprises.

Once a definitive agreement has been executed, the companies will jointly market solutions and capabilities that enable end-to-end transformation for service providers and enterprises.   HP and Alcatel-Lucent will have a global program for migrating communications networks into converged, next-generation infrastructure, plus services for managing new and existing infrastructures.

In addition, HP and Alcatel-Lucent will work together to selling communications solutions to larger enterprises and the public sector, with options of either buying through HP resellers or purchasing managed solutions.

It should be no big surprise that HP teamed with Alcatel-Lucent for delivering integrated IT/telecom solutions for service providers and enterprises.  Alcatel-Lucent had few options and with Sun being devoured by Oracle, HP was the last remaining independent with scalable server hardware  Alcatel-Lucent brings its IP telephony, mobility, security, and contact center knowledge to the table and HP can leverage its resellers.

Could Alcatel-Lucent have worked with IBM? Not really, as there was too much overlap between the telecom solutions that IBM already has in its portfolio (and conveniently running on IBM hardware). IBM is also sticking its fingers into mobile communications to the tune of $100 million, research that Alcatel-Lucent isn’t likely to be comfy with along with all those mobile apps that IBM is starting to roll out.

HP also has another card up its sleeve:  A four year unified communications deal with Microsoft.  Announced last month at Interop, the two companies expect to invest up to $180 million in a combination of product development, professional services, and joint sales and marketing.

Enterprises looking to embrace UC can now turn to HP and Microsoft, with HP providing additional software for network monitoring, as well as a high-end telepresence solution.  HP’s continued financial success and IT hardware may make the company a much more useful partner to Microsoft than Nortel ever ways; sure, you could run OCS on a Nortel server, but if you had to put HP and Nortel head-to-head in server hardware, HP wins hands down.