I've been waiting for PacBell to bring DSL service to my neighborhood for well over a year. So I was thrilled when I checked their status page at the beginning of March and found the service is available on my exchange. I immediately called and placed my order. Yee-ha.

Well I should have known better. I'd already heard DSL-installation horror stories from a number of friends and acquaintances. But I foolishly thought, "It won't happen to me."

Wrong.

Here's an quick outline of the fun I've been having trying to get service from my friendly Telco. These are just my rough notes. Let me know if you find typos. I'll flesh it out once the service is working and I have some perspective.

Yeah right.

March 3, 1999

• Placed order for DSL Basic service with a Mrs. Collins; she can't confirm the order because the "system won't accept new orders" for my exchange; promises I will receive a call back within 24 hours
• She calls back before the end of the day to confirm the order and tell me my install will take place on March 18

March 15, 1999

• Lost dial tone on 415-XXX-XXXX at approximately 4:40 PM
• Reported to 611 Repair line; told a technician would arrive on Wed, 3/17

March 17, 1999

• Technician arrives at approximately 4:40, finds that line has been switched at box to pair with no dial tone; corrects situation; says that it won't affect DSL install

March 18, 1999

• Two DSL installers arrive approximately 1:20
• Require four hours to install hardware; the wiring looks sloppy and fragile
• Determine that line was not "provisioned" properly
• Provided the ethernet NIC that I had to pay for but do not need
• Leave with service not functioning; state that they will call later that evening with time estimate when the line will work; do not call

March 19, 1999

• Call 611 Repair at approximately 5:30 PM
• Transferred three times before I am placed on hold with the DSL Provisioning Department; system disconnects me at 6:45
• Call DSL Maintenance directly at 800-XXX-XXXX; hold and transferred to provisioning; call system disconnects at approximately 7:30
• Call back again; hold for 45 minutes; representative who comes on at approx. 8:15 tells me that DSL Provisioning leaves at 8; rep provides supervisors direct line, 925-XXX-XXXX

March 22, 1999

• Call supervisor's direct line; get voice mail; choose not to leave message
• Call DSL Maintenance; speak to representative Anne who verifies that the work order is still uncompleted; states she can't help me; promises to walk my request to provisioning department, ask them to call me and provides direct line, 888-XXX-XXXX; no call back received

March 23, 1999

• Call provisioning supervisor's direct line; leave detailed voice message with request that Sherry Jobear (sp?) return my call
• Call provisioning department directly; system disconnects after approximately 25 minutes

March 24, 1999

• Call provisioning supervisor Sherry Jobear; left detailed voice message with specific request for her to return my call
• Call provisioning department directly at 9:28; no voice message, just hold music; hung up at 10:29
• Call DSL sales depart; spoke to Anita who said that she will escalate case and have a manager call back by tomorrow
• At 1:10, received a call from Alexander on behalf of Sherry Jobear; he determined that the problem will require a technician to visit; said that a tech will be here by tomorrow morning; his number is 925-XXX-XXXX

March 25, 1999

• Technician didn't arrive as promised
• Received call at approximately noon from a woman (forgot to get name) who wanted to know if the phone box was accessible or if I needed to be home; then she asked if morning or afternoon would be better; I said the first available; she said she'd call back; no call back received
• Received call at approximately 4 PM from Eric Ryan (pager 888-XXX-XXXX) who identified himself as an installer that has been temporarily reassigned to the central office to solve the "mess"; seemed to know what he was talking about and was very apologetic; was surprised to hear that I had received the two previous calls; I explained the situation to him and he said he'd personally be responsible for expediting my case; said he would call back; no call back received

March 26, 1999

• Had not received a call back from Eric Ryan by 3 PM so I paged him

March 29, 1999

• Still no call back from Eric Ryan so I paged him at 10:32 AM
• Called Alexander at 1:20 PM; reports that the person who has my paperwork is not at his/her desk; will call me back in 35 minutes
• Alexander called back at 2:05 PM; reported that an outside technician will be here tomorrow; I am to call Tuesday at 8 AM to learn whether the tech will arrive in the morning or afternoon; an inside tech is scheduled to arrive 3/31 AM to verify that all is working

March 30, 1999

• Called Alexander at 8:10 AM; he says he will find the technician who received my job ticket, page him and determine when he will be here; I can expect a call back "soon"
• Received call from Alexander at 11:32 AM; reports that he finally tracked down the tech with my ticket; I am the last appointment of the day; confirmed that inside technician is still scheduled for Wednesday AM
• Returned home at approximately 7 PM to find that the sync indicator on the DSL modem had changed from red to green; regardless of this positive step internet connections were not going through with the previously provided settings

March 31, 1999

• Michael Nietes of PacBell Internet arrived at 1:21 PM; he checked the previously-installed wiring and hardware and was satisfied that both were functioning correctly; he then verified with Kwan, an engineer at PBI, that the IP address and Gateway address were correct; he could not ping computers going out; Kwan at PBI could not ping the modem coming in; Michael called the PCO to report trouble with the line; he held for two hours before being disconnected; he called his supervisor who elevated the case to PCO management; Michael was told to tell me the problem would be fixed in 24 hours; he left me his cell phone number with instructions to call him by noon Thursday if it is not repaired; Michael left at approximately 4:20 PM
• I called Alexander at 4:40; after I explained the situation, he said that he should be able to get my service up tonight; he asked if he could call me back in 20 minutes
• Alexander called back at 5:05; reported that NCO (not sure of initials, gather from the description that it is a related to network operations) for the West Bay was down and he can't diagnose my problem without info from them; while on the phone, he examined the latest printouts of my order and discovered that PBI has the same machine number listed for both my IP address and Gateway address so as feared there are configuration issues to deal with also; he ended the call by promising to follow up as soon as NCO for my area was back up
• Alexander called at approximately 7:45 PM to say that NCO still was not up and he was leaving for the day; he promised to deal with my case "first thing in the morning"

April 1, 1999

• 10:18 AM, received a call from Alexander; while I was on the phone he confirmed that the line and hardware are working, the network engineer could see my modem and reported that bandwidth was "good"; the problems appear to be on PBIês end--mixup on which package I am being billed for and what the correct IP/Gateway addresses are; Alexander said he had been talking to someone at PBI who hung up on him; he stated he was bumping it up another level and promised to call back within the hour
• 10:38 AM, Alexander called back conferenced me with Mike at PBI; Bill provided "new" IP/Gateway addresses (which were the same numbers provided during the initial install on the 18th) and had me run a series of tests; the results did not change; I could not ping out; they could not ping in; they decided to involve someone from the NDO (?) and said they would call back
• 11:05 AM; Alexander called back this time conferencing me with Mike at PBI and Bill at NDO; Bill was able to take the modem out of sync then restore it but Mike still could not ping the modem; they hung up promising to call back
• 11:26 AM; the trio called back; ran some more tests; pings came and--miracles of miracles--pings went out; launched a browser and everything worked; while I was on the phone, Alexander closed the order out, making sure my billing starts today