{"id":110,"date":"2003-11-18T10:09:34","date_gmt":"2003-11-18T10:09:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/viodi.com\/classic\/2003\/11\/18\/article3-6\/"},"modified":"2023-08-13T18:27:18","modified_gmt":"2023-08-13T18:27:18","slug":"article3-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/viodi.com\/classic\/2003\/11\/18\/article3-6\/","title":{"rendered":"One Utility\u2019s Crash, Another Utility\u2019s Gain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/p>\n

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2004 ISP Summit advertisement<\/a><\/p>\n

Quick Jump Menu to this Issue’s Articles November, 18th 2003 Overview The Multimedia Home -Coming Soon to a Home Near You: One Way to Sell a Complex Technology: One Utility’s Crash, Another Utility’s Gain: Is It a Product or Just Good Marketing? <\/p>\n

One Utility\u2019s Crash, Another Utility\u2019s Gain<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

by Ken Pyle<\/a><\/p>\n

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About Viodi, LLC<\/a> <\/p>\n

November 18th, 2003 Issue<\/strong><\/p>\n

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It is amazing that here in the heart of Silicon Valley, my neighbors and I experience regular power outages. Actually, the general physical infrastructure, whether it be electrical, transportation or telecom is really pretty pathetic in the valley. For instance our cable system features dual 300+ MHz plant, circa 1975. Needless to say we don\u2019t have cable modems, but at least we are fortunate enough to have DSL<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

In fact, I have been quite pleased with the SBC Yahoo!<\/strong> service. At $29.95 per month ($26.95 per month, if I had signed up a few weeks later), it is quite affordable and it provides a number of nice features, such as spam control and gobs of online storage for email. The service has been very reliable<\/strong>; I don\u2019t believe I had lost service at all.<\/p>\n

Then the great power outage of 2003 hit. Well, it actually wasn\u2019t so great \u2013 the shortage was not caused by the weather or even a pigeon shorting a transformer. When the power was restored, DSL was no more. So, I went through the normal troubleshooting procedure of cycling power to the DSL modem, checking the router\u2019s settings, etc. None of the usual troubleshooting techniques done in the past seemed to work. <\/p>\n

Being an email addict, I couldn\u2019t go the weekend without some sort of wired access, so I decided to contact SBC on Saturday. Unfortunately, the paperwork with the help contact information was nowhere to be found. Fortunately, I was able to dial-out and gain access to the SBC Yahoo! help desk. I checked the FAQ section, but no luck. I noticed that they offered an online chat help<\/strong> desk. <\/p>\n

The online chat help desk worked pretty well. I actually liked this approach, because I wasn\u2019t tethered to the phone and I could multitask in between responses. During the course of troubleshooting, the case was seamlessly raised to the next level and transferred to another service representative. Finally, I was asked for my phone number and a good time for another service representative to call me. <\/p>\n

A few hours later, I received a phone call from an SBC representative. After a brief conversation and, based on the earlier troubleshooting that had been performed with the other service representatives, we determined that the DSL modem had probably been affected by the power outage \u2013 maybe a power surge, but I did have a surge protected line. The good news was that I had another DSL modem \u2013 the bad news was I didn\u2019t have the $10 power supply to make it operational. I was promised that a technician would show up on Monday between 8 and 12 A.M.<\/p>\n

Sure enough, early Monday morning, I received a call from an SBC technician, Pat, to confirm that I still had the problem. He arrived in his brightly painted SBC Yahoo! van approximately 30 minutes later. We changed out the modem and it fixed the problem. <\/p>\n

Pat<\/strong> went way beyond the call of duty<\/strong> and gave me some good tips on how to get the most out of the service. What really impressed me, however, was the fact that he gave me a call the next day to confirm the problem really was fixed. It was a surprise to get such personal service<\/strong> from such a big company \u2013 very unexpected. <\/p>\n

So, what were the lessons<\/strong> I learned from this long-winded tale of my trivial DSL woes?<\/p>\n