Die Charter Die

I don't have a love / hate relationship with my ISP Charter. I have a hate / want to shank you / incoming shovel to the face relationship with them. I have two options for high speed internet in my area. Charter cable and Centurytel DSL. Centurytel is close to twice as expensive for 1/4 the speed so really, its not much of an option at all. So Charter it is.

For the most part, my internet works fine. Actually, the event that sparked this post, while interent related, wasn't really the fault of my modem at all. I got on last night, fired up Vent (voice chat), started streaming music, connected my IMs and brought up the guild web page. I then went to connect to World of Warcraft. Hmmm.. can't connect. Reboot modem, router and computer. Still nothing. Internet is working fine other than that.

So I start some troubleshooting. As most of you that read this aren't IT savvy, I'll skip most of the details, but I ran a continuous ping to the WoW logon server. This just checks on 1 second intervals to see if it can connect to the server. I was getting 80-90% packet loss. Meaning 1 or 2 out of 10 attempts was actually making it to the server. This does not work well for connecting and playing.

I hopped on charters support page where they have chat based support. I have found this is much faster than jumping through the hoops of the automated phone system. I start up a tech support chat and after a few minutes of pleasntries and verifying who I was, I explained that my tracert showed that the packets were having an issue getting from Charters network onto AT&Ts network. The woman I was talking to didn't even acknowledge that I had spoken and promptly tells me that she has reprovisioned my modem on their end and that all I need to do is reboot everything and I should be all set. I questioned this of course as the problem is not with the modem, but she refused to even talk to me more about it til I had rebooted.

So I went through the whole process again .. and of course the problem was still there. So I hope back on chat and get a different person. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Here's my acct info (blahblahblah). I already talked to someone and went through the reprovisioning, rebooting etc. I am NOT having a modem related problem. I am trying to talking to someone to get an investigation going on a problem with routing from Charter's network to AT&T that is preventing Charter customers from connecting to World of Warcraft servers.

CustomerServiceIdiot2: Do you have a router.

Me: Yes, I have a router. The router and modem are functioning fine however. I am online talking to you via that router and modem. I am streaming music and doing voice chat as well as surfing the web. Its not a hardware problem on my end, its a routing / connectivity issue between Charter and AT&T. I have a tracert I can show you.

CSI2: Sir, I need you to plug your modem directly into your computer to eliminate that as a problem.

Me: To what end? It is not the router. It is not the modem. Its not my computer. If the router was the problem, I would be experiencing packet loss on everything I am doing on through that connection, not isolated to one specific server on the internet.

CSI2: **Stunned silence for over 5 minutes while she furiously googles a response that might sound plausible.**

CSI2: Well see if there is heavy traffic on your through your router it can cause buffer overflows which might cause the kind of problem you are seeing. (*she crosses her fingers and squints her eyes hoping I will buy it)

Me: Yeah.. I don't think...

CSI2: I cannot help you further. Please remove the router and then call tier2 support at xxx-xxx-xxxx aka 1-800-WeRRetarded.


I know that statement doesn't mean much to most of you, but to put it into perspective, it would be much like your mechanic coming out with a bewildered look on his face clearly indicating he has no idea what is wrong with your car and then trying to tell a guy who rebuilds engines for fun in his spare time something along the lines of:

"Well see its your flux capicitor.. it wasn't getting the necessary 1.21 jiggawatts of power which caused it to warp and impinge on the round whirlygiggergizmodoohicky."

Anyway.. after marveling at the level of stupidity .. I called 'tier2' support. Turns out it was the same generic level of support you can get just by calling the usual 800 number. Which means.. if thats considered tier2.. then the idiots that cant even make that level man the chat lines and are probably sharing the same 3 brain cells among the pool of them. You just have to hope that the one you talk to is in current possesion of at least 1 of the 3 aformentioned brain cells.

So I call in.. jump through the hoops .. and after yelling 'AGENT' at the automated system for a few minutes I get to talk to a live human being. I explain everything to her .. offer to send a tracert log to her. She promptly starts to 'reprovision' my modem. I had to tell her to stop. Long story short, she couldn't help me. Her supervisor couldn't help me. None of them at that location were actually allowed to interact with the IT staff that would actually investigate such a problem. The best they could offer me was an email address to send the log too.

After arguing with all these people for over 25 minutes, I finally gave up. I was told to wait 48 hours and try again. I couldn't take it anymore. Someone was going to die if I didn't get off the phone. So I told them I would email the log and that they should review their procedures and be able to transfer a problem like mine to appropriately trained personell in a timely fashion. I was in the process of hanging up politely when I heard:

CSI3: Wait a second please Sir. I notice that you have our 5Mb interenet service. Are you aware that we have a 10Mb service and that currently its only 12 dollars more per month? Also did you know that we have excellent bundle packages to include that 10Mb service as well as digital cable?

Me: Stunned Silence for 30 seconds.

CSI3: Sir are you still there?

Me: Oh I'm here. See I was going to try to end this conversation without getting really upset, but you have made that impossible. Are you SERIOUSLY trying to upsell my account when my interenet connection is not working the way it needs to and you are completely unable to even understand what I am talking about much less be able to fix it or get me in touch with someone how can?

CSI3: Im sorry I can't do more, but are you interested in the 10Mb connection at all?

Me: What the hell? You are still trying to sell me a bigger package when you know I can't do what I want to do on the current one? So I get the 10Mb service and I can get stuck not connecting to the WoW servers.. ummm.. twice as fast? Are you seriously forced to try and upsell someone even when you know its a horrible idea at the time? Are you going to get fired if you don't?

CSI3: Im sorry.. is there anything else

Me: Look, I hate to rage on you because I know the policies are set for you. But use some common sense. If a customer is already upset over your companies ineptitude and inability to even get started investigating a problem, why on earth would said customer want to buy more services. That has all the tact of walking up to a widow walking out of a funeral for her husband and asking if you can have dibs on his big screen TV.

CSI3: Im sorry..

Me: Incoming yule log to the face. As I know you obviously weren't smart enough to realize what a crappy situation you were getting into with this job and their lack of technical knowledge and training, I shall only beam you once. Your supervisor is getting have a dozen whacks to the cranial region. I will then give him a yule log of his own that he can pass along said message to those responsible for the tragedy that is Charter tech support.


Ok.. so I the last line didn't really happen. It went more like **click** as I hung up the phone on her. I was thinking it though. Seriously.. it would have been just as effective if they set up a monkey at the zoo on tech support. Put a poster on the wall outside his cage with options like "reprovision modem" and "blame router" or "reboot computer". Then give the monkey big piles of poo and let him just go to town. Any square that get his by poo is what is given to the customer to try as a 'fix'.

I have had to call Charter tech support probably a dozen times over the years and not once have I had contact at the help desk with anyone I would say is even remotely knowledgeable in the area. They are clearly reading scripts and following a few procedures they know how to do but don't understand. Its maddening how frustrating it is dealing with them.