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(ASCEND) Ascend, Emergency Situations and Service or lack thereof (fwd from inet list....)
AGAIN, Schmidt's post NOT MINE.....
|
| To: inet-access@earth.com
| From: David Schmidt <david@adan.kingston.net>
| Subject: Ascend, Emergency Situations and Service or lack thereof
Well, we bit the bullet. Our FlexUp cards arrived on Friday and we
scheduled downtime Sunday night/Monday morning for the upgrade. Hardware
wise, smooth as can be. Software update, smooth as well. That was until our
dedicate ISDN connections tried to reconnect this morning. Going from the
v34 cards to K56 has caused the unit to no longer take ISDN calls. No way.
No how.
After doing some research, archives of the list showed that this has
happened to many others. It's as simple as a hash code to enable ISDN
again. We logged a tech support call at just after 9am this morning. At
1:15, after angry dedicated ($$$) customer after customer not being able to
connect I decided to pull rank and call to navigate Ascend's voice mail hell.
It was explained painfully to me that without an "Advantage Services
Contract" I was essentially expected to wait until Ascend got back to us.
Now, my problem with this situation is that:
a) we are out of service and have been for ... oh...going on 5 1/2 hours
now.
b) the problem was caused by the K56 upgrade.
c) the solution is as simple as a hash code
I navigated Ascend voice mail hell (if I hear that cheery voice from
Ascend's voice mail system one more time, I'm going to go postal) and
talked to a "representative." After explaining the situation and being very
firm (not my usual style at all), I was hurriedly passed on to a
"supervisor" who answered thinking it was an internal office call. After
explaining the situation again and getting the "Advantage Services
Contract" spiel again and being firm again -- she forwarded me into the
"priority queue." After 10 minutes on hold (irritating music), I bounced to
a bubbly young lady named Holly. After explaining the situation AGAIN and
getting the "Advantage Services Contract" spiel AGAIN, I was put back into
the "priority queue." 3 minutes later, I bounced back to Holly. She was
puzzled that I was back and put me back into the queue. 2 minutes later, I
was back to Holly. It would seem that the voice mail hell was experiencing
the equivalent of my ISDN problem. I wonder who has the hash code to solve
that...
Now, while I would have loved to spend all day on the phone with Holly
(nice friendly voice...me with so little sleep...yes, it's true...I have no
life), I had some serious issues to be resolved with our equipment. She
promised that her supervisor would generate the hash codes immediately for
me and e-mail them to me. 15 minutes later, I started to write this.
The phone just rang. Surprise. It was an Ascend Tech. The problem is now
solved, the hash code is in and our ISDN connections are back up.
Am I displeased? Yes.
Was this entire situation necessary? No.
What can Ascend do? Well, they can DOCUMENT problems like this and provide
easy fixes. Most of us in the ISP business KNOW WHAT WE'RE DOING and can
configure our own equipment. A simple web page could have solved the
problem in 2 seconds. Oh, yes...There is a web page
(http://www.ascend.com/hash/index.html) for requesting a hash code, but it
needs a secret authentication code. No one at the other end of the phone at
Ascend would give me such a code, so I was back to relying on humans.
I would like to contrast Ascend's abysmal support and service with the
opposite end of the spectrum.
In May of this year, we made the move to a fully digital solution and we
started to examine hardware. Ascend was in the running, as were Cisco, Bay,
Livingston and Shiva. Suffice to say that I am of the mindset that it was a
good thing that our 192 port upgrade was NOT based on Ascend's hardware.
We went with fully loaded Shiva LanRover Access Switches (LRAS) as our
solution. I have got to say, from day 1 (technician onsite to help with
install) until now -- I have been impressed...no...blown away by the level
of technical support and service that we received from Shiva.
>From getting to a human on first call to having pages returned late at
night, to cell phone calls from the show floor of ISPCon -- they've been
serious about their products from day 1.
At the same time on Sunday, we upgraded the firmware on some of our LRAS
boxes and added the rest of the 56K cards we received from Shiva. All went
well. This morning we learned of some firmware bugs that cause strange
connections for some brands of modems. I called Shiva. Voicemail. Left a
message. I waited for 5 minutes and then paged our account manager who left
a meeting to return the call within 7 minutes. He stayed with me on the
phone until we reflashed the boxes with more stable firmware. The equipment
was back up and 100% happy in about 4 1/2 minutes of him calling. An hour
later, he called to check on the progress. To add to this, after hanging up
with him, the phone rang and it was the Tech who I had left voicemail for.
So, in the time that it would take me to get through Ascend's voicemail
system to a human I had my Shiva problem solved.
Perhaps the big boys (Ascend, etc) should take some lessons from the
dedicated, serious professionals at companies like Shiva.
We're adding another 72-144 ports in the next 6 weeks, I wonder who I'll be
calling for that purchase?
That's my rant. I'm sure we're not alone. How do we get companies to show
their customers the respect they deserve?
Gotta go, I've got a hash code to generate so I can use the bathroom.
Cheers,
David
| david@adan.kingston.net Webmaster http://www.kingston.net |
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