Vitriolic Humor

First I'll give Knology credit for providing good cable broadband service from the standpoint of uptime and adequate bandwidth. When I'm not having an "issue" with Knology, their service is great.

Now the black eye...

Knology is simply the worst customer service and technical support experience I have ever experienced. To quote another customer, "In terms of customer support, Knology actually makes over-seas call centers look really good! That's no small task." I agree with his take, but would even argue the opposite. They do such a poor job that they make the overseas call centers look bad (though you can usually at least understand the "technicians" as they "help" you.)

They will run you through the diagnostic script that is in front of them, give you a non-answer, and schedule a support visit. If you have a non-standard question that isn't in their script, or doesn't fit their script, you are in for a ride. Strap in...

Back in late November of last year I noticed that mail coming into my server had stopped being delivered (I run my own Linux server at home to support mail, web, etc.) Knology seems to have tolerance for home-based servers. They don't encourage or support them, but they don't actively stop you from running a server either . So, I've had Knology cable modem service for about two years at this point. No problems, reliable service, then things changed.

A couple months earlier we went through the exercise of blocking outbound traffic on port 25 (which I deem a reasonable anti-SPAM measure from residential accounts.) A little bump, but I redirected my outbound mail to Knology's main SMTP mail server and everything works fine again. Most ISPs started blocking mail coming from residential IPs (as specified by each ISP) several months prior to this, so this wasn't a big surprise.

Then November 28th came. Suddenly, no more incoming mail. I couldn't ping my server from the Internet on port 25. I assumed something was blocked, but couldn't be sure. I spent several days and way too many hours on the phone with Knology trying to confirm that they were blocking port 25 incoming on my connection. Nobody could give me an answer. Tech support would only read from their script "Incoming mail is port 110, sir, not port 25." ARGH!!!! (Patiently) Yes, for a POP user, but I'm running my own mail server, so incoming mail is TCP port 25. Round and round, they won't escalate me to level 2 support because I simply don't understand that incoming mail is on port 110.

After a couple dozen calls over a week or so, I finally simplified things. Let's pretend I'm a bit on the Internet. I want to get to TCP port 25 on my home network from the Internet. Is that blocked? "Incoming mail is port 110, sir, not port 25." ARGHHGHHHH!

After extensive troubleshooting and about a week of screwing around with this problem (all of my personal e-mail failing to be delivered to me, the whole time.) someone at Knology slipped up and said "Yeah, port 25 incoming is blocked too."

I went into a tirade about how ridiculous this was and how that had no bearing on preventing SPAM or providing your customer a good experience. You are my Internet Service Provider, not my whatever-Internet-we-feel-like-giving-you Provider. Do I get a discount for my new "reduced service" (now with less function!)?

The end result of all this is that the only option Knology has that supports incoming traffic on port 25 is a Business Account. Business Accounts cost more than twice what I had been paying for my cable modem connection. The only difference between a residential account and a business account is that incoming port 25 traffic is allowed! Remember, I run all this as a personal hobby. There is no business here. Thanks to Knology's new policies (which they didn't bother to announce to their customers) my cable modem access suddenly costs twice as much.

I don't have another cable company to pick from, Southwestern Bell doesn't have DSL to my home, there is no wireless service locally, and I'm not going to do a satellite connection. Knology it is. So I call them up and order a business connection, hoping to be back online with my mail server in a few hours. I finally called back the sales guy at the end of the day. Turns out there provisioning system won't let them provision a "business connection" to my "residential location." Apparently nobody thought this problem through when they decided to build the provisioning system.

Residential connection was $36/mo. (no cable modem rental.) Business connection is $58/mo. Static IP (not available to residential clients) is $16/mo. My reasonable $36/mo. cable modem bill has now mushroomed to $74/mo., more than twice what I was paying. Remember the only difference is incoming traffic to port 25 isn't blocked. That pisses me off. To finish things off nicely, they didn't even change my IP, they just moved it over as a commercial account.

My residential, non-static IP had never changed (DHCP, 7-day lease and my cable modem is always on) in the 2 years I'd been with Knology, but I figured I'd minimize future problems by springing for the Static IP up front. Read here how that blew up in my face a month later.

Knology, the lessons are simple:

• Communicate with your customers, tell them what you are doing. You are affecting their experience when you change your service.
• Realize some of your customers are technical and may use your service more effectively and extensively than others.
• When you displease your customer, they will speak out.

I'd still like to hear from someone at Knology who can explain this poorly-designed product offering, poor technical service, and overall painful customer experience. If anyone at Knology cares, drop me a line: speed (dash) know (at) transmit (dot) net

Tags: support complaint alabama cable modem service techinical knology problem customer

Posted by speedeep at 8:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

For a long time now, Sony has been well thought of in the consumer audio and home entertainment industries. Their CD players (and especially their CD transport mechanisms) get high ratings from quality types and audiophiles alike.

With the exception of speakers, I'm a Sony Guy. I've got the receiver, the 5-disc changer, the 200-disc changer, the DVD player, the VCR, the TV, the digital camera, the cordless phone, the Playstation 2s, you get the idea. My wife waited overnight outside the store to get the PS2 on the first day it was available (I was traveling out of town.) I like Sony.

I like my Playstations 2 (is that like "attorneys general?") and there's no way I'd buy into MicroSoft's entertainment PC (Xbox).

Playstations 2? Yeah, that's as in plural.

I keep one operational as my 'production' Playstation 2 and the other is a 'hot-backup' Playstation 2 for when I've got to send my Playstation 2in for service because of the dreaded "Disc Read Error." The product fails often enough that I have to keep a hot backup. I feel like some sort of perverse N+1 consumer. Good for Sony, bad for consumer.

If you haven't heard of this "Disc Read Error" before, it's probably because:

• You work in the Sony support department
• You work in the Sony PR department

Despite a plethora of complaints and customers searching for a solution (the PS2 has only a 90-day warranty) and fix-it resources available on the web, Sony denies (or at least ignore the fact) that they have a product-wide problem with their Playstation 2. Mine consistently start failing to read CD media and eventually fails to read all media after approximately 18-24 months of use.

Several sites around the Internet indicate that the problem has to do with the voltage going to the two lasers (CD and DVD.) I've tried this repair and I've paid a game shop to try this repair. My attempt was temporarily successful, but the problem reoccured a couple months later. The game shop couldn't make my PS2 work last time. Others have suggested a litany of unlikely causes, including: playing rental titles (supposedly they are "off-balance" because of the stickers the rental stores apply to the discs), viruses, martians peeing on your laser (you get the idea.)

Internet Fix-It Tutorials will walk you through cleaning your PS2 (compressed air), cleaning the laser, adjusting the "level of the laser lens", adjusting the trim potentiometers that control the voltage going to the lasers. Some of these may work for you permanently, some will work temporarily, some will not work at all. My mileage has varied, yours will to most likely.

Sony, for their part, dutifully repairs the machine. Sometimes this is after I pay the $120 service fee (though they have always refunded it), sometimes they waive the fee (though they won't admit any guilt or problem.)

My 'production' Playstation 2 went out again recently. It played all my DVD games fine until I brought home my brand new copy of Grand Turismo 4 (GT4) and powered on the Playstation. Nothing... then "Disc Read Error." That Playstation 2 plays some of the DVD games, but not GT4.

I swapped the units out and it looks like my Playstation 2 is headed for a trip to the Sony repair place in San Diego. For the third time. Hey, look, Sony only charges $75 to repair Playstation 2s now! I'm beside myself. I'll call them directly and see if I can get them to waive the fee again...

If you need to send in your PS2 for repairs, you can start here. For now, the Playstation Support line is: 1-800-345-7669.

Posted by speedeep at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I started writing web pages in 1994. Not quite the beginning of the Internet, but right on the crest of the first widespread consumer access to the Internet. At the time I had started and was running an ISP.

I've done thousands of web pages over the years for fun and profit. I don't use web editors, all my pages are hand-crafted with some combination of the finest vi/vim or perl for most of the CGI stuff. I've always used CAPITAL letters in my HTML tags. That's 11 years of hand-coded HTML, and millions of tags all in CAPITALS.

The RFCs documented the tags in CAPS and it was generally understood to be good style to use CAPS for tags so they stood out more clearly when reading an unrendered (source) HTML document. The browsers don't care (and heck, I didn't care.) That was the way things were done back then.

(Did you know Yahoo gets 80 Billion hits per day according to Alexa.Com?)

Now we are transitioning into the case-sensitive worlds of XHTML and XML and the times they are a changing.

Do you know how hard it is to start typing HTML tags in lower case? I'm guessing a few of you out there do. Those of you who don't will run into the wall soon. I waited as long as I could...

I've made the switch to lower and am in the process of converting my existing HTML to XHTML with CSS.

Many of my HTML pages are script- and database-driven, so it's only a matter of changing the HTML in my code and all the pages are corrected. A smaller group (but significant number) of my pages are static HTML. I've enlisted the help of 'sed' and 'vim' in my quest to 'lc' my HTML.

Posted by speedeep at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A memo came out recently from my boss at "the customer site" (I'm a consultant.) It reiterated the standard policy of no jokes involving sex, race, gender in the workplace. Then it continued to include "no mean jokes." I'm not kidding. I want to go ask for a definition of "mean", but as I'm just a consultant here, I'll refrain from asking. I find myself having to stop part-way through jokes now thinking that they might be mean.

I'm of the opinion that absolutely anything can be funny, but that certain things aren't appropriate or funny given certain circumstances. I'm a big fan of off-color humor, but you just don't go around telling "Yo momma" jokes at someone's mother's funeral. It's not right.

That said, every joke derives it's humor from some sort of jab at the subject of the joke, or in some cases the person hearing the joke. Think about it, blond jokes, lawyer jokes, redneck jokes. Not racial-, sexual-, or gender-based, but someone belonging to these groups could consider the joke "mean." I personally don't worry about who might be offended by my jokes usually. I've got a decent sense of tact (others may disagree) and can choose to tell jokes when I think it is appropriate. Except at work.

"Comedy is tragedy plus time." --Carol Burnett

"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die." --Mel Brooks

BTW - I hate the term "Next Level". It's a Weasel Word (Weasel Phrase?) and means absolutely nothing most times it is uttered. I'm using it here for sarcasm.

Posted by speedeep at 8:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Why is it that when the speed limit is about to drop, some states put up a "Speed Zone Ahead" (Oh, goody!) sign and others put a "Reduced Speed Ahead" sign? Are the two fewer letters worth being unclear about what the sign is supposed to say? I've noticed both variations in Alabama. You'd think they'd at least settle on one or the other.

Posted by speedeep at 12:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I'm a United Mileage Plus member for many years now as I typically travel a lot for my work. I'm going to drop them, the frequent flyer program and the airline because I'm getting SPAM from their so-called "partners or companies whose services or products may be of interest to [me]." It should also be noted that I use unique e-mail addresses on every site I sign up for. Mileage Plus is no different, and the spam I've received is clearly addressed to the unique e-mail address I use for Mileage Plus and only Mileage Plus. It's fairly evident that this isn't some luck spammer's folly, the spammers got the address I entrusted with Mileage Plus when I registered with them...

I got the first one January 17, 2004:

From: "Clement Kramer" <Millard.Fontenot@zipresponse.com>
Just Released: 2005 Cable T V de5rambler with f r e e lock Out Buster.
Great gift for you and others for the holidays.
$39.95 gives you all your free events & movies. Perfect Offer...
*X X X, W W E, U F C, N E W M O V I E S, F R E E ! w/ parental lockout ability.

then another one exactly 6 months later.

It irritated me (and I'm sure my cable provider frowns on cable fraud) but I dutifully logged into the United Mileage Plus site, read their policies, decided to opt-out (<rhetorical>why isn't the opted-out option the default?</rhetorical>) and let the issue drop.

In the past week, while still "opted-out" (I verified above), I'm still getting SPAM from United's "Mileage Plus partners or companies whose services or products may be of interest to [me]." These are not companies "whose services or products may be of interest" to me. These are spammers.

From: 1mWa_Segura5@juno.com (Kate Montgomery) sent me:
** Authorized Message Regarding Your New Lower Mortgage **
As mentioned, your application has been filed and approved. You need to select a new lower rate plan at no cost. Please finalize to maximize savings. Thank you.

From: (Brandon Rosales) <Karla.Hickman@zenzonesoftware.com>
- Confidential Swiss Pharmacy -
The most secure pharmacy on the planet. Strict swiss laws allow us to keep all your information, billing info, & orders, discrete and safe.
Located in the heart of switzerland we pride ourselves on quality meds, service, & satisfaction. Our prices are some of the lowest in the world.
Specials include: Amb.(sleep), Phtrmne.(weight), Cial/viag(sex), val/xan(depression), & more.

United, will you claim these spammers as partners?

You obviously sold or gave them my e-mail address. Lucky for you, I use absolutely unique e-mail addresses on each commercial website that I register. My e-mail for my United Mileage Plus account was unique for that purpose only. This isn't a random spam sneaking through.

United, how much money did you make selling my e-mail address?

So I dutifully call their Mileage Plus account support phone lines ( 1-800-421-4655, if you need it) and in less than a minute, I have a helpful representative.

Me: "I want to quit. Please delete my account"

MPRep: "I can't do that sir, I could make your account inactive, though."

Me: "Will that keep me from getting spam e-mail from your so-called partners? I've already opted-out on the web, and it doesn't seem to be working."

MPRep: "No, but I can remove your e-mail from our system."

Me: "Fine. Have you guys heard a lot of these complaints?"

MPRep: "No, this is the first I've heard. We apologize for your troubles. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

Me: "No, thanks."

So I go back to the website to make sure my e-mail address is gone and I get this:

Hmm. Now I've got a broken account. Will that keep the spam from coming to me? I go ahead and "Update Profile" and (despite the representative's representations and the web site's complaining) my e-mail address is still in there.

I've changed it now. As far as United is concerned my e-mail is now at @example.com. <g> I've redirected incoming mail into the bit bucket and I won't be getting any more spam from my United Mileage Plus affiliation.

Any you wonder why untied.com is so popular?

For the record, I've got frequent flyer memberships with 10 other domestic and international airlines. Other than the specified statements-by-email, I've never received a piece of spam from any of them (all were given unique addresses too.)

United, is public opinion of your company and your frequent flyer program so great that you are willing to risk your customer's relationships by dragging them through the scum of your shady business practices?

Tags: ual internet mileageplus mileage spam marketing travel united pr transportation

Posted by speedeep at 3:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)