pull up a chair and let me tell you a fun story. /join #ihatetelco SERIOUSLY CHAFING HERE FOLKS darku : move to .qc so, this is what's been going on. My ex-roommate (moved out last November) and I have been trying to get the account put in my name ('superseded' in telco language) since then. we find out after 2 hours in 3 and 4-way phone calls this morning with PacBell, that it is apparently _physically impossible_ to do this on a line that has DSL on it. I have to cancel the DSL, change the name, and place an entirely new order. this is because their systems cannot apparently talk to each other (HELLO YOU HELPED BUILD THIS INTARWEB THING BUT I GUESS YOU'RE STILL USING SMOKE SIGNALS OR SOMETHING) SO ... not only that, but they cannot even _cancel_ the DSL until my ISP (God bless them, they are amazing; I love them) cancels with a PacBell division O_o which according to PB will then take 2 weeks to process: (and I quote) "34 systems it has to go through" ... AFTER THAT I can supersede the account. AFTER THAT HAPPENS, I can place an entirely new order. 2-3 more weeks and my DSL is back on, in my name. jeez so basically, when one changes names on a phone line that has DSL on it, _even if the DSL is with a 3rd-party vendor in my name_, you are GUARANTEED a minimum month of downtime. if you're lucky. Wow, it's not actually worth doing. But Cyberverse, my ISP (and an official PB reseller now) is going to do their best to cut this down to 2 weeks. Sounds a lot like what happened to us when we moved, and in our case our DSL was with the phone company. Phone change no problem. DSL change 9 months. I seriously considered cancelling the phone entirely and getting cable. get cable except my cableco does PPPoE, apparently checks to see if I have an officially supported OS, and gives me no static IP. and at least a week to get that installed too Ew, PPPoE makes me want to wash. T CABLECO NOT USING USERNAME PASSWORD TO LOGIN HERE THIS IS NOT DIALUP HLAGHLAGHLAGH burp Though I found an even cooler encapsulation yesterday that I didn't know about that made me very happy in an icky sort of way. GO GO ROOTLESS X PLZ KTHX * Halfjack cheers OSX on it's being a CRABASS {***actual remark censored to avoid triggering Carnivore/spook profilers***} mmm FAE sounds fun no fae? JUST TO LET YOU KNOW haven't received a phone bill since June, either. Fuel Air Explosive and they call Nancy yesterday asking if my ex-roomie still lived there. "No, he doesn't." "okay, we'll disconnect service then"*click* LITERAL QUOTE HERE THEY EVEN SAID CLICK they didn't even ASK if we were using the phone or DSL. and this morning they tried to tell me how careful they were when cancelling a line that had DSL on it because it was such a hassle to get it reinstated LIARS ALL {***add'l edit to avoid FBI house call***} and they wonder why people hate telcos so much. ONLY KIDDING CARNIVORE so now Nancy, who's trying to work from home and jobhunt, is pretty much SOL. * Halfjack whispers modem and it turns out that there is NOTHING I could have done to have avoided at least a month of downtime. yeah, except I have no modem. fimmtiu++ and she's sending mega photoshop files to her design clients fimm++ SO ... turns out to have been a good idea to wire her foster mom's coffee shop for Net access a couple months back. we're gonna be crashing there A LOT over the next couple weeks. except currently she has no car because mine needs a new front mount transmission seal, so I have to fix that before she can go over there and work. Hopefully this will happen today. oh, and I had to pay the outstanding phone bill before anything could move forward: $300. 220 of that was LONG DISTANCE for the last 2 months. apparently we weren't on any official savings plan. so we were getting charged like a dollar a minute or something. $500 a week ago to get car smogged {***snip; see above***} and clutch hydraulics replaced. darkuncle: you should write an LJ rant! $400 to get tranny seal fixed today. $300 for phone bill. *sigh* I _had_ some cash saved up for fileserver/debt reduction/etc. but it's gone now. [LATER] ah, more fun with PacBell: called just now to find out how long I could expect to wait to have voice service restored (paid bill in full this morning; was told 2-4 hours at 10 AM). PB: "Because there was a late bill, you will have to put up a $125 deposit as long as the account is in Ian's name to get service restored." me: "So I pay $125 now, and service goes back up, or I pay nothing, wait till Monday/Tuesday, supersede the account, and get voice service back for free?" PB: "Yes. The deposit will be refunded after the super is complete." ...