Spirit of [dis]Service

I write today about Qwest, also known as Qworst or Qweerest.

You see, our phone and internet service with QWEST was shut off the night of 2/4. When we called the next morning, QWEST confirmed that our bill was current, but our number was being ported to another carrier, and that was the reason for being disconnected.

Problem is, we never requested having our service ported. So we asked QWEST who initiated the request, and to which carrier. We were told they had that information but were not allowed to share it (nice). We asked about having our service restored, we were told the port had to complete, and then service would be restored 5-6 business days after that.

I asked to escalate the matter, as this is completely unacceptable, and was told someone would call me back within 48 hours. It's been three days, and yup, you guessed it, never hapened.

So there we were, with no phone and no internet through absolutely no fault of our own, and the phone company didn't seem particularly motivated to do anything about it. I should add that I have to work from home a fair amount during evenings and weekends, and this would likely force me to drive into work at odd hours when something comes up. I couldn't sit still knowing I pay these people nearly $1000/year for phone and internet access, to receive such poor service.

So I took action.

I filed a complaint with the FCC and PUC of Utah.

Then I called the people at Comcast cable. I asked about their Internet service. It's over twice as fast as my old DSL line and costs $5/month more. They said they could be out the next day to install it. Done.

Then I stopped by CompUsa and picked up a Vonage VOIP adapter. Activation took 5 minutes. Once the internet was up running again, it took 5 minutes to connect to my router, and I was making phone calls. A Vonage line is $10 - $15/month cheaper than a Qwest line, depending on the features.

So, I solved my internet problem and my phone problem over a week faster than the supposed experts BY MYSELF. And my internet service is twice as fast as before, and I'm now saving somewhere between $5 and $10/month.

Ironically, the president of the Utah division sent us a letter in the mail, letting us know we were one of their best customers, and don't hesitate to let the company know if there's anything they can do for us.

I'm going to take his letter, staple my first month's bills to it, and mail it back to him, thanking him for setting me free. Maybe the company *IS* service-oriented, and I just failed to see it.