What to do when your ISP off-shores tech support

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1

I've had difficulties reaching anyone with a brain
at my DSL provider Verizon California.

I can reliably ping the first hop from my home to
the CO with a 25ms delay. But if I ping any other
location, packets get dropped or significantly
delayed. To me, this sounds like Verizon has an
internal routing problem rather than a problem
with my phone line. Note that it rained recently
in our area and the cable vault in front of my
is usually covered with stagnant water because
the gutters don't drain it away.

I have tried to explain this to tech support but
they refuse to go off script, even the supervisors.
They keep insisting on sending a tech to my home
when I suggest this should be escalated to their
network operations team.

Anyhow, if I can reliably ping the first hop
connection as part of the problem? Just a sanity
check on my part. Thanks.

matthew black
california state university, long beach

2

Matthew Black wrote:

I've had difficulties reaching anyone with a brain
at my DSL provider Verizon California.

I can reliably ping the first hop from my home to
the CO with a 25ms delay. But if I ping any other
location, packets get dropped or significantly
delayed. To me, this sounds like Verizon has an
internal routing problem rather than a problem
with my phone line. Note that it rained recently
in our area and the cable vault in front of my
is usually covered with stagnant water because
the gutters don't drain it away.

I have tried to explain this to tech support but
they refuse to go off script, even the supervisors.
They keep insisting on sending a tech to my home
when I suggest this should be escalated to their
network operations team.

Anyhow, if I can reliably ping the first hop
from my home, would that eliminate my telephone
connection as part of the problem? Just a sanity
check on my part. Thanks.

Is your DSL modem of the type that you can log into and check the line
stats?

Even if there are phone line problems, you still have sync, and
regardless what the sync rate, line noise etc are, if you can ping
across the link and get a reply, replies should come back from distant
gear as well.

Perhaps an op from another relatively local provider could supply you
with a temporary DSL auth account to see if that will route you around
the problem.

I could supply you one, but I'm in southern Ontario, Canada, so I don't
know if the realm would properly route all the way back here or not.

Steve

3

Matthew Black wrote:

I've had difficulties reaching anyone with a brain
at my DSL provider Verizon California.

Switch to a local ISP with local tech support.

4

bingo.

i have multiple offices. in each case, i buy layers one and two from the copper/fiber monopoly and layer three from local folk with clue and caring: lavanet (hawai`i), infinitiy internet (pnw), and iij (tokyo, and yes i work for iij).

local packet pushers with clue are not only better at layer three support and delivery, but they carry more weight with the hellco to get your layer one and two problem fixed.

randy

5

Randy Bush wrote:

6

Much easier said than done. Verizon has a small territory within Qwest's 14 state region -- it's in Grants Pass, Oregon.

No local ISP partners with Verizon because it's hideously expensive and obviously not enough of a demand or even a big enough service area for an ISP to partner with VZ.

Not sure where Mr. Black is from but he's probably in the same boat.

Regards,

Steve

Jay Hennigan wroteth on 12/24/2008 9:43 AM:

7

Etaoin Shrdlu wrote:

Randy Bush wrote:

Matthew Black wrote:

I've had difficulties reaching anyone with a brain
at my DSL provider Verizon California.

Switch to a local ISP with local tech support.

bingo.

Uh, ditto? Having left SoCal a couple of years ago, my data is a bit
stale. However, I happily used XO+Covad in three separate locations (in
SoCal). DSLExtreme also has (or at least had) a good reputation. Verizon
sucks. In fact, since you are in the Long Beach area, they suck even
more than they do other places. Vote with your feet.

Layer 3 should indeed never be bought based on price or how big the
provider is , but based on service.

And if none of the options work out, you can always start your own.

Verizon, no matter where in the world, always seems to be a nightmare to
deal with. I second the suggestion to vote with your feet.

Kind regards,
Martin List-Petersen

8

Actually, and I know this kind of experience is really subjective, but
lately I have been getting better service from residents of India via
web-based chat tools than I have been getting from residents of the US
via telephone. At the same company.

My impression as a customer is that only one of these two individuals
genuinely wanted to do or keep the job they were given, and desired to
do it well.

That's really what you should be looking for, locality is irrelevant.

9

Etaoin Shrdlu wrote:

Randy Bush wrote:

Matthew Black wrote:

I've had difficulties reaching anyone with a brain
at my DSL provider Verizon California.

Switch to a local ISP with local tech support.

bingo.

Uh, ditto? Having left SoCal a couple of years ago, my data is a bit
stale. However, I happily used XO+Covad in three separate locations
(in SoCal). DSLExtreme also has (or at least had) a good reputation.
Verizon sucks. In fact, since you are in the Long Beach area, they
suck even more than they do other places. Vote with your feet.

I am pretty sure that COVAD is offshore now....

10

Roy wrote:

Etaoin Shrdlu wrote:

...However, I happily used XO+Covad in three separate locations
(in SoCal). DSLExtreme also has (or at least had) a good reputation.
Verizon sucks. In fact, since you are in the Long Beach area, they
suck even more than they do other places. Vote with your feet.

I am pretty sure that COVAD is offshore now....

Might be, but the quality of customer service was the issue, I believe, not just where it was located (at least I hope that wasn't the only objection). I think Mr. Black has already made plain that cost is an issue, in any case. I used to have the lowest business class they provided (even though it was just to my house). Currently, I am the only customer for my local ISP with the service level I have, going to a residential address. We all spend our $$$ on what's important to us. Packets are important to me. I like 'em.

11

Uh, ditto? Having left SoCal a couple of years ago, my data is a bit
stale. However, I happily used XO+Covad in three separate locations
(in SoCal). DSLExtreme also has (or at least had) a good reputation.
Verizon sucks. In fact, since you are in the Long Beach area, they
suck even more than they do other places. Vote with your feet.

I am pretty sure that COVAD is offshore now....

Last time I talked to them the helpdesk people were Canadian. That's for
T1s; I'm not sure if they do DSL support in the same location.

12

You cannot blame the script readers. Whether they are next door to you
or in India, the employer has decided to provide low training levels and
script based support.

You might consider calling their sales department. Explain that you are
technically oriented and experienced and that the level of support they
provide is inadequate for you and that you understand how networks run.

Ask if it is possible to give you access to higher level support since
this would result in less time being wasted by you and them when there
are problems.

They may suggest you get a business account.

13

Hi Jay:

Is there really anything wrong with sending first-level technical support
offshore?

Macs are macs, Windows is windows and mail is mail whether you're in Mumbai
or Memphis. As long as the language skills are good and the people are well
trained, it should be mostly irrelevant, IMHO.

Happy Holidays,

-M<

14

Because, generally, this is not the case.

Oh, and when there's 3 fibre cuts between you and India, and your voice gets
shrunk to a 9kbps VoIP channel, it's doubly bad.

Simon

15

Macs are macs, Windows is windows and mail is mail whether you're in Mumbai
or Memphis. As long as the language skills are good and the people are well
trained, it should be mostly irrelevant, IMHO.

The problem, IMO is that the sort of organization that wants to reduce labor
costs from $11/hr to $1.50/hr (all numbers made up out of thin air) by
moving tech support offshore is likely to be the sort of organization that
reduces labor costs from $1.50 to $1.15/hr by moving tech support from an
offshoring house that provides well-trained people with good language skills
to one that provides warm bodies and asinine scripts. I'm know there are
good tech support people in India-- I've dealt with some of them-- but the
overwhelming majority of times I've ended talking to Indian tech support
I've gotten people who are as fluent in English as I am in Hindi and as
familiar with the technology they are "supporting" as I am with rebuilding
transmissions ("not at all" and "not at all" respectively).

That said, Merry Christmas to all and I hope Santa brought extra eggnog to
any poor souls working tech support this evening, on any continent. :^)

16

Martin Hannigan wrote:

Hi Jay:

Is there really anything wrong with sending first-level technical support offshore?

Macs are macs, Windows is windows and mail is mail whether you're in Mumbai or Memphis. As long as the language skills are good and the people are well trained, it should be mostly irrelevant, IMHO.

In and of itself and setting aside patriotic/nationalistic issues, probably not, assuming adequate technical and product knowledge and language skills. I suppose that it would be possible that if it were done well enough one wouldn't be able to tell.

However, there is something about dealing with a local company that adds value. People seem to care more about their community and neighbors than a random, barely understandable voice on a G.729 8k codec at the other end of a satellite link.

I have generally found dealing with most offshore tech support to be very frustrating. The language issues are burdensome, some accents so thick as to be barely understandable, and the lack of clue and scripted menu-driven responses are obvious and usually of no value. I wouldn't be calling if the problem could be solved by reading the documentation and some judicious web searching. There are some exceptions, including Cisco TAC which is very good. I've talked to Cisco engineers in Australia and Europe on occasion. I've had mixed results with Linksys support, which I believe is in the Philippines.

Dealing with one offshore AT&T billing representative who was clearly a non-English speaker was extremely painful. The latency and nonsense of the person's responses suggested either some type of auto-translator or satellite link, or both. The person wasn't capable of getting the hint when I asked after several minutes of frustration what the "A" in "AT&T" stood for, and in fact claimed to have no idea. I suspect that this level of disservice may be deliberate so that people will pay bogus charges on bills because the frustration level of disputing them is intentionally high.

17

I don't think there would be a concern about off-shore support if we
couldn't tell it was "off-shore". That term has all derogatory bias of
describing of persons with foreign accents who are difficult to understand
and provide support for consumer-oriented products but have the most
rudimentary knowledge of the product and how to support/fix it.

I had a most positive experience on a weekend a few months ago when I
received support from Microsoft technician who was working on the other side
of the world, and although was difficult to understand (I had to ask him to
repeat himself two or three times on many occasions), knew the product and
helped me out of a tight spot. I've had similar positive experiences
working with Motorola personnel out of Australia, and Cisco personnel out of
Belgium, the Middle East, and Australia.

Frank

18

You can't tell most of the time.

The point that is relevant operationally is that off shoring can be a solid
method to help significantly reduce costs. It can work easier for some
functions than others. Level 1/Tier1 support seems like an excellent
candidate for off shoring and I think that the measure is still quality of
service from the provider verses if they off shore or not.

Just my humble opinion.

Happy Holidays!

-M<

19

Hi Martin,
Seemingly a rational viewpoint (what, on NANOG? Surely not!) but the problem with the gradual depletion of Level/Tier 1 support environments in your home country is the (eventual) gradual depletion of expertise available to the higher levels.

A hellovalot of the clueful engineers that i've come to know over the past few years are people who started off on Helpdesks, and moved up the tiers, to finally land in NOC type slots and from there to engineering and design, perhaps skipping some or all of the 'tiers'... but you've gotta start somewhere.

Aside from the typical Degree or Diploma that tertiary outfits offer, there's not a lot of good ways to 'break in' to the Network and Systems Operations communities other than good ol experience, working-from-the-bottom-up.

So as you move your Tier 1's offshore, you cut off the channel by which people can gain experience and move on up the chain...

(The issues around the advantages from a cultural sense of having access to people who actually know your environs, current events, etc, are probably far more obvious..)

Could offshoring be considered a 'short term fix' and be hindering our ability to employ clooful operators in a few years time? (else, are we limiting ourselves to employing immigrants from 'offshore locations' because we don't locally build the right experience?)

Mark.

20

Aside from the typical Degree or Diploma that tertiary outfits offer,
there's not a lot of good ways to 'break in' to the Network and Systems
Operations communities other than good ol experience,
working-from-the-bottom-up.

I'm working in management of software engineering now, and in my
experience, the only worthwhile candidates for hiring -- who have not
gone through the self-teaching and self-experimentation phases that
mirror working at a helpdesk on a small scale -- have progressed
through exactly this chain. They have developed the necessary
instincts to know when a bug could become a serious problem at 2 a.m.
on a Sunday, instincts that are an absolute prerequisite to working on
software intended to be used 24/7.

In software development, new college grads can be OK for
non-operationally-facing applications, but they tend to have high
ideals, and just haven't "had their hearts broken" by business
contradictions or operational emergencies yet. On the opposite side
of the spectrum, those who have gone through only regimented software
processes between school and the present tend not to be aware of
operational impacts at all, as they've been shielded from that aspect
all along.

So as you move your Tier 1's offshore, you cut off the channel by which
people can gain experience and move on up the chain...

We're seeing this more and more as time goes on. What's worse is that
offshoring of software development was becoming just as rampant,
resulting in the double-whammy of "engineers" not knowing the
consequences of their actions, and operations caught unaware when
those consequences manifest as critical problems.

Many businesses have at least partially learned from this mistake the
Hard Way, by losing customers when there was no one capable of fixing
a critical problem within 24 or even 72 hours. Alas, this hasn't been
heeded by all of the market yet.

All of the above is solely my opinion, and definitely represents an
experience-diluted version of my personal ideals. While I generally
agree from a business perspective that offshoring of operations can be
a lucrative cost-cutting measure, the key problem in most such
arrangements is that the operations and systems
(hardware/software/networks as applicable) are not *all* offshored at
once. When these bits do not exist in relatively close proximity to
each other, communications between their responsible folks grinds to a
halt.