BellSouth, 8x8 launch VoIP service

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Bellsouth Quality: For years I have been using various Bellsouth services because of the fact they are the de facto carrier in Florida. This is a quick summary of each:

Phone:
This is probably the only thing about Bellsouth that works well.

Long Distance:
As of two years ago I started using their "unlimited long distance" plans which are still ver competitive... until recently. I heard from a friend that Bellsouth had notified him of "over use" on his long distance and warned of possible additional billing. This prompted me to go through my paperwork and investigate this. turns out Bellsouth's "unlimited" plan has verbage which stipulates if you use more than the average household, as determined by them, they can charge you for excess usage. False advertising, or deceptive business practice?

Internet:
This is the one thing that has never worked consistently. The DSL service is spotty at best, and there are several of my customers who experience outages so frequently, that they'd rather just wait it out than waste time on the phone with a tech. A typical scenario goes like this: DSL drops, they get on the horn with tech support, which soaks up an hour or so of time, Tech support sends a tech out a few days later, the tech arrives, only to find the DSL working fine and leaves... the issue repeats within a few days.

Bellsouth's employees are courteous and no doubt very good at customer service, but one thing Bellsouth lacks (I find this to be pervasive throughout American culture and spreading like a bad wildfire) is quality. What help is it to have nice employees when your services don't work as they should at all times.

Another peeve: Cell phone services.

How can our society accept something that doesn't always have a signal? How can this be so accepted by society as a flaw we have to live with that Verizon's "can you hear me now?" commercials are as popular as they are?

VOIP is just as spotty and subject to the reliability of the underlying internet connection. Phone lines MUST guarantee the ability for phone calls to go through. the problem with VOIP is that it removes the onus of guaranteeing a phone call from everybody. What happens when you need to dial 911? If you can't dial, who should get sued? 8x8? or Bellsouth? When they point the fingers at each other, and no one is actually able to prove what failed technology was responsible for the mishap, who loses?

Customers too ignorant to realize the are being screwed, that's who. I'll step off my soapbox now.; Posted by: kckn4fun Posted on: 12/12/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use