Oh! Oh that one! The tower's down! (right...)

[marty]

So about two weeeks ago, my cell phone stopped getting service out of nowhere. None, no bars, anything. Now I've had it for a couple of years, so I figure, hey, it must just be getting old, that and it's the bottom of the barrel, phone that comes with the plan. But, just in case, I decided to call Alltel to make sure a tower wasn't down or something, because I wasn't going to make the two hour drive to get a new phone (yes, secluded college mountain town, no Alltel stores within two hours) unless there really was something wrong with my phone.

So I called. I get on the phone with some woman, explain my problem, she was very nice and seemed very helpful. She said, "Oh yes, a tower is down in your area!"

That was fine. Until a week later, when my phone still wasn't working and I discovered that other people I knew using Alltel did have service. I was thinking at first maybe it was just a really big problem with the tower and it was taking them a while. But after discovering I was the only one not getting service, I called again.

This time, I got a guy who seemed very friendly, but again, not very intelligent. I called to ask him what I should do, if I could just take it to the store and get the phone replaced. Asking that since it's under my stepdad's name, I wanted to know if I could go without him to get it done. But after mentioning I wasn't sure why the previous lady had told me a tower was down, he suddenly got excited. Oh, a tower sure is down! She wasn't lying or anything! A tower's still down!

Fuck it. I drove the two hours, got another phone, same kind just refurbed, worked absolutely fine.

Can anyone tell my why they'd lie and tell me a tower was down if it wasn't? Is there any reason for that? The second person even still insisted it was down when I told him other people were still getting service.

[Rahmota]

Probably because the standard operating procedure for the clueless is to blame someone or somethign else.

Though I am surprised they didnt just say it was your phone and try to sell you a new one.

[Crazeyal]

Probably because they were going through an upgrade and/or service. Middle management likes to give the worker drones scripts, and woe be the poor soul who deviates from their awesome ingenuity!!!

[draggar]

It is quite possible that a tower id down in your area and the other people were picking up service form other towers. Did you turn off the phone (for about a minute) then turn it back on during the trouble time?

Also, did the phone have no service everywhere, home, work etc.., unless your work is less than 3 miles from your house, both aren't under the same tower.

Don't forget, you're talking to people who have no idea about your location, they only see maps. The guys in the local store know your area and know if there is an issue by the number of complaints.

[marty]

I tried everything with the phone. Turn on, turn off, pop the battery out and back in, leave it off for an hour, juggle it with some other phones, turn a back flip while simultaneously pressing the call and hang-up keys, etc. My work is less than 3 miles from my home (I can walk there). There is no local store. I got the new phone two hours away, where the old one still wouldn't work. I asked the guy at that store if there had been any outages nearby, he said, not that he knew of.

I just can't understand why they told me that. Everyone else using Alltel was getting service there, it seemed only my phone wasn't. I mean, that's kind of a weird thing to tell people by default, that a tower is down, and not even suggest maybe go get the phone checked out if I mention the second time around calling that everyone else is happily calling and receiving calls from people. I made it clear that I didn't truly believe at that point that a tower was down, but as soon as I mentioned it he started insisting that's what it was. This guy, the second one, said nothing about a tower until I said something.

[Ayleah]

Well, everytime I have a problem with my DSL (with a nationwide company I won't name), they keep me on hold for no less than half an hour, making me do the same steps that I've already told them I have done (unplug the modem, reboot the machine, check the ping, etc etc), because
1) I'm not braindead, and
2) I've done this the last 17 times I've called them
And then, after they finally realize it's not a problem with my machine/network, they tell me:
"Oh, I just got a bulletin, it seems there's a local area outage".

Without FAIL, this is always the reason my service is interrupted. I do not live in the middle of nowhere, I believe that I live in a very highly developed major city, and my subdivision is brand new, which means every line was freshly laid. Yet, despite the fact that each time it goes out (I'm talking a few times a month, for hours at a time), they absolutely refuse to consider that the problem could have anything to do with something on their end. I've escalated this to countless managers and sups, all to no avail. So either this nationwide company has the most fragile service in the US, or they are lying through their teeth. Guess which way I am leaning?

The reason I won't change to cable (which we wanted to get in the first place), is because when we moved in, the cable company insisted for 2 months that they didn't have service in our area. Which was weird, because our contractor for the subdivision SHOWED us the cabling going in, and the service agreement with said cable company. But since the cable company hadn't updated their system to include our new streets yet, no one there could seem to figure it out. So they landed on my Epic Fail list. Another cable company is supposed to be offering service in my area in the next year, so I'm holding out for them.

[BookstoreEscapee]

But since the cable company hadn't updated their system to include our new streets yet, no one there could seem to figure it out.

My friend had problems when she and her husband built a house in a new development, too. She went to get something (library card or something, I think), and they canceled it on her because they said her address didn't exist.