After 23 Days, We have telephone service.... (*Sigh*)

(From Tim....)

Well, some things are easier than others. We were able to get Cable, Internet, trash, and electricity services setup very quickly without any stress on our part. Telephone service...... however..... was an entirely different ordeal all together.

Timeline of telephone events.

Day 1: Called Comcast, asked for the "Triple Play" bundle - cable, internet, and telephone service for $99. Day 6: Comcast guy (Omar) shows up at our apartment (on-time) and hooks up cable, internet, and phone (or so we think). Cable and internet are working fine, before he leaves, but the phone is unable to receive calls. Omar assures me that it will work by the following morning, as the system needs to re-fresh. I say OK and send Omar on his way.

Day 7-Day 14: Numerous calls to Comcast ensue, but alas, we are not able to receive calls on Comcast phone line. We decide to cancel the service, and Comcast cancels it with no questions asked (we will see when I get the bill).

Day 15: Call the new ATT for local service (SBC).

Day 22: ATT (SBC) gives us a 12 hour window that we need to be home for in order to activate services. Wendy stays home for 12 hours on Friday, and no one ever shows up. She calls several times, but can’t get through the terrible voice prompts to a real person. Some calls her and says the line will be active before 8PM. 8:22 pm, 12 hours of waiting, and still no dial tone in the apartment, and if you call the number, it still says it’s not connected. I try to cal customer service, but after 30 minutes still can’t get a person on the phone.Day 23: Spend several hours on the phone with ATT (SBC) and they refuse to take ownership of the problem, saying the service is installed and working properly. I demand that the service be canceled, and it takes another 15 minutes of negotiating to get them to cancel.I am fuming mad by this time, 23 days and still no phone service.

SOLUTION: I walk to RadioShack, buy a Vonage phone adapter, plug it in to my internet, sign-up, and *PRESTO* we have a working phone with good sound quality. The Whole vonage setup took less than 10 minutes and is the best service I have had. The sound quality is clear, the service is not expensive, and its feature rich (for instance, when we get a voice mail, vonage will notify us by email and include an attached wav file with the voice mail).

I feel like Vonage has allowed me to claim victory over the phone company!!!!

So, you can now call us at home.

Wendy will send out the new number soon.T