# If Anyone Has Been Calling Us And Couldn't Get Through Both Precision Matthews / Quality Machine To



## qualitymachinetools (Jul 28, 2016)

Hey guys, appears that we have been having trouble on occasion over the past month with people getting through to us, they said that they would call and Instead of getting us, it just went to voicemail.   Well this is the problem, phone company says it's ok.  I'm going to rewire this today and tomorrow, so hope this doesn't happen again.  We don't own the box, the phone company does, but the last guy here saw this and said this is ok.  This is ridiculous. But I'm sorry If we missed anyone!


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## qualitymachinetools (Jul 28, 2016)

Have someone coming out again from the phone company tomorrow, so I will see what happens here, But I can not believe they would let this go, and think its OK to just keep repairing it.


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## Tony Wells (Jul 28, 2016)

Wouldn't get by with that where I do my phone work! That's nonsense! Get a supervisor out there.


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## dlane (Jul 28, 2016)

Damn electronics


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## JimDawson (Jul 28, 2016)

What a rats nest   I'm surprised it works at all.


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## Tony Wells (Jul 29, 2016)

Oh, that could be made to work, no doubt about that. I have seen much worse that worked flawlessly. I simply object to the lack of professionalism and the atrocious work ethics and housekeeping practice. I know that the TelCo standards don't allow that, and when you are in training if you did that you'd never get the job. I have had to go in and troubleshoot worse looking stuff than that and it sure doesn't help when the guy(s) before you leaves it in such a mess, regardless if it worked when he left.

Matt, is that a rental building or do you own it? If I were near, I'd come iron it out. Would take half a day to do right. No more than that.


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## Splat (Jul 29, 2016)

Matt, escalate and dominate!  I'd be on the horn politely complaining to a manager or VP. That's just unacceptable. That wouldn't fly around here.


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## qualitymachinetools (Jul 30, 2016)

Yeah, still waiting on them, 2 days later. It is Verizon, They had it scheduled between 11-2 yesterday, never showed. I called them around 4 to see whats going on, they said they were too busy to come out yesterday, so the service ticket wasn't even assigned to a technician or something, said someone would be out today, and still waiting on them today. But its raining pretty hard today. 

 I managed to fix it myself yesterday and get at least a few of our main phone lines working, but its just ridiculous that we have to deal with something like this. Who knows how much business we have lost from this, I've had a few people that I have talked to over the last few months tell me that they tried to call and it just rang and rang and went to a voicemail message, but I had no record of them calling on any of the missed calls. But now this explains it, the main line wires were corroded and finally broke the connection. I've had static, just found out no phone sometimes, and all sorts of problems for some time now, and I finally figured out what it is.    A bunch of corroded and broken wires.

 I've called and asked for higher ups, and asked for an email address so I could send it to someone so they can see what we are dealing with here, and no luck. They told me they dont have an email to give out and there was no one else to talk to.  

 They will hear about it, thats for sure. I give everyone a change, but when it comes to this, this is absolute garbage. 

 We just lease the building, but we have most of the building taken up, I don't even think the few other places in here even have hard line phone service.

 I know one thing, we are growing, a lot, but things like this teach me to never have 15 minutes of B.S. to go through before you can even get a live person on the phone. I personally might not always be available, but when people call, it always goes to someone here, in our building, after pushing just one button. (And I only have that to try to weed out the B.S. telemarketers, which we get a ton of)

    I am going to start looking in to something other than Verizon after this, to be without a phone for that long, plus all the B.S. over who knows how long with missed calls and problems, I am done with them.


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## JimDawson (Jul 30, 2016)

qualitymachinetools said:


> I am going to start looking in to something other than Verizon after this, to be without a phone for that long, plus all the B.S. over who knows how long with missed calls and problems, I am done with them.



That is just crap customer service.  If any of us ran our businesses that way we would be out of business in short order.

If you have a solid Internet connection there, an Internet phone system would be my choice.  I have been using Vonage for a number of years with good success, better than 99.9% up time.  There are a number of other Internet phone providers.  The downside is that on a power fail you lose the phone system, but that could be battery backed up if it is critical.


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## Tony Wells (Jul 30, 2016)

To me it sounds like they are treating you like a residential customer. Make sure you are listed as commercial. Here, they have a 2 hour max response time for commercial accounts. Well, we don't have Verizon, but they should have a similar arrangement. And as far as no higher ups......baloney. You should always be able to escalate a trouble call.


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## jbolt (Jul 30, 2016)

I feel your pain!

I run my business out of my home. A few years ago every time it rained our land line (AT&T), which has also been my business line for 22 years, would get really bad static and the DSL service would drop. The phone service would become almost unusable.  I would call (on my cell) and they would come some days later and say they fixed it but it never got better until it was dry for a few days. The DSL service eventually became unusable and I had to drop it for a cable modem (Comcast, Ugh). One weekend after a pretty good storm the land line went completely dead. I called and made as much noise as I could repeating the trouble we had been having for over a year. It took them 6 days to get a senior service tech out and after some troubleshooting he came to the conclusion that......wait for it....... the line was bad (No S**T) and that there were no other good pairs available. He told me they had no plans to repair the overhead line and that they wanted to get rid of the land lines and have everyone on VoIP by 2020. The best part was that they could not even get me VoIP because it was not yet available in my area.


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## wawoodman (Jul 30, 2016)

Never had that trouble back the the Ma Bell days.


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## COMachinist (Aug 1, 2016)

What you need to is call your state PUC/PUB the public utility commission/ board. They are the regulations people that ride heard on these company's. I had a similar problem until I called the PUC and within a week it was all cleaned up and my internet speed is more reliable and faster. The quality of audio over the line is no longer staticky either. Most of these company's have monopolys in their areas, and they know it so they get a little sloppy, but when they ask for a rate increase the PUC looks at complaints, and if they have a bunch of unresolved complains they don' get it.
Good luck.
CH


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## TOOLMASTER (Aug 1, 2016)

DON'T PAY YOUR BILL.. SOMEONE WILL BE RIGHT OUT


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## GA Gyro (Aug 1, 2016)

Sadly... this is what happens when a few national companies control a product...

We need open competition... however with the regulatory environment... it is too costly for anyone to get in.

Funny how things worked better... for less $$$... in days past... 

Matt, you are a fair and patient guy... I am not sure I have that level of patience with big corps...
You are to be commended for that patience... however IMO some discussion with your provider about leaving for the competition... on a specific date... if the problem is not 100% resolved... might be of use.

Let us know how it turns out.


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## Bamban (Aug 1, 2016)

That is worst than some of the ones I saw in India and China. Someone in China would do do something like that and the customer complains for losing business, the tech could be executed.... lol


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## GA Gyro (Aug 1, 2016)

Bamban said:


> That is worst than some of the ones I saw in India and China. Someone in China would do do something like that and the customer complains for losing business, the tech could be executed.... lol



Sadly, in America the tech would be immune from responsibility... due to govt regs...
And folks wonder why there is not quality or customer service anymore...

DUUUUhhhh...


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## John Hasler (Aug 1, 2016)

jbolt said:


> I feel your pain!
> 
> I run my business out of my home. A few years ago every time it rained our land line (AT&T), which has also been my business line for 22 years, would get really bad static and the DSL service would drop. The phone service would become almost unusable.  I would call (on my cell) and they would come some days later and say they fixed it but it never got better until it was dry for a few days. The DSL service eventually became unusable and I had to drop it for a cable modem (Comcast, Ugh). One weekend after a pretty good storm the land line went completely dead. I called and made as much noise as I could repeating the trouble we had been having for over a year. It took them 6 days to get a senior service tech out and after some troubleshooting he came to the conclusion that......wait for it....... the line was bad (No S**T) and that there were no other good pairs available. He told me they had no plans to repair the overhead line and that they wanted to get rid of the land lines and have everyone on VoIP by 2020. The best part was that they could not even get me VoIP because it was not yet available in my area.


The only way they could get you on VOIP would be over DSL.  Which requires working DSL.  Which requires a working pair (unless you are to connect to their VOIP over your Comcast service, but then why would you bother with them at all?)

Call the PUC and file a formal complaint.  Also call your state representative and ask him to lean on the PUC.  There are solutions for them short of plowing in a new cable.  They can install subscriber carrier on some of the existing pairs so that you and some of your neighbors share them.  They have a state-protected monooply on telephone service in your area but with that comes a requirement that they provide that service.


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## Tony Wells (Aug 1, 2016)

Here they fall back on the excuse that they are planning on a major system rebuild and lots of the copper is being replaced with fiber. That's true, but the last mile is still copper and there are plenty of problems to deal with in that "short" stretch. In fact, I'd say most of the common single line problems are in that last bit of copper. So that excuse doesn't wash, but it makes people think that soon all the problems will be solved. So they put up with shoddy service. Locally, I know some people, so I can put a little squeeze on them and I don't have too many problems that aren't taken care of promptly. 

You could always threaten to work on it yourself....that usually gets some attention lol.


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## GA Gyro (Aug 1, 2016)

Is there any way to do local phone service without land lines (via cell signal?)  

If they ever roll that out... it will solve a LOT of problems.

We have something down here called 'Clear'... which is a plug in phone (wall wart) that works over the cell signal.


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## jbolt (Aug 1, 2016)

John Hasler said:


> The only way they could get you on VOIP would be over DSL.  Which requires working DSL.  Which requires a working pair (unless you are to connect to their VOIP over your Comcast service, but then why would you bother with them at all?)
> 
> Call the PUC and file a formal complaint.  Also call your state representative and ask him to lean on the PUC.  There are solutions for them short of plowing in a new cable.  They can install subscriber carrier on some of the existing pairs so that you and some of your neighbors share them.  They have a state-protected monooply on telephone service in your area but with that comes a requirement that they provide that service.



The overhead lines that service my neighborhood were put in in the 60's. The material the cable is made of literally turned to mush and the lines end up with direct shorts. The service technicians refer to it as "Icky-pulp". As of 3 years ago only 30% of the pairs were still viable.

Had AT&T been the only option I would have pursued it but Broadband through cable was available and the cable was already to the house. I needed to be up and running as soon as possible. It worked out for the better in the end. I went from $65 month for a business line through AT&T to $25 a month VoIP with way more features and actual customer service.

The hard lines used to always work when there was a power outage. Not the case anymore.


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## GA Gyro (Aug 1, 2016)

Our old CU phone lines are buried... all the way to the big box at the head of the subdivision... which has a fiber line under it.

U-verse works pretty good, with that big fiber line at the box... 
Comcast, OTOH, was the most un-reliable thing I have ever experienced... 
And literally every time I would complain... the first thing they did was ask me if I had my own modum.  When I said yes, they said it was my modum's fault.
Never mind it was NOT my modums fault... it was an excuse.
Went back to DSL in 2006, can count on one hand the times it has been down...
After Comcast was down about every other week.


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## qualitymachinetools (Aug 1, 2016)

Thanks for the replies, had a guy from Verizon stop by last night, he said that he fixed what he could, but its still ridiculous what the fix is
I will post a picture in a minute.


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## qualitymachinetools (Aug 1, 2016)

Our internet is Verizon Fios, so that is all brand new, but the phone lines are old. I really do not know anything about the VOIP phone services, I will have to check that out.


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## GA Gyro (Aug 1, 2016)

Just a thought Matt...

If your Internet is reliable... I would look into VOIP phone (Voice Over Internet Protocal)
In a nutshell, they digitize the audio and send it over the internet connection.

Probably would work, and be both cheaper AND more reliable.


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## qualitymachinetools (Aug 1, 2016)

This is what they did. That will fix it


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## qualitymachinetools (Aug 1, 2016)

GA Gyro said:


> Just a thought Matt...
> 
> If your Internet is reliable... I would look into VOIP phone (Voice Over Internet Protocal)
> In a nutshell, they digitize the audio and send it over the internet connection.
> ...


I'm going to seriously look in to that.


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## JimDawson (Aug 1, 2016)

qualitymachinetools said:


> This is what they did. That will fix it



Looks like duct tape would have worked better.  

I have fiber to my property line but not connected yet, still on the old cable for now.  They are still upgrading the system.  They tell me I'll have fiber to my modem in about a year.  But I have 100Mb to my desktop over the cable right now, with almost 100% up time.


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## Subwayrocket (Aug 2, 2016)

qualitymachinetools said:


> Our internet is Verizon Fios, so that is all brand new, but the phone lines are old. I really do not know anything about the VOIP phone services, I will have to check that out.


VOIP ...that explains it . I called you once or twice a few weeks back ...it kept going straight to voice mail . I assumed it was just congestion on the local lines here .  Anyway , thanks for always getting back ...and answering all the noob questions and emails !


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## Tony Wells (Aug 2, 2016)

In the interim, if you have call forwarding on your service, you could temporarily forward all calls to a cell phone. 

As far as a fix.....that doesn't look like a fix. That door is supposed to be closed, and is probably gasketed. Whatever mess he covered up evidently still doesn't fit in the box.....no credit for a fix, even if it is presently functional.

Definitely you should investigate VoIP. Many advantages to it. Main one, IMO, is that it is likely that the lines are all relatively new and will be reliable for some time. Yes, you will need a battery backup (UPS), but it doesn't take some monstrous size to keep a phone system up. I use the cheapest one at my home....MagicJack. My 'net speed is dismal as today's standards go, but it works fine. No LD charges for any calls. But then, you probably make international calls also. I believe there are packages for that also on some of the VoIP systems.


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## jbolt (Aug 2, 2016)

I'm not sure how it is in your area but here is CA the telcom is only responsible for the line into the NID (box) unless they have provided the box (typical on some residential). In most commercial and some multifamily residential situations the box itself or termination point if inside the building,  is the responsibility of the building owner to maintain. 

I built a 20 unit apartment in the late 80's and we supplied the NID. Each termination in each unit was a home run, no daisy chaining. All the lines were rung-out and marked and terminated on punch down blocks by unit/room for the telcom to connect to. They came in undid all the punch down blocks and hooked up willy nilly with to concern about which line went to which unit/room and removed most of the ID tags. We didn't discover the problem until the units were being occupied.


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## GA Gyro (Aug 2, 2016)

Same here... the phone co is not responsible for the wire beyond the NIB (network interface box) on the side of the house...
Now OTOH... If one has u-verse in my area... the U-verse guy can be 'persuaded' to trouble-shoot the wiring... for a little green.

U-verse is expensive... however it is reliable, and one does get some perks with it.


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## qualitymachinetools (Aug 2, 2016)

Oh this one is their box, for sure. Its way before anything that we have, theres another one that looks like that one but a lot smaller. Thats where their service ends.


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## brino (Aug 2, 2016)

Hi Matt,
I just wanted to say:
1) That I have heard nothing but good opinions of you and the company. You have many happy customers here.
2) I really appreciate the fact that you came here to get the word out. Some companies talk about a "web presence" but here you are talking directly to many of your customer base. I think it says loads about your customer commitment.
Good on you!
-brino


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## Tony Wells (Aug 2, 2016)

As far as beyond the demarc, it's on you. Have anyone you trust to make sure it's not on your side? If they keep coming out and can't fix it, they are supposed to let you know it's on your side. But then, if they work on that, they charge. It's pretty hefty here if they do, so it pays to make sure you're clean.


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## thequietman (Aug 3, 2016)

Been meaning to give you a call to find out the best way to move my mill down to the basement. Probably have to disassemble it into major parts. But don't want to mess it up.
I guess it was a good thing that I kept forgetting to call.


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## qualitymachinetools (Aug 3, 2016)

Tony Wells said:


> As far as beyond the demarc, it's on you. Have anyone you trust to make sure it's not on your side? If they keep coming out and can't fix it, they are supposed to let you know it's on your side. But then, if they work on that, they charge. It's pretty hefty here if they do, so it pays to make sure you're clean.


Yes, there is no question about it that it is on their side.  They come out, do a half assed patch on it, said they will be back, and I have not heard any more.  I can see the insulation on the wires is all cracked, corroded, etc. its complete B.S. is what it is. I followed our wires and they still have a few of the lines going in to pretty much a corroded mess of a terminal block, I don't know how we even get a dial tone or anything on those lines.    100% for sure, its on their side.    Those wires that you see in that box are actually our phone lines. It works somewhat OK when its dry, but as soon as it rains, all the cracked wires get water on them, and the static is 10 times worse.      I fixed a few of the main lines myself just bypassing that mess, its really easy to do actually, but my problem is that this is what they left, and they seem to think its OK. Because it kind of works.   If I didn't have a clue, we would be without phones other than one main line. And I pay for a lot more than that.   But not any fault of any of you guys, Just wanted to let people know in case they called and could not get through!    And thanks for the nice comments everyone!


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## Tony Wells (Aug 3, 2016)

Sometimes we have no choice but to be patient. We don't know they whole story from their side. Might be they are truly short handed in the way of qualified techs. It gets that way here. Once it's working, even sort of, the tech closes the ticket and moves on. The customer, unfortunately, is burdened with pestering them to keep on opening new tickets. That's all you can do sometimes. I'm sure they can and sometimes do ignore it, but if a line, or trunk is constantly needing attention, they have records and then are supposed to get more serious about it. But, who knows what the real hold up is?


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## pdentrem (Aug 3, 2016)

Reminds me of a story that a good friends grandfather had. Neighbour kept smelling gas, called the company but would never come out. My buddy's grandfather told the lady to call the fire department and report a grass fire. She ask "Why the fire department?" He replied by throwing a match on the lawn, which ignited the gas coming out of the ground. She called the FD and they came right out, put out the fire and noticed it was a gas fire. They called the gas company who then came out and fixed the problem. Rusted out pipe naturally. That is called escalating the problem!
Pierre


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