TV is good! The DVR service is cool in that I can remotely schedule it from a web browser/iPod Touch App. So in case I have forgotten to set the DVR to record a show, I can fix that problem fairly easily. One gripe I do have, and one that is not local to AT&T, is the whole scenario of sports blackouts. I had my first encounter with them when I tried to watch a Rockets preseason game on FSSW. I get the channel, but the Rockets game is blacked out here in Austin. Supposedly because the Spurs are our “home” team. Couldn’t choose a worse home team if I had picked one blindly–I despise the Spurs.

Anyways, with no league pass available on U-Verse and the Rockets sucking enough to only have something like 6 games broadcast nationally (and all of those on NBATV meaning I can’t watch it anyway), it looks like I’ll have to follow the Rockets via the good old online live stream. At least with a 12mbps downlink I shouldn’t have any buffering problems!

I suppose that’s it for now. I should’ve been asleep a while back but my college habits haven’t faded away yet.

Anyways, so it was confirmed that my AT&T HSI account would be cancelled on the 15th, and that my TV was installed on that day. The lady also scheduled my internet installation for that day so that I wouldn’t have to pay an installation fee on another day. So if all goes to plan, I will be getting my TV+Internet through U-Verse on Thursday, and have my old AT&T account cancelled (that will have a rebate check of about $18 worth of credit from the previous snafu).

Oh, did I mention that I’m going to be getting 12mbps for $45. That’s the price I was paying for 6mbps DSL earlier. Hopefully cable will stand up to DSL. Oh, I’m also going to be getting a $100 rebate card in addition to the $200 I’m supposed to receive for applying online. So hopefully I should be getting about $300 back and will have Internet and TV all ready to go this weekend. That rebate check will also help me with my expenses for my new computer.

Yay for good news!

When I reached work today, I had two calls waiting from… Saturday. I don’t know why AT&T called my work phone before calling my cell phone, which I had listed as my primary phone. It makes me shudder, to be honest. This appears to be related to the way they fudged up my AT&T High Speed Internet order a couple of months ago to not list my apartment number. We all know how that story went…

So, I had a voicemail waiting for me which asked me to “please call us back at ###-###-#### to verify some information.” Of course, what information was to be verified was not outlined, and of course when I called back the number above, they didn’t have a clue either. Finally, we guessed that it had to do with the fact that I had an existing AT&T High Speed Internet (HSI) connect, that wasn’t compatible with U-Verse. Fine… I could deal with that. Except, now, I was told that U-Verse couldn’t cancel my account that I would have to do it myself or the U-Verse installation crew wouldn’t be able to do their job on Thursday.

First of all, what the hell? Let me get the two companies involved here: AT&T and… AT&T. They’re both the same freaking company. As a consumer, I don’t give a rat’s hairy ass that U-Verse is a cooler sounding name with more marketable features. I have internet, I want TV. Through the same bloody company. I shouldn’t have to cancel and start a new account to achieve this simple task. It feels like infighting between the heirs-to-be of a rich businessman’s empire. Nobody knows squat about business so they resort to squabbling with each other. The worst part is if I hadn’t called back to “verify some information”, my installer would come in on Thursday and tell me that, “Oh, well I can’t do it now.”

The story doesn’t end here. I, in an online chat with AT&T U-Verse, determined exactly what I needed to do. After determining that I had to go to AT&T HSI to cancel my DSL account and then sign up for an internet account through AT&T U-Verse HSI (the confusion NEVER ends with these guys) I asked the support person what the offers were for U-Verse internet. She (or he… I can’t tell for obvious reasons but I feel like the name was Joan) said that I would need to get in touch with AT&T HSI for any offers since I had internet through them. WHAT? I was told to call up AT&T HSI and ask them for offers on AT&T U-Verse HSI?! Is that allowed? I thought they were separate entities!

To confirm that I actually had the information I needed, I got in a chat with an AT&T HSI rep. to review all the details. He said that I would have to contact AT&T U-Verse to figure out the details. I told (or rather, typed) him quite curtly that, “U-Verse asked me to get in touch with you and I would prefer not to enter an infinite loop, at this point.” He then told me to contact their tech department by phone call. Oh, but their offices are only open when I’m in office. Brilliant.

My decision: I’m going to send them a curt, angry email tonight. Last time I sent them a curt, angry email I got a phone call back within 15 minutes that fixed everything. Looks like its time to do that again. And if I don’t get a response, I will just have to call them and sound exasperated.

I didn’t know TV was this freaking hard to get!

Phew.

So the subject of this post is, quite simply, “rant”. A number of things have annoyed me in the last few days so I have decided that instead of keeping them all in my head, I will transfer them over to teh interwebs where they will stay published forever (or until a server crashes, or I delete it, or something). Without further ado, let the bashing begin!

1. Satellite TV in general, DirecTV in particular

I know satellite TV is still this kinda new thing (yeah, right) and I was excited to see all the discounts I could get on a new DirecTV installation. So, last week, I finally decided to take the plunge on getting TV in my apartment and signed up for a DirecTV account. I think it was actually around 10 days ago. I was able to get about $21 off on their “new user” discounts in addition to a $10 discount for using a referral code from someone at NI. So I was saving a sweet $31 a month for 12 months, and getting TV at about $40/month. Or rather, going to get all this. Of the several appointment days available, I decided to choose the Saturday 8am-12pm slot, since I was gonna be at work the rest of the time.

My first mistake, perhaps? Turns out Saturday is a super-busy day (who woulda thunk it?). So naturally, DirecTV’s local field office should have been a little bit better staffed, right? Wrong. Pity me, who woke up at 8am, excited for the smell of new TV. It wasn’t until 12.15pm that I felt miffed enough to call and when I called, I was told I would be called within 20 minutes. I received a call from the local office to confirm that a technician was present. I told them quite curtly that there was no technician present, while reminding her that it was already 30 minutes past my rather-large-time-range appointment. She said she’d call back in 20 minutes but only a fool’d believe her. I was a fool.

Luckily I was able to get a lot of stuff done in the mean time, such as getting a “permission form” signed from Riata that allowed me to get a satellite in my patio, as well as getting some batteries from the Food Mart nearby and figuring out a rent check error with Riata. I also figured out rent/expenses issues with Hubert at that point.

Still nothing. I called DirecTV again at around 1.30pm and asked them, in kinder terms, “What the hell?” They told me they’d get in touch with their local office again (with whom their only method of communication happens to be, wait for it, …. email). This time the local office called me, apologetically, saying that the technician was late (no, shit!) and that he’d be there in 35 minutes. I got some other errands done and finally the technician arrived.

And after waiting for more than 5 hours for him, our meeting lasted less than 5 minutes. Apparently the satellites are located in the “southern sky” whereas our patio can only see satellites in, well, the rest of the freaking sky. So, no DirecTV. I called and cancelled and checked Dish Network’s availability. Looks like they used to be in the “northern sky”, which would have been perfect, but they are now operating in the “southeastern sky” area. So no Dish. So… no satellite. Humph. I have sold my soul to AT&T (see next gripe).

2. AT&T U-Verse: An arm and a leg for TV

After my failure with satellite and my ever-growing appetite for television (in particular, trash TV) I decided to look at my options. Basically it was down to the two “cable”-esque providers: Time Warner Cable and AT&T. I wasn’t looking forward to the prospect of dealing with either of them, to be honest. I have heard very bad things about TWC and I have experienced very unprofessional behaviour from AT&T. I don’t think I ever disclosed the shenanigans that took place when I first moved to Austin and tried to get my own Internet.

Basically, to save some time, I decided to order my AT&T internet from Houston a few days before I reached Austin. That way, I hypothesized, I would minimize the amount of non-Internet time. As it happened, AT&T’s dysfunctional website decided to eat my apartment number and hence the modem+router never got delivered. When I tried to call them to ask them to call FedEx and have it redelivered, I found out that their phone department and internet department is not connected. This is absolutely ridiculous, in my opinion. What’s the point of having a tech support line for online orders, then?

Once I got all that cleared out and billing time came around, I received two bills–one for the account that was never created and one for the fixed account. To make matters worse, the second account took me for a business and hence charged me nearly double. A long phone call later, everything seemed to be figured out, but I’ll be keeping an eye on my next few billing cycles.

Anyways, I finally brought the wallet out for AT&T U-Verse and went with a pretty expensive plan that is supposed to give me $200 cashback after I activate. At this point, you are probably asking me why I fell for the AT&T trick again, and I have no valid response. I am hoping that somehow the stars will align and everything will miraculously work. Unfortunately, there has already been a slight issue, since right after I placed my order, the confirmation page said, “If you have an AT&T DSL service at that location, that account will be cancelled.” I immediately opened up a tech support chat window to figure out what’s up.

Turns out AT&T has TWO SEPARATE INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS. It’s as if they are purposely inventing stuff to confuse the consumer further. I have an AT&T High Speed Internet account, whereas since I’m going with AT&T U-Verse for TV, supposedly my account will be transferred to an AT&T U-Verse Internet account. I foresee further issues.

–

That’s it. I grew tired after those two rants, but I was planning to rant on the Indian cricket team. Then I realized that I never really cared about the ICC Champions Trophy, so I didn’t care that India got knocked out early. I am a little unhappy, though, that I will miss out on the opportunity to watch/DVR the Twenty20 Champions League or India-Australia ODI series later this year. Oh well, I guess Dish/DirecTV are saving me some money, after all.