I had 40-50 apps installed on the phone. While the clean start was nice, reinstalling the “essential” apps and setting up their on-line accounts was a hassle. It took about 2-3 hours to restore the phone to where I had what I needed. In all, I now have 36 apps. Of these, I think I should pare down some more. It would be nice to get below 30. I’m still figuring out what I really need (like WordPlayer) and keeping a few that aren’t essential but really nice (like Pandora.) Some of the productivity items I seldom use an go, like GDocs. I’ve taken out many of the streaming apps like TV.com and Stitcher. But having a much lighter and reliable phone will be nice.

I downloaded it an hour ago and had a chance to briefly use it. It gives me access to all of the books I’ve already purchased. I don’t see my newspaper subscriptions, but I suspect that will come in a future release.

The interface more book-like than the Stanza Reader. Where the Stanza reader uses touch regions to turn pages, on the Kindle reader, you use the page change gesture of sliding your finger from right to left across the screen as if you were flipping pages. Page changes are fast without the refresh flash you get on the Kindle device.

The iPhone is just about my mobile all-in-one device.

Nobel Prize winning biochemist, Keri Mullis, talks about doing science and what we can learn about climate data and global warming.

Last Tuesday, Michael, from AT&T DSL Tier Two who had worked with me on Monday, called me to tell me that the line was finally clear for service. Hopefully the service should simply start working. He requested that I call him if there were any problems. He would be working until 9PM.

I got home at 5:30 to see what the results were. No service. I tried resetting the 2-Wire DSL Modem — No Joy. I called Tier Two. He attempted to find the problem. Perhaps I needed a new 2-Wire Box. He attempted to schedule a service call, but the system that handles service calls was down. I would have to call back in the morning.

I called before 7:00 AM and spoke with another Tier Two agent. I told him that Time-Warner would be coming in on Monday, and if I didn’t have service by the time I left at 2:30, it would be Time-Warner. I needed it installed that day, because I only had Christmas Day to evaluate the system. I was out Christmas Eve for Church and dinner with family. The day after Christmas, I would be at work, and then flying to Reno on family business, and I would not be back until late Sunday night. it was important to have the system working before Christmas.

The earliest AT&T could schedule anyone was between 12 and 2. He couldn’t get an earlier appointment. The agent, attempting to end the call, asked if there was anything else he could do. I replied, “Yes, can you push this thing along?” He paused, and said he would call the dispatcher to see if there was anything he could get this working.

I received three e-mail messages indicating that AT&T would be out for the call, First between 12 and 2. A few minutes later, they would be out between 11 and 1. Shortly after that, between 10 and 12. Three visits or three rescheduling notices?

I got a call at 10 from a technician who was working on the system. I didn’t hear anything from him, so I called him back an hour or so later. He said he was having problems, but would get it figured out. I heard nothing after that. At 12:30 I left work early to see what was going on. I got to the apartment. I had a bottle of aspirin on top of the 2-Wire. It had been moved, so I know someone had visited. At around 1:00, I got a call from Vince, who did the initial installation. He found out that there was no signal to the apartment. He went out to the box to see what he could do. Apparently the first technician had left and not done much anything else. At 2:00, Vince returned, reset the 2-Wire box and we got a signal. A little after 2:15 we got TV service. We set up the AT&T broadband account and by 2:20, it was working. AT&T came in just under the wire. I did a few speed checks, played a bit with the cable remote and left for Christmas Eve service.

It took one week, but I had service. I’ll give my review of U-Verse in a subsequent posting.

On Friday, just as I was leaving for the airport, I received a call from Michelle from AT&T U-Verse who had called me in response to a friend who is an AT&T employee, and asked me about what had happened. I related to here what I had written previously. It was obvious my case was rather exceptional. The DSL Disconnect didn’t go correctly, and because of that, I was unable to order U-Verse on-line. When I called to place the order, the person handling the order didn’t understand the situation, and may have forced the order through, rather than telling me that service wasn’t available until they resolved the problem, and things spiraled out of control from there. I conveyed to here that I understand there can be problems, but my main complaint was that I ended up having to ask the property manager to contact the previous tenant to find out something that AT&T should have known, and I had to push and ask AT&T to expedite the problem. Given what I had been told on the preceding Monday, if I had not pushed, I think I wouldn’t have seen service from them for at least two months. Also, that I had to spend three ours of time I should have spent at work trying to get the installation resolved. Through all of this, I have never heard so many people so helpless in the situation, because they could not disconnect a DSL line that should have been disconnected weeks before.

Michelle was apologetic. and she would use what she learned to fix their system. I wish her the best.

Was it all worth it? The question is irrelevant. I am happy with the service. The problem is the loss in productivity at work, and the emotion I had to invest in pushing AT&T to resolve the problem in a timely manner. Why did I push it so hard? Because I wanted to use the service. I needed the 18Mbps for podcast production, and wanted the ability to record multiple shows simultaneously, the channel selection, and AT&T WiFi. I’m happy to have the service. I’m not happy I had to do all the footwork for AT&T for them.

After all this, would I suggest U-Verse. Yes. My problem was so far down the long-tail that I it is most unlikely that you will have to go through my experience.

Thanks to Michael at AT&T for helping me through all of this. He gave me the most help through all of this. He followed up and called me back to tell me that the line was clear and that we could proceed. That alone is worth a bunch of kudos. Also to Vince the AT&T technician who was able to get the system up in such a short time on Christmas Eve. Finally thanks to a fellow podcaster and friend on the inside who twice attempted to escalate my case. As a result, I was able to convey my story to Michelle.

My situation was pretty much exceptional, in that AT&T internally dropped the ball on the DSL disconnect and how it handled my order. Two people in particular at U-verse were particularly helpful, and Vince, who installed the system last week and came in to finish the job yesterday did yeoman’s work getting me on line within 15 minutes of the deadline (which had to be met so I could participate in a Christmas Eve service at my church).

It’s Christmas, and I have a Podcast to complete and a family dinner to attend, so I’ll write more about the experience and my impressions on the U-verse service in a subsequent posting.

[UPDATE: 12/26/2006 - The last report on the installation and a review of the system will be delayed because of family business]

Now I found out through the property manager that the previous tenant said that she was able to contact DSL Tier 2 to respond and fix the problem today and that AT&T said I should see service by Christmas Eve (in two days). I’m not holding my breath, and frankly, I’m tired of spending hours at a time on the phone with AT&T. As far as I’m concerned, whomever provides service for me first, I’ll go with them. I’m not waiting past the first of the year for broadband service.

It is not my business to find out why I can’t get broadband service in a timely manner. We all know what needs to be done on AT&T’s side, and I won’t even grace them with what they can do, because at this time, their business culture is not capable of retaining new customers. The customer is not the person who should solve problems like this so he can get service. I’ll share the question I asked the AT&T technical support agent last Wednesday. “Why am I responsible for solving this problem, and getting the previous tenant, whom I don’t know, to assist me in solving the problem which is clearly something AT&T should do?” The support agent could do nothing to help me, and told me that I had to take care of it myself.
I frankly don’t care if AT&T doesn’t have the ability to find out what’s on their own wires. They should be the ones calling the property manager to contact the previous tenant, not me. They should be the one tracking down the real reasons why they can’t get a DSL to my residence and fix it.
I’ve wasted enough of my time, and frankly, all I want is broadband, and whether it’s from AT&T or Time Warner, I don’t care. I’m not spending another hour of my time on the phone to get it.

Update: The replies to this are real gems, as well as useful.

I moved into an apartment in an area in which AT&T offers fiber-to-the-curb broadband (U-Verse). Over this, you can receive broadband, up to 18Mbps as well as voice and cable.

I placed an order for the service last week. Using the on-line application, I found that I was unable to complete the order because of a conflict for my address. The site instructed me to contact AT&T directly. This was the first sign of trouble. I called them up and requested the service over the phone, and we scheduled an installation for the following Wednesday (12/17). The whole process went pretty smoothly

The day before the installation, I received a call from AT&T saying that they had a problem locating the address. The address was an apartment complex, but they didn’t have a unit number, which I corrected.

The morning of the installation, I received a call from the installer stating that he didn’t have the unit number of the apartment. I gave him the number and told him that I gave it to AT&T the previous day.

I returned to the apartment from the office to let him in to perform the installation. I found him outside the apartment sitting in his van. I asked him how it was going, and he told me there would be a 30 minute delay while AT&T modified the order. 20 minutes later, I received an email from AT&T that they would perform the installation on January 2, 2009 (2-1/2 weeks later).

The installer arrived at the apartment anyway and installed the hardware and the wiring in about an hour and a half. However, he was unable to connect to the U-Verse service. After another 20 minutes, we found out that the completion of the installation was blocked by a “Third Party DSL Disconnect” and that would prevent the service from starting no earlier than January 2, 2009. The installer was gracious and told me he would pursue it from his end, and that I should call from my end to see if both of us could expedite the order.

I called AT&T U-Verse from the office and told them the problem. They directed me to U-Verse Back Office Sales. I called them, who told me that I would have to contact my DSL provider and have them disconnect the service. I told them, that I don’t have a DSL provider, and that the third party was for the previous tenant. I also asked them why I had to do all the foot work to get the service, that I was caught in the middle of all this. After 20 minutes I figured that they were the wrong people to talk to.

I contacted the property manager and told her my problem. She contacted the previous tenant who informed her that the DSL company was, in fact, AT&T. Also that the line was disconnected on December 8, and would call AT&T again to make sure it was disconnected.

I called AT&T U-Verse again, explained to the rep my problem. Again, she told me that I had to ask the DSL company. I told her that AT&T was the DSL company. After a long pause, she said she would look into it and put me hold. When she returned, she informed me that a request to disconnect the line was put in that day, and it would not be disconnected until Friday, and the installer would return on Monday to complete the installation. I asked if there was any way to expedite that any sooner. She responded there was no way it could be push through any quicker. She also said it would have been helpful to have known that the line was still connected, otherwise they would not have scheduled the installation.

While I can understand how the system works, technically, and can deal with that, the problem here is that if I wanted to expedite the order in a timely manner, AT&T force me to investigate the problem for them. To date, they have no mechanism to resolve such a conflict. After repeatedly telling them I didn’t know who the third party DSL company was because I was a new tenant, wouldn’t even investigate the problem to find out that they had not yet disconnect a DSL and phone line for which they were the provider.

My advice is that if you move into a new residence, attempt to request U-Verse on-line and you see the “conflict” message requesting you to contact them directly, you now know what the conflict may be, and AT&T will not know how to deal with it, except force you to wait until the end of the month for the problem to resolve.

I twittered on this, and my brother replied that he had the same problem, and that it took 10 days to complete his installation.

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I solved the problem by exiting the Mail.app. You do this by opening Mail.app and holding the home button, the one with the square at the bottom of the iPhone. Hold it for about 10 seconds. Mail will close and you’ll be back at the home screen. Re-launch Mail, and all should be right.

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By way of Boing Boing!

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I’m going with the amazon.com reviews O’Reilly kindly provides to the reviews of their books. Positive or negative, with a little bit of critical thinking, all the information is useful in the selection of a book.

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I’m going with the amazon.com reviews O’Reilly kindly provides to the reviews of their books. Positive or negative, with a little bit of critical thinking, all the information is useful in the selection of a book.

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