Had to use my iPhone for something useful

[John Rogers]

On New Years day just as I was grabbing some videos off YouTube, our aging Pug who likes to lay on my feet to help keep me warm missed her target and laid onto my mail power strip for all things computer and off it went! Not a big deal as she has done this in the past but this time my AT&T gateway would not start back up, even after going through the startup procedure. Soooooo I tried their help line and to my surprise I got an actual person that spoke English that I could understand. I was shocked so we redid all the things I had done to make her feel okay. She said it appears to have total failure and I asked her if that was a "technical term" and she said she wasn't sure as she had only been in that job for a month which is why she had New Year's duty. Sort of reminded me of my Navy duty days then she figured the joke.

She said one will be shipped immediately arriving today about noonish or so. I kept watching my security cams but no delivery guys. Then a telephone call from AT&T support saying the gateway would not be arriving until tomorrow. There was some excuse of packaging problems or lame assed reason. So I said contact a mobile tech and have one of them drop one off but he said they were all booked and I said there is no support required as I can easily do the install and the driver can through it out the window as I know they carry spares in case of a bad one. He said not possible, soooooooo I gave him some choices: one was get me one today, two was take 50% off my bill for Jan. OR I would post info on the college I teach for recommending to never use AT&T and I'll switch back to Cox (oh no!)

So how am I typing this, well my iPhone can act as a gateway as I used it for WIFI but is can also plug in to a USB port and the PC network will automatically recognize the phone a gateway. No issue as I have unlimited data on Sprint (50% bill reduction too) and I am surprised it is nearly as fast as my regular connection.

So anyways my bills got paid and now I can wish everyone a belated Happy New Years! Oh yeah, only 14 more radiation treatments to go 50% there!

[masraum]

Glad you could stop in to do the belated New Year wishes, and congrats on only having 14 more (50%) left. Kick it's ass!

Yes, technology can be great, can't it? I've used my phone as a wifi hot spot before. It's been many years since I used one tethered via USB, but that should work even better.

[john70t]

I was very impressed by the ATT customer service around here:
(even though I'm not with them now)
Answered phones promptly, spoke 'merican and no accent, no bs exchanges, no scripts to delay or upsell or confuse customers, got it done, every single person was very competent at their job.

[RSBob]

Good thinking John.

[John Rogers]

It's fixed with a replacement gateway box. A service tech called me and said "I hear you need a replacement Arris box"? I said yes sir and he said I'll be over in 10 minutes, no charge! He even crawled under my table to run the DC cord to the top and in 3 minutes I have it all back to normal.

It seems the lady I talked to closed the ticket before she ordered the replacement, only there a short time! So I'll stay with them a bit longer.