rick@uunet.uu.net (Rick Adams) (08/13/89)
> Chances are your Sprint rep friend will tell you they do not have 'call > supervision equipment' and cannot tell when the call actually starts. PT] Sprint claims that they have call supervision equipment in all areas that offer equal access. Why the continuing Sprint bashing? They aren't nearly as half-assed as you seem determined to present them.
john@apple.com (John Higdon) (08/15/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0294m04@vector.dallas.tx.us>, rick@uunet.uu.net (Rick Adams) writes: > Why the continuing Sprint bashing? They aren't nearly as half-assed as > you seem determined to present them. Here are a couple of recent observations. They still have a very cavalier attitude toward service. They strongly suggest that they have far more important things to worry about that whether your call goes through and you can contact your UUCP neighbor in St. Marys, KS. As I was told, "Not many people call there so it's naturally not one of our major priorities." Well, thanks for your help, sir. The second thing is their billing. I have been really annoyed to received bills for calls made four months in the past, particularly when they are calls to be billed back to clients. You can imagine the warm reception I get from my client's accounts payable when they receive a bill for work long done and forgotten about. And finally, when was the last time you even tried to reach "customer service"? I have literally given up after thirty minutes of waiting and listening to their "commercials on hold" or their musak-on-hold that consists of three songs in rotation, over and over and over. When someone finally does answer, on many occasions I have been cut off and had to start the whole laborious procedure all over again. As long a Sprint has pretentions to being a major long distance carrier, they are going to have to live up to some minimum standards. If they provide satisfactory service for you, then fine. But for many of us, they fall short of the mark. It's not really in the spirit of free information exchange for us to just take it and be quiet. I'm sorry if you consider the mentioning of legitimate complaints to be bashing, but I hope the DIGEST never sinks to a level of inoccuous fluff. -- John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.uucp | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !
pdg@chinet.chi.il.us (Paul Guthrie) (08/15/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0294m04@vector.dallas.tx.us> rick@uunet.uu.net (Rick Adams) writes: >Sprint claims that they have call supervision equipment in all areas that >offer equal access. >Why the continuing Sprint bashing? They aren't nearly as half-assed as >you seem determined to present them. Perhaps because what Sprint claims in call supervision is not really call supervision. They use 'energy detect', a half assed method of determining if somebody really did answer on many of their small town connections. Try dealing with Sprint as a heavy usage subscriber. If you compare the amount of lines running to a particular small town vs say AT&T (no contest) or MCI, Sprint is sadly lacking. I had a case where I needed *lots* of lines running to Myrtle Bay, and Sprint had something like 4, where MCI had 4 T-spans!!! This was not some strange case, either, rather the norm. In any case, the number of Sprint terminations with true supervision, is not the same as the number of Sprint terminations which they claim have 'answer supervision'. Also, Sprint (at least in this area) continuously used to give me service problems, including such things as 'modifying' their service to only give one way talk path before answer supervision without notification (1-800s emulating FGB service need this). I did have many problems with MCI too, but all of the 'memorable' experiences seem to have been with Sprint. -- Paul Guthrie chinet!nsacray!paul
rick@uunet.uu.net (Rick Adams) (08/15/89)
Background: My Sprint bill is $30,000 - $40,000 per month. My phone bill comes in a big box with detail of every call. I have NEVER found one of those details to be a call that was not answered. I switched to Sprint because of the lousy service I got from ATT (just like you described as receiving from Sprint). I've never had that sort of problem with Sprint. I consider the offhanded and uninformed response of the moderator that "Sprint doesn't have answer supervision" to be uncalled for bashing. It is not factual and it as uncalled for. Just because they offer lousy residential service, you can't damn the entire company for it. If they happen to make a business decision to care less about residential services, than business services, fine. Don't use them from your home. However, you would be a fool to refuse to consider them for business use based on their residential services. (I use ATT at home and Sprint at work. ATT is superior with residential service and inferior with business service.) My basic complaint is that too much information on this list is either hearsay or outdated or just plain wrong. I have nothing against savaging a vendor who's screwing up (readers of comp.sys.sequent will attest to that). However, I do feel that we should be dealing in facts rather than inuendo. The amount of pro-ATT bigotry is astounding. For some reason, very little of the Sprint "information" is factual or current. This is what I object to. ---rick
tom@gatech.edu (Tom Wiencko) (08/16/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0299m06@vector.dallas.tx.us> rick@uunet.uu.net (Rick Adams) writes: >Background: >My Sprint bill is $30,000 - $40,000 per month. My phone bill comes in a big >box with detail of every call. I have NEVER found one of those details >to be a call that was not answered. >I consider the offhanded and uninformed response of the moderator that >"Sprint doesn't have answer supervision" to be uncalled for bashing. >It is not factual and it as uncalled for. >For some reason, very little of the Sprint "information" is factual or >current. This is what I object to. Nonsense. Sprint will admit it to you if you push them hard enough. With this large a phone bill, unless you happen to make long calls to areas with Feature Group D trunks, it is almost impossible for you not to have some 1 minute phone calls (or whatever minimum billing interval Sprint happens to use on your account) which are not real completed calls. The technology is simply not in place for them to be able to provide call supervision everywhere (unless they get Feature Group C lines as I mentioned in a previous message). This is not "Sprint bashing"; this is simple exposure of the facts of the matter. The fact that you find Sprint's service and billing procedures acceptable does not mean that it is acceptable to everyone, and in particular, it does not mean that they take the same good care of residental or small business customers. Not all of us have $30,000 phone bills, but would like to get quality phone service, accurate billing, and reasonable response to problems. I, for one, have have good experiences with Sprint line quality, but horrid experiences with their billing and so-called "security" procedures. I have had months where 40% (yes, almost half) of the calls on a Sprint bill were one minute calls which actually were busy, no answer, or even dropped calls. So believe it when people complain about Sprint's billing procedures. There is proof. They will even occasionally admit it themselves. Tom
ron@ron.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) (08/17/89)
I wasn't one of the Sprint bashers but your comment: > Just because they offer lousy residential service, you can't damn the entire > company for it. If they happen to make a business decision to care > less about residential services, than business services, fine. Don't > use them from your home. However, you would be a fool to refuse to > consider them for business use based on their residential services. Sure I can damn the entire company for it. I had very unfortunate experiences with Sprint about two and a half years ago that convinced me that I would never want to use them again. Just last May (much more current information that they have not changed their ways) I had another run in with them and again as a residential customer I got screwed by them. The local operating company told me that the type of complaints I had were common place with Sprint (Sprint gratuitously changed my mother's long distance carrier to them, Sprint claims C&P Telephone did it, C&P claims Sprint instigated it). If they want to screw me as an individual they've already lost a lot of ground as to my objectivity of me committing my whole business to such levels of treachery. -Ron
ben@sybase.com (ben ullrich) (08/18/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0294m04@vector.dallas.tx.us>, rick@uunet.uu.net (Rick Adams) writes: > > Chances are your Sprint rep friend will tell you they do not have 'call > > supervision equipment' and cannot tell when the call actually starts. PT] > Sprint claims that they have call supervision equipment in all areas that > offer equal access. > Why the continuing Sprint bashing? They aren't nearly as half-assed as > you seem determined to present them. How are they not half-assed?? Unless you give good reasons for the ``bashing'' to stop, there will be no motivation to do so. And ``Claims'' by Sprint are no better than any ``bashing.'' Let's see some real answers. ...ben ---- ben ullrich consider my words disclaimed,if you consider them at all sybase, inc., emeryville, ca "When you deal with human beings, a certain +1 (415) 596 - 3500 amount of nonsense is inevitable." -- mike trout ben@sybase.com {pyramid,pacbell,sun,lll-tis}!sybase!ben
peter@uunet.uu.net (08/18/89)
I have AT&T set up as my primary home service, with SPRINT set up as my secondary service. That way bills for my calls on 10333 don't get sent through the wringer. I'm pleased with Sprint and have had no problems with them. I used to use MCI, but after getting the runaround, and having them charge me business rates for residential service (at that time residential service was limited to off-peak hours, so I got a business account. The first time I tried to use them during the day I couldn't. They refused to credit me for the extra charges!), I'll never use them again. MCI Mail is a different matter, though. --- Peter da Silva, *NIX support guy @ Ferranti International Controls Corporation. Biz: peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. Fun: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com. `-_-' "Optimization is not some mystical state of grace, it is an intricate act U of human labor which carries real costs and real risks." -- Tom Neff
ben@sybase.com (ben ullrich) (08/19/89)
> My Sprint bill is $30,000 - $40,000 per month. My phone bill comes in a big > box with detail of every call. I have NEVER found one of those details > to be a call that was not answered. How often did you check every record? How can you be so sure about so many calls? > I consider the offhanded and uninformed response of the moderator that > "Sprint doesn't have answer supervision" to be uncalled for bashing. > It is not factual and it as uncalled for. Not really. Where is your counter-evidence? > Just because they offer lousy residential service, you can't damn the entire > company for it. If they happen to make a business decision to care > less about residential services, than business services, fine. Don't > use them from your home. However, you would be a fool to refuse to > consider them for business use based on their residential services. This is inane. A good deal of business service provided by them is over the same type of lines, and of course the network is all the same. Besides, a ``business decision'' doesn't give them the right to rip people off and do nothing about it. That type of ``business decision'' is a fairly cowardly one: businesses are much less likely to complain about (let alone EXAMINE) their bills than residential folks are. With business service, Sprint can make tons of money and not have to be accountable for their billing. And believe me, they do this. Sybase used to be a $14 K per month customer of Sprint's. After a year of ignoring us (no representative contact), and six months of DISMAL international service (many calls to the UK not completing or being cut off for weeks at a time, as well as nearly non-functional international FAX service), I moved us to a T-based service with MCI, saving 34% and getting better customer service, international, and FAX quality than we have ever experienced. I remember all the mornings I came in at 6 to be with the international marketing folks to listen in on their calls and make records of calls to the UK so Sprint could tell me there was nothing wrong with anything at that time. ``I'll fill out a trouble ticket,'' they said. ... and toss it in the garbage, I thought. I'll never forget the nerve of my customer service rep when she told me that anyone could bill calls to our numbers with no verification. ``Everyone [ATT, MCI, etc.] does it,'' she said. She also said she'd take the charge off. That was in March; the amount is still being billed to us to this day. > My basic complaint is that too much information on this list is either > hearsay or outdated or just plain wrong. I have nothing against > savaging a vendor who's screwing up (readers of comp.sys.sequent will > attest to that). However, I do feel that we should be dealing in facts > rather than inuendo. The amount of pro-ATT bigotry is astounding. > For some reason, very little of the Sprint "information" is factual or > current. This is what I object to. It sounds more like you just don't like the fact that your company isn't thrilling the majority of readers here. Your ``information'' on the subject is no more credible than anyone else's. You relate your experiences with hearsay, everyone else does too. Why is everyone else wrong just because you don't like their conclusions? Don't you sort of wonder why there aren't more people saying praises of Sprint? ben ullrich consider my words disclaimed,if you consider them at all sybase, inc., emeryville, ca "When you deal with human beings, a certain +1 (415) 596 - 3500 amount of nonsense is inevitable." -- mike trout ben@sybase.com {pyramid,pacbell,sun,lll-tis}!sybase!ben