In a recent issue of Radio World, Bob Ladd of WMYR(AM)/WCNZ(AM) noted his difficulties with a T1 connection being down for months waiting for repairs. This amazes me, since the major advantage of the T1 is that this can be avoided.
The T1 is a tariffed service; rates and minimum uptimes are regulated by the government. Unlike with an untariffed DSL connection, the telco can be fined severely if the service is not repaired promptly. Much of what you pay extra for when you purchase a T1 is that peace of mind.
A customer of mine recently had a difficulty with a tariffed data circuit that went down at irregular intervals.
After I spent two days on the phone with people at Verizon who hardly spoke English and did not understand what I was saying when I quoted bit error rates to them, I finally got them to roll a truck. The technician who arrived had never seen the service and suggested the problem probably was with my ISP. In the process he also managed to disconnect the office voice line.
I faxed a letter describing the issue to the state public utility commission, and within an hour I had an executive from Verizon calling me up and asking me why I hadn’t escalated the problem. A truck with an actual competent technician arrived the next day and the problem was sorted out by moving my circuit to a different pair in a damaged trunk.
May I strongly suggest that, even though some time has elapsed, Mr. Ladd write a short letter to the Florida Public Service Commission describing his experience with the telco and what he finally wound up having to do when the problem was never resolved.
If nothing else it will probably prevent such problems from happening to others in his area.
Scott Dorsey
Kludge Audio
Williamsburg, Va.