For several months, my "voice" line becomes inoperative with bad weather. Now with winter, when temps drop near 20 degrees there is no dial tone. When it warms up around 35 degrees the service is back to normal. (DLS operates in a severely degraded mode). I have opened several tickets when the problem was present, only to have them closed when the problem went away. All testing was done from the "test jack" where the line comes into the house, with the house totally disconnected.
After all this time I felt the problem needed to get resolved once and for all, so I spoke with a "Supervisor" (Jonathan Stoke) at the Boise facility and discussed my problem at length. Jonathan was great to work with - we agreed the best plan was to keep a ticket open for a tech to come out to the house and look at the problem on Dec 29 as was previously scheduled, and if the problem was not present at the time the tech was here at my residence I would be able to explain all the symptoms and I would not be charged for a "problem isolation" call. I arranged to be at home for the entire day, as a definite time for a tech to be dispatched could not be determined within a shorter time range.
Unbeknownst to me, someone within Century Link ran a test on my line the afternoon of Dec. 28 (while it was warm and the line was working fine), and closed the ticket with a comment that the problem was with the customers phones, not with Century Link. I was never informed that this had been done, and consequently wasted an entire day at home waiting for a tech to arrive to look at the problem. At 4:30PM on Dec. 29, I called customer service to get a status on my open ticket.
That is when I learned the ticket had been closed by a tech indicating the problem was not a Century Link problem. I asked why I had not been informed that the ticket was closed, and the response was "He left you a voice mail". THIS IS TOTALLY UNTRUE. First of all, I do not have an answering machine on the line to record a voice mail, and secondly, if he were speaking of a Century Link provision for a voice mail - that has never been set up and activated. Now, today, (Dec 29) would have been a great day for the tech to have come as scheduled. The phone was "dead" all day long with the cold weather we experienced, and he would have been able to troubleshoot the problem with ease.
As an FYI, when the phone is working and a person calls, they immediately get the "No Solicitation" message and are required to press "1" to continue. When the line is dead with no dial tone and a person calls, they get a message that tells them " the voice mailbox for this number has not been set up" - never getting to the "No Solicitation" message. We have learned recently, that for months people have tried to call us and have received the "mailbox not set up" message, so it is obvious this problem has existed a long, long, time without us being aware there was a problem, being as how with warm and pleasant weather, the problem disappeared.
So, after wasting a complete day at home at a great expense to me, I learn that someone in Century Link closed a ticket without informing me, and took away the opportunity present to correct this problem once and for all. That person should be disciplined! I am now told no one can be here until Thursday AM, which is totally unacceptable as the line is still completely dead. There is more to the story, but I would much prefer to talk with a Sr. Executive. I am making a copy of this report and will be submitting it to Mr. Girish K. Varma if I do not hear from you immediately.