[30124] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Wanted: Clueful Individual @ TeleGlobe.net
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Troy Davis)
Sun Jul 16 03:46:21 2000
Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2000 00:43:41 -0700
From: Troy Davis <troy@nack.net>
To: "Derek J. Balling" <dredd@megacity.org>
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Message-ID: <20000716004341.B12542@nack.net>
Mail-Followup-To: Troy Davis <troy@nack.net>,
"Derek J. Balling" <dredd@megacity.org>, nanog@nanog.org
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In-Reply-To: <p04320401b5970125fc04@[63.201.65.219]>; from dredd@megacity.org on Sat, Jul 15, 2000 at 11:12:11PM -0700
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
On Sat, 15 Jul 2000, Derek J. Balling <dredd@megacity.org> wrote:
> Sample snip from phone call:
This mirrors my experience with the AT&T NOC on Friday after seeing latency
between GlobalCenter and AT&T. The GlobalCenter NOC had no problem opening a
ticket without caring whether I was a customer or not. They spent a few hours
on it and said it appeared to be an over-loaded AT&T router.
Not entirely sure of that - and if it was true, wanting to see what AT&T
was doing about it - I called AT&T, was transferred 3 times to reach the IP
folks, and was promptly stonewalled.
The level 1 tech didn't know latency from Adam but wasn't willing to find
someone who did. He said he couldn't open a ticket for a non-customer
and we argued for 10 minutes about what to do next - hang up or talk to the
next guy up the chain. I convinced him that it was an actual issue and that
he should indeed tell his boss - or maybe he just got tired of talking.
Anyhow, his boss came on the line and said the same thing, emphasizing that
they couldn't open tickets for non-customers. Even informing him that AT&T
customers were calling us to complain and that AT&T users were affected
didn't help. This guy claimed to be the engineering manager and said there
was nobody above him to go to. We talked for a while - 10-20 minutes - and
apparantly he finally got tired too, since he took my name/number.
A couple minutes later I got a call from a third guy there, who said that
any issues were between AT&T and GlobalCenter and that I had no business
calling. I asked if there was an open ticket or even someone addressing it
and he had no idea. He didn't seem to know any more about networking than the
first guy.
The most discouraging part was that the last two people understood that it was
a service-affecting problem and yet hadn't been given any procedures to solve
it. It felt like I was asking a secretary - they all stated that they
understood it was a problem but couldn't do a damn thing.
I ended up sending a note to noc@att.net telling them the problem, my support
story, and noting that their NOC folks couldn't do any of these things (all of
which I asked to do):
- open a trouble ticket for a non-customer
- transfer me to someone who could
- transfer me to the IP engineers
- verify/deny that the problem was within AT&T (a traceroute, perhaps?)
- call GlobalCenter and work on the ticket I had open with them
- provide me with an escalation or complaint path, either for the original
problem or to complain about the NOC's useless procedures
.. any of which would have been more useful than hanging up and sending an
email. I still haven't received a reply or even an automated ticket #.
Cheers,
Troy
