DSL Prime:
RBOCs Grow Without Customer Service

Stories of RBOC customer service failures continue, even as the companies continue to grow. Being a monopoly must be fun.

by Dave Burstein DSL Prime [May 19, 2004]

The Wrong Man to SNAFU
SBC fails EE Times editor
Brian Fuller, in EE Times, suggests "SBC, has outsourced most of its service call center operations to India," and goes on to report they have made a botch of the job—and his personal DSL line. After a week of incorrect non-answers, he finally got switched to someone who could solve the problem, not just read an irrelevant script.

DSL Prime does not believe moving support jobs to Asia is any better or worse than moving manufacturing jobs abroad, but I intend to laugh out loud next time SBC requests price increases because they "maintain local jobs." Union President Mo Bahr knows SBC has been sending them away.

SBC's Walt Sharp writes "Dave, for competitive reasons and because the numbers shift according to business needs, we don't break these numbers down in detail. SBC does relatively little direct outsourcing—i.e., outsourcing that the company contracts for itself. Our IT work is included in this direct outsourcing, for example. More often, we contract for specific types of work, e.g., DSL customer support, with a vendor and that vendor then makes the determination of the numbers of employees needed, where the work will be performed, etc., to meet the contract."

Brian Roberts of Comcast is bringing call centers in-house because he thinks better support will be a strategic edge over telcos. John Murphy, President of DSL Extreme, an ISP with excellent ratings at DSL Reports, writes we've "opted to keep customer service in-house as much as possible. Our feeling? Nobody cares about the company as much as your in-house people."

That's not the only solution. You can get terrible support from New Jersey, or great service from Bangalore. Speakeasy, one of my providers, has been outstanding when I needed help, and Verizon just came through for me as well last week.

Verizon: repeat after me
GoDigital's DSL extension cord for four customers
Verizon doesn't like to say no to paying customers, planning 90 percent coverage this year. Senior VP Marilyn O'Connell is planning extenders that can reach 2 million to 3 million more homes, and Kevin Fitchard in Telephony believes many will be "suburban well-to-do types just chomping on the bit for broadband." O'Connell understands the problems well, coming from the GTE division.

Dennis Haar, GoDigital CEO, has 140 telcos buying XCel-4a systems, but Verizon is the first large one to go on the record. Haar explains, "In many places, we're much cheaper than adding a remote DSLAM. In particular, since we essentially just extend the existing DSLAM, the telco doesn't need to make any changes to their element management system. Plug the line from the DSLAM into our shelf, from which we multiplex the bits using a G.shdsl line code to our remote, each of which serves up to four 1.5 Mbps DSL lines. A proprietary repeater goes every 13,000 to 24,000 feet. On standard wiring, they can go ten miles on line power. With power extended or the thicker wire common in long reach situations, it can go much further. They fit in a common 239 housing."

"We've been shipping since 2002 with Infineon G.shdsl, so the technical problems are behind us. To minimize interference, we don't run G.shdsl faster than 1.5 Mbps. That level of multiplexing is working so well customers are asking about an 8 port unit." That surprised me, because I think of networks being designed for video service, so Haar added, "We're ready to add a second G.shdsl backhaul line for higher speeds.

Haar was especially proud of the small unit designed to extend ADSL from remote cabinets. "It's only 8 by 10 inches, and only 2 inches high. That lets you run fiber to the remote, and extend the remote as well."

"Delivering everywhere will take a set of techniques. Our product is the right choice in many cases." Beyond Verizon, Qwest and BellSouth have GoDigital gear for pair gain that can easily be upgraded for DSL as well.

Qwest 107,000, to 744,000
Best DSL quarter since Trujillo left
Aided by 1,100 new remote terminals and marketing bundles, Qwest added more customers in three months than they did in a recent nine month period. Included in that figure are about 1,000 'unclothed DSL' customers, who are welcomed at Qwest's website. They intend to add 3,000 more remotes, reaching about 65 percent of the territory by yearend 2004.

Editorial: If you believe in "facilities-based competition"
France is confirming what the Japanese experience demonstrated: competition can work, driving down prices and getting dramatically improved service. Free COO Boukobza is very clear, however, that the wrong government policies could shut them right down.The competitive DSL/video/voice + more is what "facilities-based competition" could really be like. If the FCC wanted it in the U.S., several steps are imperative.

• First, enforce the "cageless collocation" rules to keep costs down. All the gear can fit in a $10,000 rack, not a $100,000 10 x 10 cage.
• Second, monitor all the pricing for the unequivocally bottleneck monopoly items, in particular the actual phone line to each home
  (UNE-L). Make sure some similar arrangement works with remote terminals.
• Third, make sure dark fiber is available on a competitive basis, requiring the telcos to make it a UNE in the specific locations where they have insufficient competition.
• Fourth, find a way to bring similar benefits to the markets too small to attract competitors.
• Fifth, bring back line-sharing.

Kevin Martin knows he made a mistake giving that up and is ready to deal. If the FCC had delivered on issues like this for the last few years, the U.S. would still be a leader in broadband, not an embarrassment.

Copyright 2004 Dave Burstein.
The DSL Prime Newsletter is reprinted with permission.

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