atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Telecom Service & Providers Do you find LECS are generally quicker to repair thier own lines and drag on others

For those in the field or just see the the day2day repairs, is it some crazy conspiracy that lecs will drag their feet on 3rd party lines.

We have seen the lecs even do same day dispatch on basic *business class adsl2* circuits.

We just had a outage on one site *dedicated voice circuit*, and it literally took 30 hrs for a premise visit from the lec to determine it was a short on the co side. Ontop of that, even after the long $@@$@!)*!#($%@ delay, it took another 17hrs after their determination to restore the circuit.

SLAS or MTTR...I would assume that the underlying would/should have some sort of minimum MTTR on the local loop.

I'd love to hear from the pros who can shed some light if you guys have more seen similar instances..

I find at&t (old SNET) and Verizon (old New England Telephone) tend to be OK when we open trouble tickets for DS0, DS1 and DS3 circuit problems.

Are they perfect? .... No .... Have there been problems? .... Yes .... but on the whole, they have been reasonably good.

In my experience with Verizon in NYC, I'd say pingable is more right than wrong. Nothing that can be proven ofcourse, just a pattern of "coincidences", I'll just call it that. The explanations (when one is given) sound dubious.

From a LEC perspective I have seen the exact opposite for several years… Trouble tickets and Due Date turn ups often get first priority for CLEC’s over the LEC's customers.

IXC circuits where last mile is delivered by LEC’s… I have seen those get all FUBAR-ed but not because of some behind the scene conspiracy or anything. Seems a lot of IXC employees (and well, LEC employees too I’m sure) want to play the “blame game” before addressing the actual “repair.” HOURS or even days can be lost before any techs that can actually FIX the problem are brought in to the picture.

In my area (Washington, DC metro), I don't see Verizon jumping through hoops for any customer. I will say that the CLECs have a bit larger "teeth" in getting problems resolved than a typical end-user.

From what I've seen, the CLECs are able to push service outage or installation issues because they buy "last mile" circuits from Verizon in bulk. Apparently, they feel that their purchasing volume places them at a higher priority level. I think that this is more of a situation where the CLEC just has more people to stay on top of things and escalate orders. The typical end user lacks the knowledge to realize that they should constantly be seeking updates. "It will be fixed tomorrow between 8 and 5" sounds somewhat resonable.

Far too often, a customer who deals directly with the LEC makes one phone call and assumes that the problem will be resolved without further intervention. Not so true these days in my neck of the woods. The squeaky wheel gets the most grease around here and it had better be very squeaky.

Where I am I believe Verizon gives their own customers better service. They don't like the CLECs so they put them on the back burner.

-Hal

I will guarantee that in the greater Tampa Bay area Verizon categorized the copper on a scale. All CLEC's ride from the bottom up, and Verizon rides from the top down. The only exception is the areas with copper shortage.

I've seen many service problems relating to the last mile disappear once Verizon was made the carrier. I've told many customers that when they call a CLEC to ask what the copper looks like in their area. If the CLEC is honest and reports back that the area has a higher rate of incident then others that they might want to pay the extra dime and use Verizon. In some area's it was a night and day difference.

Add to that that Verizon isn't laying ANY new copper here because of FiOS and it just compounds the problem. The only new copper that gets put in the ground is to fix outages. Loosing a T1 or having it bounce 4-5 times a year is pretty common. It's gotten to the point where a bad pair is just jumped around to different circuits, even if the circuit is still in the same demarc as the one they were supposed to fix.

My only recent experience with Verizon has been on my own residential lines.

Believe it or not, they've been excellent. I had a DSL problem two years ago (my speed dropped in half). After I called it in, for the hell of it I decided to try another modem. That fixed it. I called and cancelled the service call (scheduled for the next day). They called back and asked if they could please send a Tech to check the line because they were concerned!

The guy came on time, tested the line and was nice & polite. A perfect visit.

A few months ago I had FIOS installed, Same thing- the Installer came on time, looked over the job did an immaculate install, adjusted the order as to my request, tested everything thoroughly, all in all a perfect job.

Sam

And then you sat down and had a beer with your old friend! John C.

Sad to say, VZ has not been able to fix my noise problems for two years, so I just live with it. We are too far out to get DSL, FiOS is not even in our neck of the woods yet and I hate Comcast, but what else can I do?

And FWIW, I have worked for both an ILEC and later on a CLEC. Sometimes VZ would get our (CLEC's) T1 service restored within a 4 hour window frame and sometimes not. The biggest obstacle was just going through all of the menu options to get to a live person and then find out that you had to be transferred to another person and another...........maybe it is a good thing I do not have to deal with it anymore .............so far............

We generally get our circuits repaired quickly. The biggest problem that we'll run into is debates on the test results for DS0 loops. I would say that CLEC's should get fairly quick repairs because of the volume purchased.

Sorry to bump an old thread, but my thoughts:

I work for a contractor for a CLEC in my area. I find that the ILEC in my area (Ex-Verizon now Fairpoint) definitely drags their feet. When I determine the issue with the customer's circuit (be it dry loop DSL or Voice or Voice/DSL combo) is outside of the customer prem wiring, I inform the CLEC of what I found. They submit a trouble ticket to VZ (now Fairpoint). 9 times out of 10, FP will close out the ticket with NTF (no trouble found). It usually takes another DPO (dispatch out) or a VM (vendor meet) to prove to them the issue is there and is their problem. Often times I arrive for the vendor meet at the customer prem, the problem is mysteriously fixed and a FP tech doesn't show up. Ticket narrative is then closed out with NTF.

It drives me nuts. Only the 1 time out of 10 does a nice, helpful FP tech come out and actually see the issue, care enough to fix it, and inform us of the fix.

That's because the ILECs are forced to support their own competition. So the ILEC will do just enough to stay out of trouble and couldn't care less about the CLEC or their customers.

I never recommend CLECS to any of my customers. I give them that explanation and tell them that if they want a better chance of their problems being taken care of sooner and without BS stay with the ILEC.

-Hal

That is true. From what I understand the CLECs are being billed for the loop, so basically they are a customer of the ILEC. I wish it was that simple though.

They may be billed for the loop (at a wholesale rate keep in mind) but the ILEC doesn't have the end user and that's where they make their money.

-Hal

Thing you ya’ll have to understand this kind of thing happens all internally too with the BIG LECs.

When I worked for an RBOC, it was somewhat common to be working on a troubled turn-up with everyone and there brother on a call from all departments… Remote tester calls a pass-tru C.O. because that’s where they think the trouble is at… C. O. tech answers say “hang on. I’ll go check on it.” … While the C.O. tech is “away,” remote tester sees the circuit go from yellow alarm, to red… and a couple moments later the trouble clears to no alarms. Sometimes the C.O. tech comes back to the phone and says, “Checked it out. Everything was okay with it.” :rolleyes: Uhhhhh huh, sure it was.

The NTF but problems clear magically happens when no one else is looking all the time… It’s not a conspiracy.

'BFM' and 'CBFM' are two very commonly used clear codes between technicians for those mystery troubles in RBOCs!