Major Trouble Moving an AT&T Wire

General discussions and other topics.
6 posts Page 1 of 1
by MenloPark_Resident » Thu Feb 15, 2018 1:20 pm
SONIC uses AT&T wires to run services, but who is responsible for moving an AT&T wire? The wire needing to be moved hangs low to the ground through tree branches in our front yard. Yard is getting landscaped, trees may come down, wire will not have support. So how complicated can it be to move a wire??

1) Called AT&T, and one of their technicians came to our house. Said he could move the wire if I were an AT&T customer. But couldn't move the wire as I was a SONIC customer. Said I needed to make arrangements with Sonic.
2) Called SONIC. Was told bluntly that the AT&T wire could not be moved. Say what??
3) Called SONIC again. Was told there was but one circumstance under which an AT&T wire can be moved. Only if home-remodeling is being done. Fortunately, looks like I qualify as both front yard landscape and front of house is being remodeled.
4) SONIC rep tells me that a supervisor will call me with full detail by 11 AM this morning Thursday February 15th. It's now 1 PM. No phone call. So...
5) I make another call to SONIC to reschedule the conversation about moving a wire with a tech supervisor. I tell them there is a time window to reach me, and that's before 11 AM, as I'm out of my house after that (and I use a landline, not a mobile phone). I'm told Sonic calls on it's own schedule within a 48 hour time frame. Zero, zip, no assurance is given that I can get a call before 11 AM when I am home.
6) My conclusions so far? SONIC is badly hobbled by its own internal bureaucracy. Apparently there is not a single person at SONIC who can promptly answer simple questions about moving a wire. I'm already a couple days into trying to get what should be simple answers. But no reliable information has been given to me about how to get the wire moved. One promised call back has failed. I'm also told SONIC cannot reliably schedule a call-back before 11AM when I'm at home.

What's really weird about all this is that SONIC is one of the better ISPs (others are consistently worse). But now I am losing confidence in any quality of service from SONIC. Please, can someone at SONIC get their act together with simple and reliable information about how to get an AT&T wire moved in my front yard?

To be continued...

MenloPark_Resident
A SONIC customer for almost 15 years
by miken » Thu Feb 15, 2018 2:54 pm
Moving a drop will be up to AT&T's discretion as that is their wiring. I don't imagine it would be a problem as it sounds like you have a logical reason for doing so. Specific details are hard to get into until we get AT&T onsite to get a better look at things.

I apologize for the miscommunication with the supervisor getting back to you - we don't promise callback times and you shouldn't have originally been told you'd be reached out to at a specific time. We do accommodate scheduling requests - it looks like we weren't able to get back to you by 11AM this morning, so a supervisor should be reaching out tomorrow morning for you.
Mike N.
Development Trainer
Sonic
by MenloPark_Resident » Sun Feb 18, 2018 1:51 pm
Good news! Sonic definitely woke up to solve the problem of getting an AT&T line moved. The work has been done this morning by an AT&T employee, and I am pleased with the work. But it was almost impossible at first to get Sonic to appropriately move forward with a request to AT&T. My first 3 phone calls to Sonic had no positive response whatsoever. In fact the opposite occurred; I was initially told the AT&T line could not be moved. The only thing that saved me from playing phone tag with Sonic for another week was this forum. Only when I posted about 'moving-the-AT&T-line' to this forum did I get a competent and prompt response from Sonic.

Moving an AT&T line is an uncommon kind of business, and it's improbable that the first level of tech support at Sonic would know the proper procedures and circumstances under which a line could be moved. Unfortunately the second level of supervisor support at Sonic was no more competent. The information that the Sonic supervisor relayed back to the Sonic tech guy on the phone with me was that I could only move the AT&T line if I was 'remodeling'. Please think for a second about what 'remodeling' means. 'Remodeling' applies specifically to renovation of a building or structure. But I did not speak this magic word 'remodeling' in my conversation with tech support. What I did say was that my front yard is is the process of new landscaping, that trees were coming down, and the AT&T line would end up on the ground if not moved to a more appropriate location.

In this instance I think there was a dearth of common sense from Sonic support people, both at the 1st level of tech support, and from the 2nd level of tech supervisors. 'Landscaping' is an obvious and totally legitimate reason to move an AT&T line, and this should have been clearly understood during my first 3 phone calls to Sonic.

I've been with Sonic for more than a decade, I am still a loyal customer, and I know other ISPs are consistently worse. But please do work on making the quality of over-the-phone support from Sonic a bit more competent. Forum support from your 'escalation specialists' is great; keep up the good work!

MenloPark_Resident
by miken » Mon Feb 19, 2018 8:37 am
Thanks for the follow up and the feedback. I'll make sure this information gets to the right people so that we can use it as a training opportunity going forward.
Mike N.
Development Trainer
Sonic
by BenK » Fri Dec 07, 2018 6:30 pm
We had a cable wire installed. It was put in an unfortunate position: 15’ away from the telephone pole, running almost down the center of our property, and the cable clip was ‘dead center’ to the across the street neighbors view of Golden Gate Bridge.

Berkeley Hills have view rights and anything additional creates issues.

One email to Sonic, plus a phone call - the VERY NEXT DAY a team was out to move the cable closer to the pole.

No drama. No questions. No Supervisors. Just pure solid follow through.

I hope that Comcast is nervous that this smaller company is “on it” with customer service as well as pricing.

Thanks for being a game changer in the Berkeley Hills, Sonic!

Zero complaints. 100% Fabulous company. Even our installer Billy C. arrived, executed his wiring work with “type A” precision neatness and completed the job in 2.5 hours (they provided a 4-hr time frame for the install).
by digitalbitstream » Mon Dec 31, 2018 7:18 pm
When I had fiber installed, at two locations, I was able to ask the installers to minimize impact on views.
On request they followed the existing AT&T landline cable (or Comcast cable). They said they prefer to have the drop separate, but will happily do it the way the customer prefers.
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