I usually don't air my dirty laundry in public but I'm in uncharted territory here. I've never had an experience with a provider like this before and since they're so well known I thought I might find some advice from other TWTC users.
Sorry for the long read, it's a long story.
Time Warner Telecom purchased Xspedius late last year signaling their entry into my area. I decided to get a quote from them since I was in need of some bandwidth to replace a contract coming up for renewal.
I contacted the rep that frequents this board, Katie, and asked for some help with a quote. A couple days later I was contacted by 2 reps in my area. They came out, got my info, asked what my price point was and left.
Two months later I receive a quote. They had met my price point and wanted me to sign. No problem, I signed the contract. All was well.
A couple weeks after the contract signing I got a call from one of them saying that, due to some technical issues, they wouldn't be able to install for 90 days. This was in early February and actually, was no problem for me at all. The install date was set for May 5th (little more than 90 days but still no problem at all).
So far everything was ok. Then in late April I received a visit from their tech to install equipment. 5 minutes later he informs me that they sent him the wrong equipment and he'd need to come back.
A week later he's back with new equipment. Get's it installed in the fiber vault, and then informs me he forgot the fiber patches. He'll be back with them.
He comes back in early May and installs the fiber and GBIC's. Now I'm handed off to the installation crew.
The installation crew informs me there's an issue with the equipment and they will not be able to get me turned up by the 5th. The onsite tech needs to come back and pick up the equipment because the network guys forgot to configure it before they sent it out.
He comes out, picks it up and brings it back the next day.
During this time I'm working on configing our side. It took me 3 e-mails to get the AS number. The first reply was MY AS number, the second was the old Xspedius ASN and the third was finally the TWTC ASN.
Once the equipment is back and everything is good I'm on the phone for turn up. (This is now Late May BTW, almost 30 days late)
Now, let me break quickly to make sure you know that up until this point I wasn't worried at all. Not mad, irritated, nothing.... maybe slightly amused but that's it. Until this point...
The problems began when I got on the phone with the "installation spe############t". He informed me that there was no link from my equipment and that I needed to check it out. No problem. I informed him of the port I was on and that there was a link on my side but not his. He told me the port I was plugged into was wrong (it's the only one with an empty GBIC in it.) and that I needed to move to a different port. No problem. I moved the fiber. The port I was plugged into was for the protected ring. Hadn't been installed.
Then he still wasn't getting a link on his side. I checked everything again and sure enough, link on my side, none on his. Again, no problem... I told him to force the negotiation on his side and everything would be ok. After 5 minutes he admitted he didn't know how to turn off auto negotiation (Cisco switch: no autonegotiation) and that he was IMing with a level 2 technician who was walking him through how to do the install.
Finally we got the level 2 tech on the phone after he couldn't disable auto negotiation, set MD5 passwords or seem to get the BGP session configured correctly. Everything was working, looking good, turned up and then bam. Latency spiraling out of control, massive packet loss, everything going right down the toilet. I dumped the BGP session and everything went back to normal.
The tech told me this was due to a propagation issue with my routes and that I needed to give it 48 hours and then turn it back on. This made no sense to me at all but ok, I'll play along.
That was a Friday. On Monday I turn it up again, same results. I call my “service coordinator” and explain the issue to her. She tells me that according to the installation team I had accepted service last week and my account had been sent to billing. She promises to check into it and call me back.
She calls me back about 30 minutes later and tells me that I need to call tech support and open a ticket on it.
I call tech support and open a ticket on a Thursday. On Monday I call back to check on the status of my ticket. I’m told it’s been closed, the techs found no problem.
This is the part where I go from slightly annoyed to mad.
I open another ticket. Two days later I get a call from a tech. Again, no problem found, pings look ok. I tell him he needs to put traffic over the line to see the issue, a ping won’t do anything. He promises to send out a tech to test from our end.
A week later the same tech I’ve been dealing with all along shows up to test. I explain to him that I know exactly what’s causing the problem as I have the same issue with another provider. I also tell him what to do to fix it. He calls level 2 support (why don’t they just send one of these guys out in the first place) who tells him that they will need to run more tests.
While he’s there he asks me about the fiber move from one port to the other. I tell him what installation told me and he laughs. He tells me there is no protected ring on my circuit (I was told there was going to be one by a sales engineer that came down from Wisconsin to look at my site) and that he had no orders to install anything more.
I’ve heard from him twice since then. One time to schedule another appointment and one time to cancel it because they sent him the wrong equipment. Last time I heard from him was 2 weeks ago.
To top it all off, there is a 60-70ms latency jump between anywhere and Kansas City. This is intra network latency, within their network. Their SLA is 50ms max so even if they get my circuit fixed they can’t meet their SLA.
We’re coming up on 60 days since installation date and we’re no closer than we were then. I’ve never had an issue like this before and I’m looking for some guidance on protocol. Should I give them more time? I REALLY need the bandwidth but don’t want to sign with someone else before I get this resolved.
Any opinions?