Showing posts with label verizon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label verizon. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Comcast and Verizon in Competition Again
I understand that Comcast and Verizon have opened restaurants across the street from one another, that their prices are identical, that each wait staff is apathetic, and, though each serves a full menu, every diner is forced to order everything. Also, prospective customers find menus in their junk mail and left at their homes daily.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
"Free" Online Storage
A couple months ago I related my experiences with Google Documents and Windows Live Skydrive for online storage. Mostly my online storage is .tar.gz.cpt files (gzipped tar files fed through ccrypt); everything I put on the cloud with no intention of sharing is encrypted. The brief discussion is at http://martesmartes.blogspot.com/2011/08/skydrivewindows-live-or-google.html
Since then, I have used Amazon's Cloud Drive for this, and it works fine. Since I almost always have Gmail open, though, Google is a tad more convenient. Also, I think Google's commitment to cross-platform interoperability is stronger than Amazon's, so I feel slightly more confident that I'll always be able to access the Google cloud.
So the score is Google Great, Amazon Good, Microsoft Bad. Today I finally successfully logged into my Verizon account; it only took 13 months to get in. I use FiOS at home, but don't use Windows much, and in the past Verizon has required installation of software on the home client to use a supposedly-web account. So I've been s.o.l. But today I got a notice from Verizon on changes to its privacy policy, and I was actually able to log in through a link in that e-mail. It was not smooth, as at one point I received an error message saying my phone number was invalid (I have no Verizon phone), but a shrug got me past that.
Verizon provides users with 2GB of space, but I cannot see that since some script at mylibrary/members/logincheck.aspx goes into an infinite loop, repeatedly reloading the same useless-looking page. So, as bad as Skydrive is, I have to rate Verizon's service as worse.
Since then, I have used Amazon's Cloud Drive for this, and it works fine. Since I almost always have Gmail open, though, Google is a tad more convenient. Also, I think Google's commitment to cross-platform interoperability is stronger than Amazon's, so I feel slightly more confident that I'll always be able to access the Google cloud.
So the score is Google Great, Amazon Good, Microsoft Bad. Today I finally successfully logged into my Verizon account; it only took 13 months to get in. I use FiOS at home, but don't use Windows much, and in the past Verizon has required installation of software on the home client to use a supposedly-web account. So I've been s.o.l. But today I got a notice from Verizon on changes to its privacy policy, and I was actually able to log in through a link in that e-mail. It was not smooth, as at one point I received an error message saying my phone number was invalid (I have no Verizon phone), but a shrug got me past that.
Verizon provides users with 2GB of space, but I cannot see that since some script at mylibrary/members/logincheck.aspx goes into an infinite loop, repeatedly reloading the same useless-looking page. So, as bad as Skydrive is, I have to rate Verizon's service as worse.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
4G In Catonsville
I used to be a Xohm customer, and then Xohm switched to Clear. In time I was unhappy enough with Clear's service that it became time to switch myself, to Verizon FiOS. Xohm and Clear offered 802.16 (WiMAX) to home and mobile users at around, optimistically, 4Mb/s. FiOS is faster, typically 15Mb/s at my tier.
Clear (http://www.clear.com/) is now marketing their wireless Internet vaguely as 4G. They are also advertising lower speeds than before, which makes it unclear what technology they are using. 4G is a marketing term, and from an engineering or technical perspective, meaningless. Granted, WiMAX is also a marketing term (IEEE originally referred to 802.16 as Wireless MAN), but at least WiMAX actually means something.
Xohm marketed their service as WiMAX, and reading the fine print it was clearly 802.16. Clear has dummied their web site down to the extent that there is nary a clue what technology they are using. Actually, a bit more digging leads to a release at http://corporate.clearwire.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=570046 that mentions legacy and mobile WiMAX, but also mentions partners using other technologies. Perhaps Clear is still predominantly 802.16, but advertised at a lower rate, which is consistent with what I was seeing when I canceled my Clear service. It may be that they are simply provisioning their towers at a lower rate per customer. The dumbing down of their web site is unfortunate.
Of course, Verizon is vague at their web site about what FiOS is, and I think there is an intentional effort on the parts of corporations in general to make it difficult for consumers to compare what different vendors are actually providing.
Why do I care? I just got my latest Verizon FiOS bill. It was $55, which is a lot for Internet service. Clear is $35, which is high for the poor performance they offer. So it was time to look around. Also time to reevaluate whether I really need Internet access at home.
One of the appealing things about Xohm when they came to Baltimore was the promise of $35 per month for Internet access for life. But then Clear came in and reduce the service level. So it goes.
Of course, Judgment Day is today so maybe this is the beginning of my five months of torment.
Clear (http://www.clear.com/) is now marketing their wireless Internet vaguely as 4G. They are also advertising lower speeds than before, which makes it unclear what technology they are using. 4G is a marketing term, and from an engineering or technical perspective, meaningless. Granted, WiMAX is also a marketing term (IEEE originally referred to 802.16 as Wireless MAN), but at least WiMAX actually means something.
Xohm marketed their service as WiMAX, and reading the fine print it was clearly 802.16. Clear has dummied their web site down to the extent that there is nary a clue what technology they are using. Actually, a bit more digging leads to a release at http://corporate.clearwire.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=570046 that mentions legacy and mobile WiMAX, but also mentions partners using other technologies. Perhaps Clear is still predominantly 802.16, but advertised at a lower rate, which is consistent with what I was seeing when I canceled my Clear service. It may be that they are simply provisioning their towers at a lower rate per customer. The dumbing down of their web site is unfortunate.
Of course, Verizon is vague at their web site about what FiOS is, and I think there is an intentional effort on the parts of corporations in general to make it difficult for consumers to compare what different vendors are actually providing.
Why do I care? I just got my latest Verizon FiOS bill. It was $55, which is a lot for Internet service. Clear is $35, which is high for the poor performance they offer. So it was time to look around. Also time to reevaluate whether I really need Internet access at home.
One of the appealing things about Xohm when they came to Baltimore was the promise of $35 per month for Internet access for life. But then Clear came in and reduce the service level. So it goes.
Of course, Judgment Day is today so maybe this is the beginning of my five months of torment.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Epsilon, No Delta
A number of organizations with which I have (or had) financial relations have recently sent e-mails saying they have lost some of my personal information. At first I was unconcerned, because the impression I got was that it was just my e-mail address, and it was just Best Buy, or just Best Buy and Verizon, or just Best Buy, Verizon, and TIAA-CREF, or, well, around the time I got the TIAA-CREF mail I started to get concerned. This is a major financial institution, and, one might hope, one not cavalier about my personal information.
Here is the list of companies that have notified me to date:
So the bad guys have many e-mail addresses, and can connect individuals to accounts. So what? Well apparently some people are getting phishing mails claiming to be from organizations that have lost data through Epsilon. So what? Well, this will make it easier to tailor and target phishing attacks more precisely.
Clearly data leaks all the time. Excerpted from a recent posting by Martin McKeay: I’m no longer surprised when I go into an assessment and somewhere halfway through a conversation a manager says, “Wait a minute, why haven’t I haven’t heard of this data repository/network connection/export to sales before now?” But this is a shallower problem, not an inadvertent leak to marketing or sales, but an intentional transfer of data to an outside organization unable to protect the data.
The situation is exacerbated for Verizon customers since Verizon encourages users to log in to its site without SSL/TLS. So, if users think that a picture of a padlock and the word "secure" next to the login text boxes actually indicates anything they will be more vulnerable to phishing. Surprisingly, Verizon is the only organization from this list training users to ignore TLS. A few years ago this seemed more common, though I have just a very small sample here.
IMHO the Chase leak is the most egregious, since I have had no dealings with them since canceling my card in March 2008. I guess they consider me a potential future customer, but since I do not have a current relationship with them, it would be nice if they would delete my info. I managed to log in to my dormant Chase account, but cannot send them a "secure message" because every attempt results in "Error 500:", which looks like there should be a description after the error number. Yes, I remain unimpressed with the competence of Chase.
Here is the list of companies that have notified me to date:
- Best Buy, 4/4
- Verizon, 4/5
- TIAA-CREF, 4/6
- Chase, 4/6
- M&T Bank, 4/8
So the bad guys have many e-mail addresses, and can connect individuals to accounts. So what? Well apparently some people are getting phishing mails claiming to be from organizations that have lost data through Epsilon. So what? Well, this will make it easier to tailor and target phishing attacks more precisely.
Clearly data leaks all the time. Excerpted from a recent posting by Martin McKeay: I’m no longer surprised when I go into an assessment and somewhere halfway through a conversation a manager says, “Wait a minute, why haven’t I haven’t heard of this data repository/network connection/export to sales before now?” But this is a shallower problem, not an inadvertent leak to marketing or sales, but an intentional transfer of data to an outside organization unable to protect the data.
The situation is exacerbated for Verizon customers since Verizon encourages users to log in to its site without SSL/TLS. So, if users think that a picture of a padlock and the word "secure" next to the login text boxes actually indicates anything they will be more vulnerable to phishing. Surprisingly, Verizon is the only organization from this list training users to ignore TLS. A few years ago this seemed more common, though I have just a very small sample here.
IMHO the Chase leak is the most egregious, since I have had no dealings with them since canceling my card in March 2008. I guess they consider me a potential future customer, but since I do not have a current relationship with them, it would be nice if they would delete my info. I managed to log in to my dormant Chase account, but cannot send them a "secure message" because every attempt results in "Error 500:", which looks like there should be a description after the error number. Yes, I remain unimpressed with the competence of Chase.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Verizon Violates DNS Standards
Verizon is in violation of DNS standards. When I type the address www.foo.bar.baz.no, assuming there is no such server in Norway, I am redirected to http://searchassist.teoma.com/. Interestingly, I see correct behavior if I leave out the www, "Server not found".
Sunday, November 16, 2008
My Last Mile
This fall I've made major changes to the wires running into my house and thought I'd take a minute to discuss Internet provider options in suburban Baltimore.
Right now I'm using XOHM 802.16 (WiMAX) service at home. I get good performance--better than my prior DSL--and the price is good. In a money-saving move, I no longer have a land line, so I had to ask Credo to boost my anytime minutes (now 450/month) and shift the beginning of my off-peak minutes from 9pm weeknights to 7pm.
To quote David Byrne, "well, how did I get here?" I moved to Baltimore County in 2005. At the time, it seemed natural to go with Verizon for phone and DSL. I already had a Verizon cell phone. I chose Working Assets (now Credo) for long distance service. The Verizon DSL was poor from day one. I spent a lot of time on the phone with Verizon technical support that year, including much time on hold, with their IVR, and with actual support personnel. Their IVR said my line checked out fine, so it seemed the obvious thing to do would be to swap out my DSL modem or check theirs at the CO. I couldn't get them to take that simple step or to send a tech out to diagnose the problem. The DSL was so bad that I often dialed in to UMBC's 56kb/s modem bank (which I think is now gone). The land line service was exceptionally poor as well, very noisy.
In the meantime, Verizon was unable to combine my land line and cell bills. They kept touting "one bill," telling me that they'd take care of it, and then a few weeks later I'd get a letter explaining that the bills couldn't be combined, with no explanation. Then I'd talk to customer service, a friendly rep would assure me she'd take care of it, and a few weeks later I'd get the same letter once again. I went through three iterations of this. I suspect the problem was that the cell phone had a Frederick, MD number, and Frederick's a couple counties over.
When my year with Verizon was up, I switched to CavTel for land line and DSL and Credo for cellular. CavTel uses Verizon's network, but charges customers less and has much better customer service. Credo uses Sprint's network, as of 2005 charged customers less, and has very good customer service. The CavTel DSL did not work--they use Verizon's lines, after all. But, after a call to CavTel customer service, a Verizon truck showed up in the alley behind my place, the line was fixed, and DSL worked reliably the rest of the time I was a CavTel customer. When they fixed the DSL, the noise on the land line cleared up as well. I was a happy CavTel customer, but paying $80 monthly for Internet and phone.
Enter Comcast, claiming $62 monthly Internet and phone. I'd heard bad things about Comcast's customer service and network reliability, but I decided to give them a shot. Note: this was about when XOHM started offering service in the area, and I think Comcast's lower prices are the result of competition, something that Comcast and Verizon don't have much of a history of. The Comcast tech came, did the install, and I was happy. The service was fast.
I wasn't happy for long, though. The Comcast Internet service worked for about 4 hours. I talked to technical support and they said it was a database problem that would be fixed in 24-72 hours. 72 hours later, still no Internet service. In the meantime, I noticed that the Comcast phone was noisy (not as bad as Verizon had been) and every time I picked the handset up, I got the staccato dial tone, indicating voice mail present. But there usually wasn't voice mail. So if they don't know how to install service and they can't fix what they claimed was a simple database problem, I don't want anything to do with them.
So I decided to disconnect Comcast service. A funny thing about disconnecting: when I went through their IVR and selected reduce or disconnect service, it put me on hold. I had stuff to do, so I hung up and dialed back in, but this time I selected add features. They picked up right away, and the woman I got was able to schedule the disconnect. But she said it would take about a week and a half. The next day I called back for a clarification of where I had to drop off their cable modem, and was told the billing would stop as soon as I returned the modem. It didn't but their customer service says they've taken care of it. Hope so.
So everything about Comcast, and everything about Verizon in Baltimore County, was negative. I'd been okay with Verizon in the past, but hadn't really needed their technical support before, so maybe I'd just been lucky.
So, no land line and no Internet service. What's a guy to do? The most economical approach appeared to be upgrading my cell plan with Credo and going with XOHM, $25/month now, going up to $35/month later. I decided to give this a try.
I'm happy with XOHM. I'm at the edge of their service area, which concerned me a bit, but I am getting around 2-4Mb/s consistently. My first XOHM modem/router stopped connecting to the network several days after starting the service, but the second tech support guy I talked to said "Your modem's acting weird. Take it back to where you got it and exchange it." This was NTI Wireless, a friendly little shop pretty close to my house. I exchanged the modem, and everything's been fine since. About XOHM customer service: this is Sprint, and one of the reasons I like Credo is that they isolate me from Sprint customer service. CavTel and Credo have the tremendous advantage of being larger customers than I am, and so have some voice with the actual network provider. So, XOHM is Sprint. Sprint has a very large investment in XOHM, and they're not making money off it yet. But they're rolling it out to other cities now, apparently DC and Annapolis recently. They need to make it work, and this isn't a great time to hunt down new customers. Anyhow, their tech support people seem inexperienced--XOHM is a new service, after all--but the wait times are short and they sound like they might really be in the Kansas City area as opposed to overseas.
As a loose end, part of why I was willing to go without a land line is that my current cell phone gets pretty good reception at my house. It's a Samsung m300, and really not a good phone (I've reviewed it at Amazon). But it's an upgrade over an Audiovox phone I had, much better than an LG piece-of-junk that I shipped back to Credo, and not really as good as the old Samsung phone I used with Verizon from '02-'06.
To quote David Byrne, "well, how did I get here?" I moved to Baltimore County in 2005. At the time, it seemed natural to go with Verizon for phone and DSL. I already had a Verizon cell phone. I chose Working Assets (now Credo) for long distance service. The Verizon DSL was poor from day one. I spent a lot of time on the phone with Verizon technical support that year, including much time on hold, with their IVR, and with actual support personnel. Their IVR said my line checked out fine, so it seemed the obvious thing to do would be to swap out my DSL modem or check theirs at the CO. I couldn't get them to take that simple step or to send a tech out to diagnose the problem. The DSL was so bad that I often dialed in to UMBC's 56kb/s modem bank (which I think is now gone). The land line service was exceptionally poor as well, very noisy.
In the meantime, Verizon was unable to combine my land line and cell bills. They kept touting "one bill," telling me that they'd take care of it, and then a few weeks later I'd get a letter explaining that the bills couldn't be combined, with no explanation. Then I'd talk to customer service, a friendly rep would assure me she'd take care of it, and a few weeks later I'd get the same letter once again. I went through three iterations of this. I suspect the problem was that the cell phone had a Frederick, MD number, and Frederick's a couple counties over.
When my year with Verizon was up, I switched to CavTel for land line and DSL and Credo for cellular. CavTel uses Verizon's network, but charges customers less and has much better customer service. Credo uses Sprint's network, as of 2005 charged customers less, and has very good customer service. The CavTel DSL did not work--they use Verizon's lines, after all. But, after a call to CavTel customer service, a Verizon truck showed up in the alley behind my place, the line was fixed, and DSL worked reliably the rest of the time I was a CavTel customer. When they fixed the DSL, the noise on the land line cleared up as well. I was a happy CavTel customer, but paying $80 monthly for Internet and phone.
Enter Comcast, claiming $62 monthly Internet and phone. I'd heard bad things about Comcast's customer service and network reliability, but I decided to give them a shot. Note: this was about when XOHM started offering service in the area, and I think Comcast's lower prices are the result of competition, something that Comcast and Verizon don't have much of a history of. The Comcast tech came, did the install, and I was happy. The service was fast.
I wasn't happy for long, though. The Comcast Internet service worked for about 4 hours. I talked to technical support and they said it was a database problem that would be fixed in 24-72 hours. 72 hours later, still no Internet service. In the meantime, I noticed that the Comcast phone was noisy (not as bad as Verizon had been) and every time I picked the handset up, I got the staccato dial tone, indicating voice mail present. But there usually wasn't voice mail. So if they don't know how to install service and they can't fix what they claimed was a simple database problem, I don't want anything to do with them.
So I decided to disconnect Comcast service. A funny thing about disconnecting: when I went through their IVR and selected reduce or disconnect service, it put me on hold. I had stuff to do, so I hung up and dialed back in, but this time I selected add features. They picked up right away, and the woman I got was able to schedule the disconnect. But she said it would take about a week and a half. The next day I called back for a clarification of where I had to drop off their cable modem, and was told the billing would stop as soon as I returned the modem. It didn't but their customer service says they've taken care of it. Hope so.
So everything about Comcast, and everything about Verizon in Baltimore County, was negative. I'd been okay with Verizon in the past, but hadn't really needed their technical support before, so maybe I'd just been lucky.
So, no land line and no Internet service. What's a guy to do? The most economical approach appeared to be upgrading my cell plan with Credo and going with XOHM, $25/month now, going up to $35/month later. I decided to give this a try.I'm happy with XOHM. I'm at the edge of their service area, which concerned me a bit, but I am getting around 2-4Mb/s consistently. My first XOHM modem/router stopped connecting to the network several days after starting the service, but the second tech support guy I talked to said "Your modem's acting weird. Take it back to where you got it and exchange it." This was NTI Wireless, a friendly little shop pretty close to my house. I exchanged the modem, and everything's been fine since. About XOHM customer service: this is Sprint, and one of the reasons I like Credo is that they isolate me from Sprint customer service. CavTel and Credo have the tremendous advantage of being larger customers than I am, and so have some voice with the actual network provider. So, XOHM is Sprint. Sprint has a very large investment in XOHM, and they're not making money off it yet. But they're rolling it out to other cities now, apparently DC and Annapolis recently. They need to make it work, and this isn't a great time to hunt down new customers. Anyhow, their tech support people seem inexperienced--XOHM is a new service, after all--but the wait times are short and they sound like they might really be in the Kansas City area as opposed to overseas.
As a loose end, part of why I was willing to go without a land line is that my current cell phone gets pretty good reception at my house. It's a Samsung m300, and really not a good phone (I've reviewed it at Amazon). But it's an upgrade over an Audiovox phone I had, much better than an LG piece-of-junk that I shipped back to Credo, and not really as good as the old Samsung phone I used with Verizon from '02-'06.
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