We have not been able to get online with our webtv for aprox. 4 days;the default message said that our phone lines are to noisey, etc. After testing and retesting all connections we called the folks at webtv and they told us our line was full of static and echo's and to call our phone company. Well, the local phone service guy came out and everything in the lines and house were o.k. and he didn't know what was wrong. Next, I tried Sprint, our long distance provider and they said they would try and trouble shoot on their end. Well, 4 days and 5 hours later I am finally on line again... Anyone else having other problems with their modem and long distance and/or Sprint? By the way- I can never remember having a problem with long distance provider. -Jeff

-- Jeff T. (JTsmia@hotmail.com), February 07, 2000

Answers

A few months ago I met a person working on y2k with Sprint. I asked how things were going, he smiled nervously and said they were working hard. I asked if they would be ready by the end of 1999. He said, "Oh, yea, sure. We'll be ready." I asked how he would define "ready." He replied, "Ready is what we'll be on December 31."

-- Just asking (party-goer@cocktails.com), February 07, 2000.

I have tried to call Sprint PCS over and over. Nothing but tape recorded runaround. It says going to connect with a rep...then hangs up on me. I gave up. I ain't paying the bill though. Screw 'em.

-- Kyle (fordtbonly@aol.com), February 08, 2000.

Sprint PCS Cellular gave me a migraine last year that lasted a week. Even their corporate people in Kansas City were soules automatons. They're triangulating my position right now.

-- INever (inevercheckmy@onebox.com), February 08, 2000.

Sprint is having a LOT of problems. Where I am, Sprint provides local calls thanks to having bought out the area's baby-Bell called Centel about ten years ago. They have -not- updated the then outdated, not nearly useless, switching systems and the entire coverage area (Navarre to Panama City, FL) is out of available connections at the switching centers. So, in that area you're doing good if you even get a dialtone. (I get collisions between switches, crossed-up outgoing calls, crosstalk from other phone conversations, just plain no dialtone, you name it. Pretty much every phone-co.-end problem you can think of. Funny, they sure BILL me correctly!)

Dialup Internet access of all kinds is becoming unusable at an insanely fast pace, the ISPs are having troubles with the area high- bandwidth pipes (also supplied by Sprint) since they're routing through the same POP as the voice traffic. (The whole local area has a ring of interconnected T1s serving as the local bandwidth loop. This connects to outside network backbones through several tiein points in FL, GA, and AL. According to a Sprint rep I talked to off- the-record, they're 3x, not a little but three TIMES, over capacity now and getting beat on about the bottlenecks. The rep wasn't told if/when there was so much as plans for expansion, which bodes well...)

Sprint is positioning itself as a major network backbone but in the process they appear to be badly overextending themselves. If you have Sprint as a voice carrier, beware!

I'm having cablemodem installed tomorrow and it routes from me to a fiberoptic multiplexer outside to a POP in a nearby town via fiber (this whole are has a fiberoptic cable TV system) to Cox headquarters in Atlanta via an OC192, and according to the Cox people I'll be the only one on my node. Screw this dialup nonsense!

O d d O n e, who soon will be able to hit TB2K MUCH faster...

-- OddOne (mocklamer_1999@yahoo.com), February 08, 2000.

Sprint was apparently woefully unprepared for Y2K. They might last a few more months at best.

-- (marcos@trethtic.net), February 08, 2000.

Our service is provided by Sprint for both local and long-distance.

This thread is amazing to me because in the past week we have developed new and severe cross-talk problems on ONE of our two phone lines, and lots of static on that same line. This past week whenever our phone rings I hear one of the neighbors answering the caller. An old-fashined party line! I use the involved phone number for internet access from home, and have been increasingly unable to reach the 'net using that phone number/line, due to the static.

What's odd is that the other of our home phone numbers does not seem to be having any problems.

The physical wire to our "neck of the woods" is shared by only two other houses on the last mile and a quarter of its run. Literally we are at the "end of the line."

So, since we live out in the middle of "nowhere," I assumed the problems were somehow due to a tree branch on the lines somewhere down the mountain, but now I wonder... We have occasional problems with utilities up here due to physical interference with the wires, it's expected, but never like this in 4 years we've been here.

Wife is calling the phone company today to complain. Wonder what they'll say.

--Andre in southcentral Pennsylvania

-- Andre Weltman (72320.1066@compuserve.com), February 08, 2000.

I've got a problem sprinting even a couple hundred yards, much less long distance.

-- A (A@AisA.com), February 08, 2000.

To all, Tell them to stop using barb wire fences for telephone lines. Its not a suitable patch. Of course, I'm kidding, but sometimes I think that GTE does it.

-- Bill (sticky@2sides.tape), February 08, 2000.

Quick follow-up to my post (a couple posts above):

Local Sprint claims our cross-talk problem was a mouse nest in a switch box. This is credible, I guess. They say it has been fixed; we'll see. Haven't been home enough to know if the problem continues.

--Andre in southcentral Pennsylvania

-- Andre Weltman (72320.1066@compuserve.com), February 09, 2000.