[Vision2020] V2020 Problems

Art Deco aka W. Fox deco at moscow.com
Fri Dec 10 15:50:18 PST 2004


All,

Plain speaking:

Bill Moore is not telling the truth in his posting below.

The only time I caused him to chase a windmill was during the time a few months 
back when various persons' V 2020 postings were not being posted although others 
were.  I called several times.  The only time I caused a windmill to be chased 
is when I accidentally sent a posting to the V 2020 Administrator instead of the 
V 2020 list.  I found that mistake while talking to Moore and apologized.  He 
then angrily berated me for wasting his time.  The other times I called about 
this problem were legitimate beefs as witnessed by the fact that after several 
hours or days most of the missing V 2020 posts were then posted (This has been 
happening lately again).  [During this time there was a lot of angry, off-list 
chat going on about this problem including chat from some of those who now 
object to my criticizing FSR out loud.]  Although Bill Moore is a very 
proficient technician, his customer service interface skills need some work.

Further, unless FSR's customer service logs are incorrect, Moore is not telling 
the truth about the delay in returning service calls.  One came at least a week 
after I had called.  I had by then found an alternate solution to the problem 
and forgotten that I had even made a call.

I am not saying the FSR is not without great virtue.  Several customer calls 
(but not all) handled by others than Moore were answered politely, efficiently, 
and helpfully.  Since I am paying for this service, I appreciated but expected 
such treatment.  But the longer I have been an FSR customer, the harder it has 
been to get a telephone response for technical support without leaving an 
automated message for a promise of a return call.  Many times I just hang up. 
Sometimes network performance problems go away on their own without further 
interaction on my part.

I watch the time of posting and the time of delivery on most of my email posts. 
Though most are delivered in a timely fashion, there is sometimes hours or days 
of lag for some, including some emails originating right on the FSR network.

I know some local emails are not all being delivered at all.  I use email to 
communicate with a local merchant.  At least two of these did not get delivered: 
one about a month ago and one last Sunday.

A FSR representative called me, contrary to Moore's assertion, yesterday.  We 
discussed various problems including the fact that my wireless connection slows 
to a crawl at times and that the FSR mailserver sometimes refuses to accept a 
transmission.  Since I have several anti-spyware and anti-virus programs and a 
firewall, I do not think it is my machine causing the problem.  The slowdowns 
occur at certain times during the day when traffic is most likely very heavy --  
a symptom of inadequate bandwidth and other inadequate hardware, as is the delay 
and/or loss of email.

I am grateful that FSR provides V 2020 resources as well as other community 
resources.  I use them because they are local.  I pay a large premium for this 
decision despite the availability of less expensive, comparable services.  I 
expect a fine product and good service in return.  V 2020 is part of the service 
I pay for.

Vision 2020 is an alleged community forum.  FSR co-owner Moore and other users 
objecting to my use of the V 2020 forum to comment on FSR is like saying the 
U.S. constitution grants free speech -- just don't criticize the government.

Moore's objecting to my bitching on V 2020 about FSR is not only hypocritical 
but counter-productive and poor customer relations.  V 2020 is part of the 
product they offer for sale and we pay for!  The careful reader would have 
noticed in my comments that the points I made were not just about V 2020 but 
about the delay and loss of email, the slowdown in response time, and other 
problems.

[Dan:  Using V 2020 to criticize FSR is not quite like criticizing the brand of 
a free beer.  FSR is not giving the community anything.  All FSR customers pay 
for it.  It is part of the product they are advertising and selling. I am paying 
over $400.00/year for FSR services.  V 2020 is part of what I am paying for.  I 
will use V 2020 to raise issues regardless of parties involved -- this is called 
free speech.  Further, what do think would happen at this point to FSR's revenue 
and profitability if they discontinued V 2020 becaused someone used it to 
criticize them?]

In my younger years I was a systems engineer for two computer companies.  The 
job included much customer interface.  Although some customers complaints were 
very trying, we learned from all of them and tried to use them to constantly 
improve our products, service, and communication.  If we did not do that, our 
competitors would gain from our arrogance and lack of attention.  In fact, today 
most successful companies operate in this way.  When a company has problems, the 
most successful strategy is to admit them without blaming the customer, ask for 
forbearance, and then fix them in a reasonable way in a reasonable time frame. 
No one expects any company to be perfect -- but we expect things to work, more 
or less, as promised.

As co-owner of FSR, perhaps Moore may want to re-evaluate his attitude towards 
mine and other complaints so his company continues to generate good-will and 
increases its chances of growth and profitability.  I urge you, as paying 
customers, to carefully read Moore's response below.  Even if he were being 
honest, is it one you would expect from a customer oriented company or one which 
you would use Moore's own words "Our commitment to excellent customer service 
should never be doubted." to describe?

All companies have problems.  Some companies have greater problems then others. 
Some companies fail because they don't address their problems.  I would like to 
continue to support FSR as a local company.  We all benefit when a local, 
secular company with a useful product which generates money from outside the 
community, as FSR does, prospers.  I will continue to use FSR unless they do not 
reasonably address the email, response time, and other problems I have spoken 
of, but I will not be shy about expressing my opinion.

Wayne

Wayne A. Fox
waf at moscow.com
PO Box 9421
Moscow, ID 83843
208 882-7975


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Bill Moore
  To: 'Art Deco aka W. Fox' ; 'Vision 2020'
  Cc: 'First Step Internet'
  Sent: Friday, December 10, 2004 9:51 AM
  Subject: RE: [Vision2020] V2020 Problems


  Mr. Fox and Vision2020 subscribers,

  I feel that I must respond to your charges of poor customer service and 
inadequate network
  resources. Vision 2020 is a forum made available to the community through the 
donation
  of considerable resources and expense by First Step Internet. I feel it is in 
very poor
  taste to use this venue to spread unsubstantiated rumor and innuendo about 
First Step.
  We as a company have spent time enough chasing windmills for Mr. Fox that we 
have
  come to more or less expect this sort of attack. I'd really rather not get 
into technical
  issues of mail-server horse-power and bandwidth.  Our bandwidth is more than 
sufficient
  to handle our customers' requirements. That is why when the University of 
Idaho went looking for a
  redundant carrier to handle their network load when their network fails, they 
chose First Step.

  If Mr. Fox were willing to schedule a time to speak with our technical support 
team (he's not),
  I'm confident that we could diagnose whatever perceived problem he is 
experiencing. I see
  from our customer support records that we have never failed to respond to Mr 
Fox's calls;
  the longest he's had to wait is 2 hours. We have two levels of technical 
support, and in the
  event that a problem remains unresolved at level 2, know that my partner Kevin 
Owen and I
  are always available to respond. Despite Mr. Fox's assertion that his 
"problems" are "widely
  talked with some degree of anger and impatience about among wireless FSR 
customers," I
  can promise him that the vast majority of our clientele are very happy with 
their service.

  Please don't ever doubt our commitment to the community and region. First Step 
is now nearing
  completion of a redundant ring of wireless access points that will finally 
bring high-speed internet
  access to the digitally disadvantaged of rural Latah, Whitman, Nez Perce and 
Asotin counties at
  a cost to First Step in excess of $500,000.00. We believe in our region and we 
will continue to
  support our region by donation of service, hardware and support.  Our 
commitment to excellent
  customer service should never be doubted.

  Sincerely,

  Bill Moore
  Co-Owner, First Step Internet









----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com] 
On Behalf Of Art Deco aka W. Fox
    Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2004 8:51 AM
    To: Vision 2020
    Cc: First Step Internet
    Subject: Re: [Vision2020] V2020 Problems


    Ted, et al,

    I may be wrong, but below is a possible explanation of the FSR email, V 2020 
problems.

    First, it is not just V 2020 but emails from various sources and 
geographical locations that are sometimes delayed up to six days.  Some emails 
have been forever lost.

    The servers at FSR have a maximum capacity to handle email.  When that 
capacity is exceeded, the emails are cached somewhere else and retrieved, if 
possible, when the system has enough unused capacity to handle them.  Sometimes 
it is not possible to retrieve the cached emails on a timely basis or to 
retrieve them at all.

    Another problem concerns the allegations that certain users emails are being 
read by certain FSR staff.

    When I first signed up with FSR, the technical support was very good and one 
seldom had to wait.  Now, it is hard to get connected on call to them; leaving a 
message sometimes leads to a long (more than a day) wait.  The last experience I 
had was with someone who could not find the problem of why I could not connect 
to the mail server and seemed to have no idea of how to investigate the problem. 
(I always do the obvious before calling, including a cold boot just in case of 
an OS foul-up).  He then said it was a problem with my machine.  A few hours 
later without any more action on my part, the mail connection started working 
again.

    I am on a wireless connection.  Sometimes it works very well.  Sometimes it 
is pathetically slow, due probably due to FSR's insufficient bandwidth.

    Further, FSR is on a number of span-block lists.  This means that certain 
ISPs will not accept any emails from anyone using FSR.  I reported the problem 
yesterday after receiving another message saying my email was blocked because 
FSR was considered a spammer.  The problem was acknowledged by FSR with a very 
short note saying that they are working on it.  It may be a problem with virus 
infected machines of FSR users who are spam robots and/or real spammers.  This 
explanation would also explain the sluggish response at times.  It is alleged 
that FSR does not have the adequate hardware, software, or technical expertise 
to find the spammers.

    I like to support local businesses.  However, the problems above are 
beginning to lead me to consider finding a more reliable, more secure, and more 
responsive ISP connection.

    Has anyone else had these problems?  Or different explanations/solutions?

    Wayne

    Wayne A. Fox
    waf at moscow.com
    PO Box 9421
    Moscow, ID 83843
    208 882-7975


      ----- Original Message ----- 
      From: Tbertruss at aol.com
      To: vision2020 at moscow.com
      Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2004 9:50 PM
      Subject: [Vision2020] V2020 Problems



      All:

      It took about one minute for my last post to post to the list.  So why 
after six hours has my previous post from earlier today not posted yet?  Some 
computer God must know.

      Ted Moffett


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                 http://www.fsr.net
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