Last year I wrote about my difficulties with Cingular and Suncom. In a nutshell, the service was flaky at best and customer service was not sympathetic. Now, I'm starting to see the same kind of thing with BellSouth.

For a couple of years I used Packet 8 VOIP for my residential phone and long-distance service. I couldn't beat the price: less than $21 per month for unlimited long distance. The service wasn't perfect, we were without 911 service for the first year, but I never had any issues with Packet 8. The problem was with my home broadband connection. My wife and I experienced frequent service disruptions with our Internet connection after moving into our home two years ago which would cause problems with our phone service. And since we live in a new neighborhood, we've had periodic power outages due to lines being cut. This would cause my home network to reboot (I don't have a UPS though I probably should) and inevitably the phone adapter wouldn't register correctly and needed to be manually restarted. Of course these issues would happen when I was traveling on business and my wife was home alone.

After a couple of years of this, we decided we weren't using the free long distance enough to really get the benefit out of VOIP. And since the disruptions were occasionally annoying, we decided to switch to iron clad BellSouth residential service. We had used BellSouth at a previous residence and had no problems with them. Unfortunately, that wouldn't be the case this time around.

First, BellSouth had to run a phone line from the road to the back of our house. That meant they had to dig up our yard. After the first week of service, we started experiencing brief disruptions. None would happen longer than a day, but it was long enough to be annoying. In fact, it happened enough to make my wife and I wonder if we made the right decision switching to the "reliable" BellSouth service. Then yesterday, I called home from my work phone and the call kept dropping. I tried it repeatedly and sure enough, after the first ring the line would drop. I eventually spoke to my wife via her cell phone and she said it had been happening all day. I tried it again this morning and same problem. What made it even worse is that since it would drop after the first ring, caller id wouldn't register so we didn't know who was calling. Maybe it was BellSouth telling us that they were experiencing problems ;-) Not likely.

This afternoon I submitted a service form on BellSouth's website regarding my problem. I mentioned that I'm without service and need it fixed ASAP. This was the email I received back (today is Nov 14th).

Dear BellSouth Customer,

Thank you for contacting BellSouth regarding your inside wiring. A repair report has been generated to have a technician dispatched on 11/20/06 between the hours of 2:00 PM and 6:00 PM. If this time is not convenient for you, please e-mail us or call us at (800) 867-5662 to let us know. We are required to advise you that you will be subject to a service charge since you do not subscribe to the wire maintenance plan.

If you wish to cancel this request, please let us know. Please accept our apologies for your inconvenience. We appreciate your business.
Thank you,

The soonest they can send someone out is next Monday?!?! Not only that, but I'm going to have to pay for the visit because I didn't purchase their "wire maintenance plan". This is eerily similar to my Cingular/SunCom fiasco. I have a major problem with paying a company for service and when the service doesn't work, being asked to pay MORE to get it to work. It might not be so bad, but I went from paying $21 per month for unlimited long distance with Packet 8, to over $50 per month for basic residential and pay per minute long distance. Now my wife and I are thinking about getting rid of the home line altogether and just using our cell phones. Ahh!!!