Goodbye MediaOne, Hello ATTBI
Oh the joy. Today marks the beginning of AT&T Broadband's mission to move all their internet subscribers over to one consolidated domain.
I'll get used to it, but the new domain is "attbi.com." It's an okay domain name I guess, but the sound it makes when rolled off your tongue is kind of clunky. Actually, the name sounds pretty good, up until that blasted "i."
Imagine speaking your email address to someone on the phone without that clunky vowel. "A-T-T-B-DOT-COM". Sounds good, right? Nice introductory rhythm with the "A," falling into a smooth rhyme of "T" through "B", finishing with the emphatic "dot com." But that blasted "i" just ruins the flow.
The little vowel works as a gentle introductory piece, as in "iMac" or "iXL," but is an unnecessary nuisance in the middle.
Comments
They can call themselves whatever they like. The sad truth is, no matter what they call themselves, the service will still stink on ice, the connectivity will suck wind, and the technical support will be as clueless as ever.
I used to have Mediaone's cable Internet service, and it was OK - it would go about about once a month for several hours. When AT&T bought Mediaone, trumpeting their much-improved services and support, I thought "great!" Then I sat and watched as connectivity problems occurred several times a WEEK, technical support went from OK to clueless, and customer service became nonexistent. Several months of weekly calls and complaints to AT&T (when I could get through or had time to burn sitting on hold for 45 minutes at a time) culminated in a three-page letter to Steve White outlining my complaints along with several pages documenting each outtage (date, length, degree (partial to total), etc.).
And what did it get me? Zilch. Bupkis. No response from AT&T, no response from Steve White, nothing. Not even a coupon for free fries for my trouble.
Good luck with ATTBI ... I hope your service and experience with them is a good one. I finally came to my senses and got Bellsouth DSL. Not once have I gone down for more than five minutes, and have only had to call their tech support ONCE - the day after I had it installed, and it was a problem on my end.
Posted by: Bob at February 12, 2002 1:11 PM
