My husband and I recently came to the conclusion that we were crazy to be paying $40 a month for regular (landline) telephone service when we hardly ever use it because we have come to rely so heavily on our cell phones. To the twenty-somethings, this is no big deal. But to those of us in the older generation, getting rid of the telephone service that we have had all our lives is a major move.

Also, we have had the same landline telephone number for more than 15 years. What if some old friend wants to reach us? We didn’t want to give up our number.

Luckily we didn’t have to. You can now keep your landline number and move it to a cell phone — it’s called “porting” the number over. Unfortunately, the process was not as smooth as it should be.

First we made the arrangements with AT&T, our cell phone carrier. According to the AT&T agent, she would handle everything and within a few hours, the number would be moved to our cell phone. Ah! If only it were so. Several days later when it became apparent that the move was not made, I called AT&T again and I was told that the request had not been entered or at least had not been entered properly. I went through the entire scenario again. This time I was told that the move would take “a few” days.

Wanting to be sure that everything was handled properly the second time, I went over to the AT&T store. At the store they said everything had been done correctly and the number would be working properly within a few hours. No such luck!!

We went away for the weekend assuming that the number would be ported over while we were gone. We came back to a message from AT&T saying the the completion of the porting would not happen until July 10th — a full two weeks after we made the initial request. I hope that it will happen then, but there is certainly no guarantee.

AT&T says that Embarq (our local carrier) is sitting on the number for as long as they can… of course, the longer they keep the number the longer they can charge us for it! Embarq says this is not true, that AT&T is at fault. I think they are both at fault. Embarq certainly could have released the number sooner. Why should it take so long? It is also apparent that no one at AT&T knows how this works or knows how long it should take. I got contradictory information from each of the 4 agents I talked to at AT&T.

The idea of being able to keep my old telephone number is a good one. Now if only the landline folks were forced to perform more quickly and the cellular folks would train their employees properly, it could be a good experience.

It’s not over yet. Oh, Oh! Maybe I shouldn’t have written this so soon. If someone from Embarq reads this, they may sit on my number even longer! I’ll let you know.

FOR AN INTERESTING UPDATE ON HOW THIS TURNED OUT, BE SURE TO READ CLICK ON THE COMMENTS BELOW.

When Time Warner Cable sent me a letter to let me know that they were offering an increase in speed for my Internet service, I rejoiced. You see, I had spent the last several months suffering with extremely slow download speeds, In fact, at the 2Mbps that I was getting, I couldn’t even watch a video on the Internet. I had called Time Warner several times to complain, but each time they had me go through trouble-shooting steps that took a ridiculous amount of time, and nothing was ever resolved. I suspected that my modem had gone bad, but Time Warner was not willing to concede that fact.

Just as I was considering another service, I received the letter that offered me an increase in download speed from 5 Mbps to 7 Mbps as a free upgrade. All I had to do was trade my modem in for a new one. Since I was not getting anywhere near the 5 Mbps and had tried to get them to replace my modem previously, I was thrilled. One of the TW reps told me that the rollout of new modems was routine. So my complaining didn’t get me the new modem offer, but I was happy anyway.

I went online and arranged for the new modem. It was delivered yesterday, so I decided to install it today. The installation was simple. It amounted to unplugging the old modem, plugging in the new one, and moving the cable from the old to the new. I was done in 5 minutes. All that was left to do was to call Time Warner to activate the new modem.

It should have been easy, but it turned into a two-hour nightmare. First I called the 800 number on the installation instructions that came with the modem. After a 25-minute wait I was informed that I needed to be transferred to my local TW representative….I could have saved 25 minutes of my time if they had listed that number on the form I received, but Time Warner obviously doesn’t think that my time is valuable. So I was transfered to a local representative. The 20-minute wait time was really aggravating. The girl who took my call was abrupt, but not rude. After about 15 minutes, she told me that everything was activated and working. I told the lady that the modem was not working. She had me eliminate the possibility that there was something wrong with my router by plugging the modem directly into my computer. Still no luck.

She told me that she could help no further and would transfer me to the Road Runner national tech support. After another 20 minutes on hold, I was told that she had connected me to the wrong department, so I was transferred again and was again in for a 20 minute wait. If I heard “You call is important to us” one more time, I was ready to scream!!

Fortunately, the tech support person was who finally took my call was sympathetic and knowledgeable. I was put on hold for about 5 minutes while he investigated the situation.Unfortunately, the modem had not been activated and was not properly attached to my account. In order to do that the tech support person needed to contact the local TW representative. I guess he had a hard time getting through because I was on hold for another 20 minutes. Then the local representative came on. Fortunately she was more knowledgeable than the first local representative and was able to straighten everything out.

Finally, I was able to get back on the Internet. The speed was at the 7 Mbps that was promised and I was able to successfully watch a streaming video on the Web.

Of course I was happy to receive the new modem, but the stress and aggravation of dealing with Time Warner’s bureaucracy was totally exhausting.

In the mail today I received a letter from Time Warner asking me if I wanted to add their digital telephone service to my account. Fat chance!!!

I have been happily using Microsoft FolderShare for the last 6 months. It is a wonderful program that keeps my working files synchronized between my home, office, and laptop computers. A recent update and move to Microsoft Live, made it imperative to update to the new version of FolderShare. The old version stopped working, so there was no choice about whether to upgrade or not. I upgraded my laptop and home computer without a glitch, but the office computer was another story.

We run a file server with Windows Server 2003. According to all the Microsoft documentation, the new version of FolderShare should work on Server 2003. However, it would not install. The error was “FolderShare does not support this version of Windows.” So I checked again. Microsoft said it was supported. So I put in a support ticket to Microsoft.

I was pleasantly surprised to get a response within a few hours. I was, however, shocked at the stupidity of the reply. Here it is:
“Hello Sandy,
Thank you for writing to Windows Live FolderShare beta. My name is Sheila and I understand that you are unable to install the new version of Windows Live FolderShare in your Windows 2003 Small Business Server. I know how inconvenient this issue can be. I am here to provide you assistance today.

Sandy, our product team has confirmed that FolderShare no longer supports earlier versions of Windows due to product instability. We recommend that you upgrade to either Windows XP or Windows Vista to continue using the free service. Our FAQ page will soon be modified to reflect the current operating system requirements for FolderShare.

We apologize for the inconvenience this software upgrade may have caused you. For your comments and suggestions, please go to https://feedback.live.com/default.aspx?mkt=en-us&productkey=wlfoldershare

We appreciate your continued support as we strive to provide you with the highest quality service available. Thank you for using Windows Live FolderShare beta.
Sincerely
Sheila
Windows Live FolderShare beta Support”

As you can see the email was nicely personalized. Sheila even stated that she knew that I had inquired about Windows Server 2003. However, her ridiculous suggestion that we upgrade to Windows XP was unbelievable. Even the totally uninitiated would know that you cannot upgrade a computer running server software to Windows XP.

We figured out the solution without Microsoft’s help. We needed to install Service Pack 2 on our server. After we did this, FolderShare would install. Then, however, we had the problem that you had to be logged into the server for the FolderShare to work. This means that if the server reboots after an update or because of a power outage, FolderShare would not work until we relogged in. This was not acceptable as I needed FolderShare to be constantly working for it to be of value. The problem was solved by installing FolderShare as a service.

If anyone else has this problem, see the Microsoft instructions for doing that.

Microsoft offers tech support for a program that is free. Kudos for that! Microsoft responded quickly. Kudos for that! Microsoft totally screwed up the response and didn’t provide the answer. Why does Microsoft always seem to screw up a good thing?