I got another call from that super guy at Suddenlink with all of the useful information. He enlightened me on some of the finer points of what’s going on. As far as the CMTS (Cable Modem Termination Service) they have it, it just isn’t installed yet. They’re still waiting on some of the pieces of that puzzle to come together. On the flip-side of that, they did a little restructuring of their current facilities, and managed to provide some of us with a much more stable connection. Thanks Suddenlink!

Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as it should be to get noticed by some of the “higher-ups” that make things like this happen. Fortunately there are people who care about their customers. However, it is ultimately up to customers to take their stand on quality deficiencies regarding services they’re paying for. If you pay for it, you should get it. Sometimes, you’ve got to fight for it though.

In a perfect world, this wouldn’t be necessary. This isn’t that world, yet.

According to a correspondent from Suddenlink, they’ve been reading my blog, and what I have to say about the whole mess. Honestly, I was flattered to know that they actually took the time to do that.

There are some things Suddenlink is doing right, and saving its customers tons of money by doing:

I can’t speak for everyone, but I know that my Internet and Cable combined only costs around $100.00 / month. I could probably scale it down to $80.00 /month if I wanted, but I like my current plan. Phone service (landline) in my area runs about $60.00 / month (long distance not included).

Combining these services? Golden. That’s another 30 bucks, plus “TV Caller-ID?” Wow.

There’s still a few thing’s that are sort-of vague when it comes to the Suddenlink website though. For one, it’s fairly easy to configure a javascript to display “Open” or “Closed” text or image according to the local time (Taking for-granted you specify the intended time-zone) in-reference to the sales/billing department. When you call the 877 number for service questions, the only thing available after business hours is Tech Support. Save us the frustration, let us know you’re closed!

There’s a few things about the Suddenlink website itself that I hate. One is this My Suddenlink setup. This looks like Excite.com’s attempt that harshly failed. This isn’t what we want! We can get that type of thing from at least a dozen other very popular websites. Scrap that project Suddenlink! Instead, open a Social Media center. Allow the Suddenlink users to build the community on their own. Why? Let’s consider:

• Facebook < User driven

• Twitter < User driven

• Myspace < User Driven

• Linked In < User/ Business Driven

• DevianArt < User Driven.

Simple version? You can’t give us something we can already get from a zillion other sites. We want open-book, easy-to-use user-driven communities where OUR voice is the one that counts. If you REALLY want to provide a personal portal for Suddenlink users, then that’s what you should do, from a customer’s point of view.

Now, I won’t shoot you down for having the online billing account setup… that’s priceless. But, it’s lacking some relevant information that tech support personnel and customers both need when fixing issues. As mentioned in earlier posts on this blog:

1. List of modems + modem related issues
2. Age of current modem
3. Uptime statistics
4. AVG Down/Up bandwidth (Sort by 9am-5pm)x(5pm-9am)x(weekends)
5. Running count of support calls+ recurring issues
6. List of support calls+notes+ticket# (Ticket numbers allow tech support and customers to easily return to the issue to review steps that fixed it before, or ensure those steps were already applied so other steps can be taken to restore the connection.

I’m going to talk about that for a second. Does it seem silly to have an online list of connection-related issues? Yes! The customer can go to a friend’s home, internet cafe, or library, print out the steps that fixed the the problem before, and fix it themselves, and save (potentially) hours of frustration waiting in line for tech support via phone, and troubleshooting (without guidance) their modem and/or router.

Also, since many (MANY) of us have the high-speed internet + cable TV bundle, wouldn’t it be really easy to drop a box in the Channel Guide for Internet Status? For Instance:

If you look at your own channel guide, it becomes pretty obvious what I’m talking about. This would save people minutes, potentially, hours of frustration, tech support calls, and maybe even a few bucks for Suddenlink.

Clear as day, Internet down for (insert zip code) and for brevity put “in some areas” so people know that it’s not just them, and that they should wait till the “light” turns green before trying other solutions. Honestly, I can’t believe that it’s not being done already!

A green/red/yellow LED image would suffice for “internet status” with a short explanation following.

Easy to do? No? Well we’ll settle for something close!

There’s much more that Suddenlink, like every other company, can improve on. I’m sure that Suddenlink’s power-wielding members will do everything they can to continue improving their service, like they have been doing constantly, since they took over Cebridge’s old network.

I will be moving to Fort Campbell soon, but I intend on writing a final review of my experiences with Suddenlink staff. If you have any questions about Suddenlink you can ask http://twitter.com/suddenlinkhelp

-David

Aside from a slightly buggy client, the WeGame community looks promising. The community isn’t exclusive to wegame generated media, so users can post whatever they like.

Fortunately, the client is still in beta, so we expect to see great improvement at the imminent full version.

The site itself is pretty well-built, so it’s feature-packed, and proving to be pretty fun to navigate.

Looks good eh?

I have a few other things going on too, as you may or may not notice. I’m on the “Air testers list” for Peoplebrowsr.com‘s up-and-coming AIR app. So, hopefully, that’s another tasty review coming up.

Most of the software and applications I’ve found were discovered when power searching on Google. Try searching AIR and Web Apps. There’s a ton out there. Some are useful, some are not. Some are strictly for social interaction and social networking.
Once I have the time, I’ll complete a review for each application and include a few small video clips for illustration.