[oclug] Linux slows down e-mail (sic)

[Jacques B.]

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 2:11 PM, Croombe F. Pensom
<croombefp at sympatico.ca> wrote:
> How's this for idiocy?
> I called Bell this morning to complain that it was taking upwards of TWO
> minutes to get e-mail from them. I was ASSURED that it was because I was
> using Linux. Twit. I told the so-called technician he was talking
> through his lower aperture rather than his upper and insisted that it
> didn't matter WHAT OS I was using : I could even have a whole pile of
> gnomes inside a black box flipping switches and Bell wouldn't know the
> difference. I was denied this and told that the problem was definitely
> Linux. I then used some bad language and hung up on this twit of a
> technician.
> When WILL Bell get some INTELLIGENT people on their technical assistance
> line?
> CroombeFP
> --
> This e-mail produced entirely under Linux. Absolutely NO M$ products have been used.
>
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Your mistake was letting them know what OS you were using.  I had a
problem with email once.  I use Thunderbird as my email client but
knew that they would blame it as soon as they found out.  Sure enough
they said I'd have to call the "people at Thunderbird" to resolve the
problem.  I stopped him right there and told him I expected that
response so I installed Outlook Express (I was using a Windows system
obviously) so he could go ahead and let me know what he wanted me to
try in OE.  I forget what was the resolution to the problem, but I do
know that it was not Thunderbird and therefore removed that from the
equation so it couldn't be blamed.

So when you call, you don't let them know what OS you are using.
Simply explain the problem.  When they ask you to try something, you
try it (however it needs to be done on Linux and on your email
client).  In fairness to Bell you have to admit that Linux makes up a
very small percentage of the market.  OS X is another small part,
Solaris another, BSD yet another, etc.  It is not feasible for them to
have all their support personal knowledgeable in these other operating
systems or email clients.  But they shouldn't be so quick to blame the
unknown.  If the customer is able to walk through troubleshooting
steps given to them, then it matters not what OS they have.

Bell support staff should be able to have a customer go through steps
that would determine if the problem is with the customer's system or
with their line.  An easy way to do this would be to have a custom
Linux distro (dare I suggest that to them?) on a bootable CD that
would automatically go through a series of diagnostic tests.  If the
tests work properly, then the problem is clearly not with Bell's
equipment but with the customer's PC configuration (whether OS itself
or the email client).  The tests could test connection and bandwidth
as well as probably a few other things.  Then Bell would be able to
provide support to the extent they have stipulated in their terms of
service to help the customer get their PC configured to work properly.
 Anything outside of that would be at their discretion if they provide
application specific support (i.e. other OS, other email client).  It
wouldn't be that difficult in the meantime to have a few of the
support reps knowledgeable of Linux that a customer could choose to
hold for (understanding that the wait time would likely be longer due
to limited demand for such support thus very few would offer it).

But we have to recognize that the demand does not justify the
additional cost that would be required to provide that level of
support on broad scale.  To have that level of support would require
more $ which means we would pay more for their service.  We have to be
realistic about some of our expectations of support for Linux and
non-standard applications.

Jacques B.