I am far from alone being in individual ramrodded by a company that takes your money for a service it does not provide. But these dinosaurs are in denial of the asteroids raining down on them, as the net empowers us to put their evil deeds into the light. This is my little experiment to see if a single, frustrated, beaten down customer can take on a giant smelly pirate. Help me out my casting foul words and links their way.

Hence, I am here to tell you the tale of the Alltel Pirates and how they have me chained to their brig. Oh how foolish I was to fall for their ship!

In summary:

* The wireless internet service my organization pays monthly fees for has failed to connect, repeatedly disconnected, or has been wrongly turned off over the last 2 months in such places as Houston, Orlando, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego. We pay for a service not delivered.
* Multiple calls to tech support have failed to fix the issue and in the latest round, their advanced technical support claims that the equipment sold to me at an Alltel store, that worked fine for 4 months, is not supported in my Mac OS X computer. This is in conflict with the manufacturers own specs. So they sold me service and equipment they cannot support.
* According to their “retention department” any termination of service will result in my organization being charged a $200 termination fee.

Once more, we have paid for a service not delivered and we must pay to get out of the contract. A contract is an agreement, where I agree to pay (which has been done) for a service to be delivered (which has not been done). I should not have to pay to break a contract that Alltel has not fulfilled.

So instead, I wish to take them down via the power of the internet and social networking. Tell everyone you know NOT to sign up for ANY Alltel service. Spread the word.

With that, a tale of pirates…

In my work for NMC, I travel alot, and so I could have net access from the road, airports, and to save on those nasty hotel internet fees, I signed up for a mobole wireless internet plan from the Alltel store in Scottsdale. I took my MacBookPro laptop with me, and was assured that the Franklin CDU550 was compatible, which it clearly is according to the manufacturer’s own web site. At the store, they provided me printouts of the set up instructions from the EVDOInfo.com web site.

It was rather easy to set up and worked quite well for the first few months. I gave it a ,lot of praise and recommended the service to others:

Now I am Mobile

I used it around Phoenix, up at my home in Strawberry (a remote town 90 miles north of the city) on trips to San Francisco, Austin, San Antonio, even in Vancouver Canada.

In March of 2008, I was in Austin for a meeting, and the wireless signal in our hotel was too weak, so I attempted to use my Alltel card. For more than 10 times in a row, the authentication failed. I spoke to someone in tech support, who saw that my account had been “suspended” and transferred me to someone in the account department. This first person claimed my account was being held for “excessive roaming charges” which made no sense as my plan was a national one. Now at the 35 minute mark into trying to figure this out, this woman claimed I would have to go to an Alltel store to have ti fixed. this was ridiculous, as I was in a different city, had no transportation. I hung up and called back and got a different representative, who did more investigation. Apparently, there was a “miscommuncation” with the Sprint tower (where I was apparently Alltel uses the Sprint network). This woman activated my account, and told me how my office could get credit for the $300 zing coming on my bill.

It worked okay for the rest of the trip.

Later in the month, I was in San Francisco for a short meeting, and in the lobby of my hotel near Union Square, my connection disconnected my right in the middle of a file upload, and lost all of my work. I was unable to reconnect in 8 more attempts. The tech I got at 10pm told me there were “issues” with timing out from using the Spring network, but I would have to call back in daytime to speak to their advanced tech support.

So Alltel provides limited tech support.

On a longer trip in April, I was unable to connect in Orlanda. The tech I spoke there, mentioned for the first time a “PRL” file which contains a list of the towers the card uses. If I was on a PC he could fix it, but as I was on a Mac, he said I’d have to be in my home area. Another city where I had no Alltel access.

On the way from Orlando to LA, I had a plane change in Houston. Here too, my attempts to connect failed. I was watching another guy on a Mac enjoying no problem connectivity on his Verizon connection. that evening in LA, again I could not get a reliable connection. I paid for hotel internet because I had to get work done. it also did not work in San Diego.

For two months that my company has paid for national wireless service that claims:

Alltel Wireless Internet gives you fast wireless access to the Web and your corporate network from the convenience of your laptop or smartphone.

Whether you’re using a smart phone or your laptop with your phone as a modem or a data card, staying connected has never been easier.

On their phone, the hold messages talk about their national network. Hereps the news– Alltel does not have a national network. They have patches and leach off of Sprint’s network (and they do that poorly).

I want out of my plan. I have not gotten the service they have charged for. So I called them today. I got to tech support. The first guy kept telling my to “open the Quick Access app from your Windows toolbar, press control D” and it took 3 times for me to say, “I am on a mac, there is no software”. While explaining the problem, I tried 5 times to connect and each time was disconnected a little over a minute into the connnection. He transferred me to an “advanced” technician. After I explained the situation again, he asked for my account information, and while waiting for him to look it up, I was disconnected on the phone.

Hmmm.

I called back and asked for the department that can end my contract. This is the “rentention” departmentm which is really “detention” because you cannot get out. The first guy said I could end my contract but would have to pay a $200 termination fee. I reiterated that I was not provided the service I paid for and that it seemed grossly unfair that I have to pay to end a contract that Alltel had not provided. He said, “those are the terms.”

Please connect me with someone higher up on the food chain. “They cannot do anything beyond what I described”. Please connect me anyhow. More wait. More happy music on hold. This time I got Omar. I told Omar the whole tale. He asked what it would take to keep my a customer. I said, ‘nothing, I dont want to be one. I want out on my contract.’ He said I’d have to pay, but he tried to convince me the tech department could fix the problem.

How recursive!

I explained I had already been cut off once today, and asked if he would take my number in case it happened again. He said he had it from caller id. I transferred me. I waited, heard some hold music, and… got disconnected again.

I am now at an hour wasted.

I call the main Alltel number and zap the 0 button repeatedly until I get a human. Jennifer. I let her know upfront she is dealing with the most angry Alltel customer. She is the first compassionate voice, I hear her typing notes. She says she cannot promise that I can escape my contract. She says she will stay on the line and connects me… back to tech support. I tell the story for the fifth time. Ronnie is the first person wo says he knows what to do, that he can “push” the PRL data to my connection (which has amazingly stayed on for 20 minutes). He is typing away and tells me it will take 15 minutes.

I am not optimistic.

He asks me if I can standy by, and a few minutes later he returns and says… the device I am using is not compatible with the Mac OS.

This is most interesting, as (a) it was the equipment sold to me by an Alltel store; and (b) for an incomaptible device, it worked great for 4 months, and was working right then. I asked him to put in the notes that the device I was sold was incompatible as justification for escaping my contract. I was then transferred.. to the retention department where again I got the $200 speech.

its now almost 2 hours since I called. I ask for the highest possible person in the department, and again am told that “no one can wave the $200 fee.”

Bullshit.

I hang up, and start over again to the main number. I request Jennifer, but the new person claims she can help me. I tell the story again. I let her know I am livid. She starts saying I need to talk to tech support. I say no. They cannot support me. I demand to speak to a person who can make the decision to terminate my contract w/o a fee. She said that is not possible. I again explain, in halting voice, the definition of a contract– an agreement on both parts to pay a fee for a service provided. No service.. no fee. Now I am yelling loudly. Very loudly.

This does not really work.

I demand to speak to person who has some authority. She says she will…. and transfers me to tech support.

I gave up. I wasted two hours.

So I am done trying to get Alltel’s rubber band network to work or for the inept tech support to provide tech support. The only thing I will accept at this point is a termination of the contract and I am not paying any fees. I want to use a real wireless network like Verizon– hey Verizon, if you can help me escape Alltel, I will become a walking, blogging advertisement for you– get red of the “Can you hear me now geek” and sign up the CogDog spokesman.

It cannot be legal for Alltel to charge to end a contract which they have not fulfilled.

So I want everyone to spread the word about the nasty smelly evil pirates named Alltel. Let ‘em know they cant get away with grinding individuals under their giant wheels. They have played with me and I have had enough. I am going to pull out every stop I have, call in every tech favor, get some publicity, reach out to every social network, to bring Alltel down.

Please help me escape the heavy chains that Alltel has placed upon me. Set me free. And burn their ship down.

Alltel Jail Update Apr 25: What the heck I tried their email customer support:

My wireless internet has not worked in 2 months; with frequent disconnects, lack of ability to connect in Orlando, Houston, San Diego, Los Angeles, and my home in Arizona. Your technical support has been unable to fix te problem as they are telling me that my Franklin USB wireless devices is not compatible with my Mas OSX computer *** DESPITE THE FACT THAT IT WORKED FINE FOR 4 MONTHS and THAT YOUR STORE SOLD IT TO ME ***

I spoke to 9 people today, got disconnected 3 times w/o a call back, and your “Retention” department is claiming that I cannot get out of my contract w/o paying a $200 fee.

Alltel has failed to provide the service in their contract that I have paid for. YOU have failed the terms of your contract. YOU are NOT supporting equiopment YOU sold me when I signed your contract. I REFUSE to pay to pay any fee and ASK that you come to your senses before I begin a media and legal campaign. On the way are letters ot the Better Business Bureau, the Arizona Corporate Commission, and the Attorney General’s office.

So far, I have spent well over 6 hours of my work time trying to get customer service, and I have gotten none. This is your last chance to do the right thing.

And wow, a response today from James C:

Alan,

I apologize for the problems you’re having. If you want to work to resolve the technical issues, you can contact our support line at 800-255-8351. If you wish to cancel your service, you can talk to our retention group at the same number.

Thank you,

Alltel Data Technical Support

So the Alltel Jail is built frfrom the exact same bricks, stacked on top of the prisoners one at a time. “You cannot escape Alltel! There is no escape! We will continue to respond with the same responses over and over and over and over…”

Next up– perhaps time for some Turboing twitterbution to Rubaiyat Shatner

Alltel Jail Update Apr 25 4:00 PM: No food or water in the Alltel Jail. I must be crazy, but I have an idea. If they can only support this wireless card on a PC, I will test it out on my Windows Vista machine. I installed the software, and tried 12 times to connect, each time failing authentication with “PPP Control Link Terminated”.

SO I call Alltel Tech Support. I am at level one, and explain the problem. The first gal is nice, takes my account info, and then says, she cannot help me, so I am sent to another level. Here, I again have to provde my account info, and explain the problem. She walks me through all kinds of things on my network, modem settings. We actually get it to connect but it immediately disconnects me. We spent 35 minutes trying settings, waiting while she checks with other techs, and she apologizes and transfers me to someone in ther network data center.

For the third time, I have to provide my account info, explain the problem. This person says he is checking, then says nothing, but I hear tapping in the background. Five minutes go by in silence… and I realzie I have been disconnected.

This is the 4th time in 2 days that Allrel tech support has disconnected me in the middle of a support call.

So I call back. Like chutes and ladders, I am level one. I explain the problem, and then go to level 2. I explain I have been cut off from the previous technician and ask if they can call back if I get disconnected. He says they are discouraged from making callbacks because of their call volume. Let me get this correct- Alltel Support will not follow up with a customer who has waited an hour for serivice because Alltel’s phones (and they are telecom provider!) fails. He clicks around, looks up some things, asks for my zip code location, and tells me it is an issue of being between Alltel and Sprint towers.

So here is the deal. Alltel advertises their nation-wide network- but they aren’t nationwide. The do handoffs to/from Spring. Tech number 5 today could not help, so I went to number 6. Gave my account again. Explained the situation again. The first thing I had to do was to shut off my Norton. OMG, there are actually no controls to exit that program! None! I had to disable my non Windows services and reboot. We tried connecting again and I got dumped. Now he suggested downgradiing my PRL file which he emailed to me. He talked me through getting that data to my card.

And 90 minutes later, the damn ting actually worked in my PeeCee.

But this is not the issue.

I pay for a nationwide service that is not reliable- if I am in area that relies on Sprint, my connection can bounce and be cut off.

Help! Get me out of Alltel Jail! Please I want Verizon! I will lavish praise on Verizon! They have a network! I have seen it on TV. Please, Verizon, rescue me.

This idea from Chris Moggia of assessing based on “quality” and “timeliness” is interesting but how is that measurable? What rubric system can we use for this? I don’t know many college professors who use rubrics, and most of my high school colleagues use them badly. I find myself using them at the high school to cover my ass, but when I get to the college courses I don’t. I have an idea of how I grade each assignment, but if push comes to shove I feel like an intellectual snob who is the final word on the grade. High school feels a lot more like customer service to me than college, probably because I have to kowtow to parents there.

There’s a line here that says “Responses should we well written (please spell check!) and clearly address the issues being discussed.” This is so important. We get some really bad emails, blog posts, discussion board posts, etc… from students in our WRITING classes! I also am tired of things being labeled incorrectly. If I saw I want the section number and student’s last name in an email header, I am almost inclined to NOT read the email without those elements.

As a word about expectations. In a face to face class, we all know when the students are there (at least physically!) but online, as an instructor, I need to lay it out clearly.   Writing something like “I expect you to log into the course regularly (at least three times over a seven day period) to check for announcements, new discussion posts, etc. Your full participation on a weekly basis is not only a requirement, it is an essential component of the online learning process” should better lay out the instructors expectations for the course.

Some course management systems include stats the instructors can use to see the last time the students log in (WebCT does this well), but some don’t. For example, when I use Google Apps to teach, the last time the student has emailed me, saved a doc, posted a blog, commented on a classmate’s work, etc… is how I know when they’ve worked on the class.  I use to drop (after warning them) after 14 days of inactivity and my boss doesn’t want me to do that anymore. He would rather keep the student on the roster and give them an “F”.

Another thing discussed here is the placement of the syllabus. The first time I taught outside of WebCT, I didn’t make a portal page at all. I had students have no idea of how to find me. Oops! Teaching in Sakai (an open source course management system) this spring has allowed me to include my syllabus under a link to the left side near the top of the page that says “SYLLABUS”, and yes, they still ask where it is! This article suggested the syllabus has to be visible on the first two levels of the course. If it takes a couple of mouse clicks to get to the syllabus, then an introductory note should be posted on the top level and/or emailed to the students.

I taught an English 101 course in the past that was inherited from another colleague. It bugged the hell out of me that she was so damn redundant with everything, but as I taught the class I appreciated it, because of the type of student I had. So this article from Houghton Mifflin includes a clear statement of advice: “IMPORTANT! In an online environment, redundancy is often better than elegant succinctness.” I really need to learn this so it doesn’t bug me as much.

Speaking of succinctness, I will leave you my dear readers before I become verbose and return to editing my syllabus.

With that said, Liz Davis, a like-minded tech spirit living and working in New England has some things done that I don’t have to do, and the first of these is a Flickr vidcast. I reviewed several Flickr tutorials on youtube and always return to her work (when I can help it) since I feel like there are parts of her that are me, but there … and um, female. So I have asked my English 101 students to watch her Flickr tutorial during Week 2. What did I want in a Flickr vidcast? How to create an account, how to add photos, and how to add notes or annotate the photos. During an identity module, I will have the students empty their wallets/backpacks/purses (they choose) and spread everything out; then they take a photo of the mess, upload it to Flickr, and annotated the whole thing. It’s actually really fun. Here’s one when I use to (God forbid I mention it!) own a PC. (EEeeeek! I said it! Have mercy on my soul!). So here’s Liz’s Flickr video.

A large portion of my focus right now is writing the theoretical underpinning sections of week 1-2. Our chosen text is more of a reader than anything (with some cool activities) but there’s little background theory, so we’re building that up. Breaking down several rhetorical texts, extracting the common elements, and then writing our own information. Love to develop it into something like an animated flash video (but that’s down the road — maybe through Echo360?), but for now text and podcasting those sections. I also would like to begin vidcasting some of the vidcast tech tips for each week. One of the earliest ones will be on Flickr, which is my preferred image repository (Picasa feels limiting to me!). Still plugging away, and I know I should be sharing Week 1-2 with people, but it’s soooooooooooo ROUGH. But that’s life, eh?

Anyway I wanted to learn the book. It’s called Remix and it’s by Catherine G. Lattrell out of Penn State Altoona (a branch campus of my alma mater!), and our initial reaction was that this is a reader. Shelley promised it was much more, and I totally see the advantages, but I also see a ton of readings. I even asked Shelley today how we teach the theory behind composition, rather than just throwing them at the students and saying GO! (For example, unless you’re taught, who the hell knows what an Expository Composition is? Yes, not even me. We’re reviewing some information for this situation now, and I also just found a cool online book called Coming of Age: An introduction to the NEW world wide web and wonder if anything can come of that. We didn’t want to require chapters from a different book because of the time frame and the price, but this book may have something. We’ll see.

So by the end of my spring break adventures I had reviewed the entire text book (not the online book), and I took four pages of notes, which are totally jumbled. I want to transcribe them, edit them, organize them, and prepare for my Wednesday morning meeting regarding this course.

The 16 week session break down is as follows:
Orientation, Information: Weeks 1-2
Module 1: Weeks 3-5
Module 2: Weeks 6-8
Module 3: Weeks 9-12
Module 4: Weeks 13-16

We included a weekly Rhetoric out on the Town assignment, a teacher generated tech tip of the week, and a copywrite activity/assignment. We agreed that copy write in an important topic, and, frankly, until recently I felt like I could careless about copywrite. I always argued that enough people would pay the exorbitant fees that I could not pay them. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for paying the artists, but I sure ain’t ready to pay all of the middlemen. The further we move online the more I know I need to pay more attention to copywrite. Hence our assignments. One of the coolest things we added to our repertoire is a weekly vid cast. These casts will typically not include our faces (thank, God), but we will use them to generate tutorials to teach new Web 2.0 tools. A couple of us will break these down this summer, so we don’t all have to make them all. I think this will be good because if they’re used by multiple professors then there’ll be a variety of casters.

What else did we add? Ah, we added a CD-rom from St Martin’s/Bedford that includes an analysis of visual elements.  The students will review an analysis section per week, and they will be linked to the Rhetoric on the Town assignment. There’s another small book, but frankly I’ve not reviewed it all. Shelley tends to like it as a required supplement, and it’s only $5.00 more. Back to the digital divide. Eh?

There are pros and cons about vidcasting and podcasting for me. Remember that you may disagree, but I’ve done some video and tried my hand at podcasting. My problem with podcasting is I typically am a perfectionist. I started out this year wanting to podcast about technology and education, and I have two posted here. While the recording took me about 10-15 minutes, the editing usually took about 90 minutes. This isn’t something I have time for every day or even once a week. I also like to add the intro and conclusion music. When recording a podcast, if I mess up, I typically pause for a few seconds and repeat the last thing I said. Then later I have to edit that section out in Garage Band. Alisa doesn’t bother and leaves in the errors, while I’ve only head Shelley post through Gabcast, which is from her cell phone (at least she doesn’t record with the top down on her Spyder!).

My other problem is with where to submit these podcasts online. As you can tell above, if you clicked on my podcasts link, I just stuck them in an online folder. But I want them to be fed through iTunes University. Alisa, at another college, has access to upload her own podcasts to iTunes U. When I asked our iTunes person about this, he said I would submit them to him and he would upload them. This turned me off. If I have more control, I would be more interested in trying to be more consistent with this. If I have to then submit them, wait for the guy to upload them after he does his other work, and then go look for them, then I am not going to be that interested. Another thing to consider is that the more and more instructors who use podcasting from their classes, if the iTunes guy thinks he’s going to be uploading ALL of their casts himself, then he will never get his regular work done. Now if the files are larger than the max attachment size, I know how to post online and send him a link to download the file (yes, and then upload it again. How time consuming!!). But a colleague who is trying casting for the first time and just knows how to speak into the mic, push record in garage band or audacity, and save the file, may not have the know-how to post something online for our iTunes guy. If his argument is that he wants to preview submissions, etc… then his workload just increased again!

I wonder if I can embed and syndicate my casting through my Wordpress blog, but then it’s not searchable in iTunes. Ugh.

As for vidcasting, you add the whole appearance thing. This means I gotta work on my class with clothes on! Damn. No I am most kidding. I do wear clothes. I can attest that I am typing this in Steelers PJ Pants, an inside out free t-shirt from the Lymphoma Society with some quote by Mandy Moore, drinking black coffee, with my 2 1/2 year old kissing Elmo on the television screen and the wife sitting next to me working on her online Master’s degree. Does someone want to have THAT in their vidcast? Maybe if I posted on Dad Bloggers, sure.

For the English 101 course we’re building, perhaps one of these methods could work. If we do it correctly. I like the idea of podcasting for this because the course will be taught by more than one instructor. If I vidcast weekly or even for each module, and then Shelley teaches a section, then her students will wonder why their female instructor has a beard, and that’s just damn odd.