<tone=”sarcastic”>Well, I’m sure glad that AT&T bought Bell South.</tone>

Their POP server has been down much of the day. When I go to the Bell South technical support web page, the link to “Network Status” no longer exists, even though when one does a search on “Network Status” one receives instructions to go to the Bell South technical support web page, and clink on the “Network Status” link…

The only other option is to chat with a representative. So I follow the link (it only works in Explorer, of course, not Firefox), and fill out the form with my name, rank, and phone number. And problem description. Which has a limited text field so it won’t allow me to print out the last letter of the problem. Or a complaint about their text box that does that. I click on the button to “Chat without diagnostics.” I get a new page that says the following:

The BellSouth FastAccess DSL eAgent option is currently unavailable.

The hours of operation to chat are as follows:

DSL Technical Questions 7:00AM – 12:00AM 7 days a week
Billing Questions 8:00AM – 7:00PM Monday through Friday
8:30AM – 5:30PM Saturday
Order Status Questions 8:00AM – 8:00PM Monday through Friday

We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for choosing BellSouth FastAccess DSL!

They’re only available during working hours and some hours on weekends. I receive this message at a little after three Eastern time. But note that there’s no time zone. Maybe the scheduled times for chat are in whatever time zone Bangalore is in.

So, no email, no network status, no way to chat, no way to email (because I don’t have email, remember?). All I can do is call 611 and see if I can find a non-moron who knows what a POP server is, and doesn’t ask me to reboot my PC.

I don’t hold out high hopes. And here I was, thinking that Bell South Interweb service sucked before they were reabsorbed into the AT&T borg…

I mean, I am still the number two Google hit for “Bell South DNS problem,” two and a half years later.

[Update a couple minutes after posting this]

The power of the blogosphere! As soon as I put this post up, the server started working again. TM gets results!

[Update a couple minutes after the last update]

Now it’s timing out again. Oh, well.

[Update a few minutes later]

And now it’s working again. But even if it is, that doesn’t excuse their pathetic on-line help setup.

[An update an hour or so later]

OK, I’m only number two for “Bell South DNS problem”, but I’m numero uno for “tech support idiocy.”