I ordered DSL service from Earthlink in October of 2005. I was told that all it would take would be one appointment with Verizon (which is my local phone company) to 'deliver the digital line' and then another appointment with EarthlinkCovad to install the DSL service inside my home. In the last week of October I had the scheduled Verizon appointment and I stayed home the whole day like they told me but no one showed up.
When I called I was told that they had been at my house but 'nobody was there'. After I got very angry and stated that I had been sitting at home since 8 am and waited they told me after they checked back that they supposedly didn't find my house. :- Anyway - another appointment was scheduled for the week after and this time Verizon actually came. After they had been out there working for 30 minutes the technician came to my door and said that 'everything was fine'. After 2 days I received an email from Covad informing me about the 'delivery of the digital line' by Verizon. When I called and told them that they had been there already 2 days ago to do this, they told me that Verizon had said that the line had 'failed the testing' and someone had to come out there again.
To make a long story short - in the following 7(!) weeks I had 7 more appointments with Verizon to deliver the digital line. Sometimes they showed up - sometimes I didn't see anybody. But when I called Earthlink to check they told me that it would say in the logs that Verizon had been there. And always about 2-3 days after each appointment I would get an email informing me about another appointment the following week. Then - about 2 weeks ago I saw a VerizonBell Atlantic truck in front of my house and I went outside to ask the technician if he was there for DSL. He said yes - but not for my house but for my neighbor right across the street from me. When I asked him a question about my service he answered me that I was a 'Covad' customer and he wasn't even supposed to talk to me. This obviously told me that my neighbour had ordered his service directly from Verizon.
In the next 4 days my neighbor had 4 technicians coming out and then his service was up and running. The only conclusion I can draw from this is that Verizon EITHER doesn't care about people who order their DSL service from other companies but are dependent on Verizon as the phone company OR they do this on purpose so that people get annoyed and try to get their service from them. Well - in my case it worked. I canceled my order with Earthlink and ordered from Verizon 3 days ago.
