(Warning, long message!!!) Well, I wrote to Qwest's president and got a response back from an underling. Nice to know they care. Is it just me, or does this reply below sound like a bucket of dung? 1. I did let them know I was aware of the FCC ruling which does deal with competitive carriers (I guess Covad is not one of these) 2. I did let them know I was under 18,000 feet from the CO (12,900 in fact), to which they said 15,000 feet is the max when the FCC ruling clearly states lines less than 18,000 feet. 3. The part about not doing any line conditioning is maybe my mis-interpretation of the ruling, but it sure reads like they should. (Not sure why the ruling was made if they (Qwest), can just side step it by saying (we don't wanna)!!! Gotta love the phone company! Kelly Black --------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Ms. Black, Thank you for your email. I am an assistant to Mr. Joseph P. Nacchio, president of Qwest Communications. The information contained in your email regarding conditioning is a completely different matter than your situation. The information you provide relates to a competitive carrier using our line facilities. One of the reasons you would have load coils on your line would be the distance that you are from our central office. Load coils boost the line signal from our central office to your residence. DSL is distance sensitive and is limited to 15,000 feet from the central office. Qwest's does not remove load coils , provide any special line conditioning or switch customers from one pair of wire to another in order to provision DSL. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Louis Armenta Assistant to CEO Joe Nacchio Qwest Executive Office Manager Customer Advocacy Department -----Original Message----- From: Shennon Black [mailto:swalkup at isd.net] Sent: Monday, August 13, 2001 10:53 PM To: joe at qwest.com Subject: Refusal of customer service to honour a request I am writing you in hopes of obtaining some sort of resolution on a problem, as the normal channels of communication have not been fruitfull. Your customer service personal have been batting me around on the subject of allowing shared line access on my phone line. I requested removal of the load coils from my line online from the web-site and go the following response: ------------------ Dear Kelly, Thank you for choosing this forum to communicate with Qwest Repair. Qwest will ensure that every telephone line meets the basic requirements for voice telephone service. If your line is working properly for voice transfers, this is not considered a repair issue. Any request to have the devises removed would have to go through our business office. You will have to speak with them directly about it. They can be contacted at 1-800-244-1111, Monday through Friday from 7:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m. Bill Qwest Repair Service Attendant - Web Response Team ------------------ Fair enough. I called the 800 number and spoke to 5 different representatives, all but one of which had never heard of a "load coil". When the call was routed to someone who did know, I was put on hold while they decided how to end the call. After the discussion, I was told that this is a "tarrif" issue and nothing could be done, I decided to look online to see if this was indeed the case. Here is some of what I found in the FCC'S database: -------------------- 88. We will require that the incumbent refusing a competitive carrier's request to condition a loop make an affirmative showing to the relevant state commission that conditioning the specific loop in question will significantly degrade voiceband services. The incumbent LEC must also show that there is no adjacent or alternative loop available that can be conditioned or to which the customer's service can be moved to enable line sharing. We believe an incumbent LEC will rarely, if ever, be able to demonstrate a valid basis for refusing to condition a loop under 18,000 feet. In addition, if an incumbent LEC claims that a loop cannot be conditioned without degrading the voiceband service, the incumbent LEC cannot then or subsequently condition that loop and provide xDSL service itself without first making available to any requesting carrier the high frequency portion of the newly-conditioned loop. We strongly support state commission actions to deter incumbent LECs from misusing these measures for anti-competitive purposes. ------------------- I will investigate this further and contact the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to determine if this is indeed the case. As my line is well within the 18,000 fool limit, I feel I have been not treated fairly in this matter. Thank you, Kelly Black