CAIS DSL failure: lessons in how not to inform

["Howard C. Berkowitz" <hcb () clark net>]

I'm in a SOHO environment with SDSL from CAIS. After several 
intermittent failures in the last few days, I've now been down for 
about 24 hours.  There's no question that I'd like to find out (1) 
what is wrong and (2) when it will be fixed, but I'd like to review 
some of the problems as a guideline for other providers.

The only available status information is the phone trouble number, 
which, up to a few minutes ago, said "we are having some issues with 
one of our DC core routers. It affects all CAIS DSL customers."  I'm 
sitting on hold now; even that message has gone away.

suggestion 1:  when a failure affecting dedicated user access exceeds 
more than  (4?) hours, send email to subscribers and/or post 
something on an internal web.

suggestion 2:  make this at least somewhat meaningful.  In a DSL 
environment, at least some indication if the problem is in or between 
the local loop provider, DSL aggregator, local ISP, or upstreams. 
Some estimate of restoral time. In this case, I find it hard to 
believe that a core router in a major urban area can be down this 
long.  Is it an upstream problem? Facilities? Lack of backup?  DSL 
provisioning?

suggestion 3:  accept that business-grade customers are busy.  If I 
do have to sit on telephone hold, I'll often put the phone on speaker 
so I can do other work.  Please do not insult my intelligence with 
periodic blathering about "your call is important to us," "it will be 
just a moment," etc. Based on your results, neither are true.

suggestion 4: For that matter, can the music on hold. If I'm doing 
other work, I don't need the distraction.  When I hear a noise from 
the phone, I want it to be meaningful.

suggestion 5:  if you must put a voice response on your trouble line, 
give the time of the response, and update it frequently.  24 hour 
outages deserve a bit more than "our technicians are working on it." 
With major router vendors, this would be a priority 1 failure with 
executive visibility. I'd like to know that my service provider 
treats it as seriously.