AT&T or at&t - "They Still Don't Care, They Don't Have To"

In the 1970s, I saw a bumper sticker in Washington, D.C with the Bell System logo and said, "We Don't Care, We Don't Have To." Seems that not much has changed since then, I've been onhold with AT&T for close to an hour now with the most obnoxious sales pitch onhold ever. I am calling about my AT&T or rather lower case, at&t broadband card. I got it a few months ago as I was doing a lot of bus rides and needed mobile access. It worked pretty well and then I put it away for a while. Then last week I needed access again at the airport and rather than try the congested WiFi, I used the broadband card. It worked pretty well but I only used it for about 15 minutes. Due to moving my household, I needed the broadband card again. Well, when you really need it, of course, it doesn't work and worse yet, it causes Vista to hang.

Today, I learned something regarding power to the USB ports that would also be of benefit to the rest of you if you are using Vista.
First go into the Control Panel,
then select Power Options,
then Select Edit Plan Settings,
then Change Advanced Power Settings,
then go to USB Power Settings
click on USB selective suspend setting
and then
change the option to DISABLED
for both Battery and Plugged In.
This way your USB ports are provided electrical power, no matter what your Power Options are set for.
This is very useful for many other devices as well.

Meanwhile back at bad service
Yesterday I really need the broadband card to do work to and from my new consulting gig. Three times right in the middle of a critical application the service died and for nearly ten miles was completely without service, then again it worked and coming over a hill, the service died again. So I tried in vain again to call and complain but after more than two hours of long hold times followed by dropped calls, I gave up. AT&T can't even figure out how to process a call for the broadband card, it treats the number as a cell phone and gives you the bizarre array of options as you try to navigate their auto-attendant. Then you get a call center agent who knows nothing about broadband and then they drop the call transferring it to another department.

I would strong recommend you NOT buy broadband service from AT&T until you have thoroughly tested it and be prepared for total nightmare in customer service if you really need help.

By the way, I still love my iphone!