US Telco Support > Frontier Communications > [Internet] Questionable customer support

[Internet] Questionable customer support

Personally I have not BUT, the CSR IS correct that XP is much more susceptible to attacks and viruses than Win7 is.

There are several reasons:

1 - its new and not all of the security work arounds have been found yet. (security through obscurity though this is quickly changing)

2 - You can run it very easily using a limited account. You can do the same thing in xp but a lot a xp software expected you to use a admin level account and would not run properly otherwise. With win7 user level account are supported by just about everyone. Which leads me to 3-

3 - UAC the user account control lets you know when you are installing something or something wants to make changes to your system. This is a huge advantage over xp which did not tell you if such thigs were going on.

4 - The built in firewall in Win7 is much more advanced than than what is available in xp. (not including third party stuff of course)

5 - If you are running a 64bit version of win7 (and most are) any changes made to the kernel must be signed and it is very difficult to access directly. Winxp is almost exclusively a 32bit kernel so so it is easier to extended the kernel and create root kits and other nasties.

The only quibble I would have your friends current config is to absolutely without a doubt STOP using outlook express and switch to gmail, yahoo mail, hotmail, etc. these services do an excellent job of protecting from anything email borne. Even switching to regular outlook and switching to AVG free so that incoming email is scanned and search result links are scanned would also be good.

reply to Racerbob
It's unfortunate that your friend had to deal with that. If it works why mess with it. Regardless of what Windows OS and if it's 32 or 64 bit you can always get infected whether e-mail or infected page.

OS discussion can become very personal and almost religious/political in tone. The same can be said about applications too.

The best defense is common sense and to question everything when on the internet. Many don't do this and think they are safe no matter what because of the security software in place. That is when the problems occur.

reply to Racerbob
Well any OS is more susceptible to attacks and viruses there Aranarth so your point there is moot first off.

windows 7 can still get same amount of viruses just like windows xp I have seen it when I was working for a local ISP as local tech support so dont be telling the OP that windows 7 is best OS that cant get viruses/malware/spyware on it.

Windows 7 firewall is not worlds best either by the way viruses and spyware/malware still can get around it.

so pretty much what you said Aranarth is all moot about windows 7 heck they said that mac couldnt get a virus on it well took very long time to get one on there but somebody finally did it so there is NO OS is good enough to keep way viruses/spyware/malware.

To the OP I would do a full virus scan with MSE then do a full malwarebytes scan and spybot because that what I told everybody that called in had same issue as you did.

What you could do is also is rebuild the OE mailbox also it could came corrupt from a hard shut down or a virus or spyware/malware or what you can do is also make a new identity in OE because I also had to do that also with customers to get there emails to work in OE again.

If we cant get anything to work we tell customers that he would need to take to a local computer repair shop as last resort if we cant fix over the phone.

some times we would take anywhere from 20mins to 1 to 2hours to try to help the customer fix the problem when I was working for a local ISP as there tech support here in Ohio.

reply to lemmytech
Everyone's points are well taken. My goal is to get my friend and his wife to switch to Time Warner for their internet/phone needs. My elderly parents switched and they told me that they should have changed years ago. Their service at best featured 4.5 mbps downloads in a very populated part of this county when they did have Frontier.

But, ultimately, I think that my friends will eventually upgrade their computer...it is capable right now of running Windows 7...or buy a new one. My main point was that he was a bit taken back by the "pushy" attitude of the tech who handled his call. I feel for what they do on the internet that their current set up is more than adequate for their needs.
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DirecTV is pretty neat. If you want a referral ask me.

reply to treichhart

I should say the golden rule of running any operating system in general. That is, don't run as Administrator. I support plenty of Windows XP machines and they are pretty secure, for the most part. UAC is a useful feature of Win7 and WinVista, but again if you are not running as Administrator your primary risk is just malware exploiting the operating system in general to get Admin rights, rather than just being handed it when it executes. For this I would say the tech was perhaps looking into what may be best for the customer in general, but there is no real reason to fully leave XP until support is completely ended by Microsoft and application developers.

As far as Outlook Express is concerned, it is horrible compared to other clients such as Outlook or Thunderbird, but it does it's intended job, and it does it well. Just remember to keep the database size below 500MB or you might be expecting a database rebuild in the future.

reply to Racerbob
Well we all strayed from the topic a little. My point was that the CSR was so very down on XP and I do not believe that this was warranted. My friends are on the computer very little. A few e mails exchanged with close friends and family and some web browsing to favorite sites. The e mail issues they had were not spyware or virus related. The point being made that they should maybe use another e mail program is well taken. I could set up their Outlook and/or get them set up in Windows Live Mail or Thunderbird also.
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DirecTV is pretty neat. If you want a referral ask me.

reply to Racerbob
I do tech support for a small software company in town.

While the advice that was given is good the delivery obviously wasn't.

I will say that people who call in to tech support who have older machines running xp seem to have more issues with nefarious software than those running win7. I can pretty much tell what kind of computer user I'm dealing with by their email address.

Personally I have never been infected with anything while using XP, but I definitely recommend friends and family to use win7 and those that follow my advice have very few issues.

reply to Racerbob
The CSR's delivery was way out of line. Making a suggestion or providing guidance is a different matter. I know some the CSR's can be exceptionally curt and have made several complaints to Frontier. I would suggest to your friend that he contact Frontier management about the incident.

reply to Racerbob

My friend values my opinion. My parents value my opinion as I do theirs. After trying Frontier a few times in the past 10 years, I am familiar with their product and inferior service and at least in this area, Time Warner is the way to go. Why pay more (including modem fees, additional tax than what you pay with Time Warner service, etc) for a product that cannot match what the other company is providing ? I don't hate Frontier. I dislike Frontier. They are not doing anything in their original home base (we had Rochester Telephone back in the day) to improve their product. Trust me, my friend is a very smart man with many redeeming qualities. LOL.

Instead of Frontier putting themselves in debt by acquiring Verizon's rural service areas, it would have been a lot smarter if they had invested in the infrastructure in areas like ours where they are already established.
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DirecTV is pretty neat. If you want a referral ask me.

Crookshanks - I would agree in part however I do have to agree that Frontier has done an exceptionally poor job. The service provided is marginal at best, from my interactions with their customer support it is severally lacking. They have spent, according to Frontier, $115M here in West Virginia, but I do not see any changes or improvement to the product or service in my area. When you call to report a problem and the CSR refuses to take a trouble ticket then there is definitely a problem with where they place their customers. Charging for 3mb and providing less than half is also a problem.
There is little difference between what we are provided and the complaints I hear about satellite when you look at the processing delays.

reply to Crookshanks
There was an outage here this year for those with Frontier phone service that lasted for days. Their stuff was under water after a heavy rain. Many business owners were upset because they rely on the phone so much. So it can happen. Fact of the matter is that many people are dumping their home phone service in favor of their cell phones. We only use MagicJack here and we like it. Our cells get used more than anything , but we are not people who live on the phone like some folks do.

»stopthecap.com/2012/03/13/fronti···-a-week/

My point is that it would seem that they would want to invest heavily in already established areas such as ours so that they can better compete with the superior service that exists already from other providers. I know many people who have Time Warner for their phone service locally. I do not hear them complaining about how bad it is. I have a DSLAM right around the corner from me. Less than a quarter of a mile away. The best they (Frontier) could provide me with was about 7/1 service. The problems I had when I had Frontier were that the speed was all over the place and ping times were huge. One morning I worked with a very nice upper level tech who was local. I allowed him access to my pc and watched as he ran multiple tracerts and ping tests. He later discovered that there was a much larger problem going on...He told me later that it had to do with the way that their CO's were communicating with each other and that it was going to cost big bucks to get this fixed. He said that after he told the higher ups about this that there was a lot of concern , but he could give me no time frame as to when this issue would be fixed. Then they let me out of my contract. This was around 4 years ago or so. Unless Frontier is willing to run new lines and invest in new equipment around the many neighborhoods in this large service area, they are always going to be second rate here.
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DirecTV is pretty neat. If you want a referral ask me.