2009/365/67 AT&T Can’t Tell Time by cogdogblog
posted 8 Mar ’09, 9.05pm MDT PST on flickr
Went I went to be last night, my analog watch and my iPhone had the same time. This morning, after the start of daylight savings, my iphone (which is set to be automatic time zone for Phoenix) decided to "spring forward" despite the fact that Arizona does not do daylight savings.
I tried several restarts. I tried toggling off my wireless. I read in the Apple discussion forums that there were some problems with AT&T towers in the southwest (New Mexico was having problems as well), and at the same time, AT&T claims their times come from elsewhere.
I prefer to keep the iPhone set to automatic, so it picks up the correct time when I travel. That’s not too much to ask for?
Finally, in total guess mode, I toggled off the automatic mode, manually turned the time back and hour, and flipped Automatic back on.
35 minutes later it seems to have stuck.
Still, I am relying on the iPhone as my alarm clock to wake me tomorrow in time to leave to get to the Phoenix airport.
I think I’ll set the alarm an hour earlier.
Who know what time AT&T thinks it is in Arizona?
I tried to find an answer by googling on at&t daylight savings wrong, ended up on an AT&T blog forum post with little to offer, so I clicked the link for customer support where there was a contact us via email link.
That seems like a place to get help. I sent a question:
Automatic time change setting is wrong in Arizona. I’ve restarted the device, and the time reported is still an hour ahead. Maybe you need to restart your towers?
Okay, the snark was not needed.
The response was polite, interesting, and not useful:
Dear Alan,
Thank you for your recent inquiry to our Consumer Sales and Service Center. Please keep the original email attached with our response in case further assistance is needed.
If you are pertaining to an AT&T cell phone, we regret to inform you but a different department handles your request. We only handle AT&T products such as cordless telephones.
Our office is unable to respond to your inquiry since our Consumer Sales and Service Center does not provide sales or service support for AT&T cell phones.
To obtain information and assistance on AT&T cell phones, please call AT&T Wireless (Cingular) at 1-888-333-6651.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Thank you for contacting AT&T.
AT&T Telephones
Consumer Sales and Service Center
This is the “pass the buck it’s not my department” approach. F*** that. I am not going to call somewhere else after expending this effort.
“Heroic” or even “amazing” support would have been to reroute a customer question to the correct department, not barf it back to me.
In the Old Days (pre Read/Write Web), Big Companies can do this to Little Customers since what else can we do? They can still do it, but now we can tell the world, and let others know.
This is no major cause worth dying for.
Besides, I fixed my phone. I turned off automatic time zone settings, manually set my clock to correct time, and turned automatic back on. The time stuck. But still– it changed my time over night and did not get it right.
Pfftttttt on you AT&T who needs your support? (but you get my checks).
