Well last Friday, a mere two weeks, I mailed the signed contract back to Global Crossing. The price is of course confidential. And now, I get to wait a week while they “get the contract into the system”, and another week while they write the install order, and then roughly four weeks while they install it. I know this because when I mailed the contract I asked if there was any way to start doing things in parrallel, and got an explanation of what had to happen. I took this as an involved version of “No”.
Stop the Presses. I just got back from Keene, and found a voicemail from a Global Crossing engineer. Yahoo. Maybe it will happen.
It’s looking to me like Global Crossing has not learned from its’ near death experience. I can understand the confidential pricing (although I find it a great irritant, and no matter what I’m shopping for it’s a major downcheck in vendor evaluation). However the plodding, methodical install procedure strikes me as just clueless.. Look, Verizon is the incumbent carrier. They can and do act that way, because they’re a monopoly and it minimizes their cost. The small ISPs would have worked with me to get the install order written and filed Friday. And would then be hamstrung waiting for Verizon to actually install the service.
But Global Crossing is big, and has it’s own local connectivity arm. They still have to deal with Verizon, but much less (that’s why they can connect me in 4 weeks vs the 6-8 for the small fry). So what do they do? PIss away the advantage doing paperwork slowly and serially. Look guys, you’ve got price and service to compete with Verizon on. You’re doing well on price, but surely service would be cheaper. Ipromise you it would be effective.