Wednesday, January 19, 2005
How to take a perfectly good thing and break it...
Technology. Sometimes it gets the better of people, (or "How to take a perfectly good thing and break it").
I've been using SBC's DSL connection to connect my office to the Internet. Used to have a cable modem connection, but DSL is cheaper on a monthly basis and has very similar actual network throughput. Sure cable has a higher theoretical speed, and that's what their marketing department wants you to believe, but the truth is the workstation to remote web server speeds using DSL or cable are about the same. My web site is hosted by a company I'm very happy with, ipower.com.
The point of this post was because my office was unable to connect to the Internet yesterday because someone decided it was time to upgrade (install new software) the local SBC DSL router. Unfortunately, it didn't work. In fact, it caused a service outage to all customers connected to the router. If that wasn't so bad, no one in their DSL support organization seemed to be aware of the planned upgrade, or the fact that it did not work. The result was that the office was down all day and no one at SBC seemed to be able to figure out why we were down.
Very frustrating!
This is the kind of lending experience I refuse to permit any of our clients to have. In the dark of our status? Not getting answers about something (like a mortgage) that impacts the rest of your life? I want to make sure you are getting the answers you need. Luckily, our company is nowhere the size of SBC. Luckily (for you) someone in the office will always know the status of your loan. Yes, there are times when a loan is stuck somewhere in the Underwriting department, and we won't know if all the conditions have been satisfied for your loan until Underwriting is finished processing the loan, but we'll keep on top of the status for you.
I've been using SBC's DSL connection to connect my office to the Internet. Used to have a cable modem connection, but DSL is cheaper on a monthly basis and has very similar actual network throughput. Sure cable has a higher theoretical speed, and that's what their marketing department wants you to believe, but the truth is the workstation to remote web server speeds using DSL or cable are about the same. My web site is hosted by a company I'm very happy with, ipower.com.
The point of this post was because my office was unable to connect to the Internet yesterday because someone decided it was time to upgrade (install new software) the local SBC DSL router. Unfortunately, it didn't work. In fact, it caused a service outage to all customers connected to the router. If that wasn't so bad, no one in their DSL support organization seemed to be aware of the planned upgrade, or the fact that it did not work. The result was that the office was down all day and no one at SBC seemed to be able to figure out why we were down.
Very frustrating!
This is the kind of lending experience I refuse to permit any of our clients to have. In the dark of our status? Not getting answers about something (like a mortgage) that impacts the rest of your life? I want to make sure you are getting the answers you need. Luckily, our company is nowhere the size of SBC. Luckily (for you) someone in the office will always know the status of your loan. Yes, there are times when a loan is stuck somewhere in the Underwriting department, and we won't know if all the conditions have been satisfied for your loan until Underwriting is finished processing the loan, but we'll keep on top of the status for you.
