I'm sitting at the cafe (which doesn't have WIFI) and doing some work. For instances like this, I use a non-sanctioned tethering app - HandyLight (one of the best $0.99 apps ever). Don't bother looking for it - Apple yanked the app on July 20, 2010. It takes a few semi-complicated steps to get everything setup but once you've gone through it a few times, it takes less than 30 seconds to tether your iPhone to your laptop. One thing I did notice was that things seemed to be slower than usual when surfing on my tethered laptop. I did a quick speed test and noticed that the download speed on my tethered laptop was almost 33% slower than directly to the iPhone itself. Upload speed was almost 40% slower. Not sure if the physics behind tethering means there will always be this speed degradation no matter what method you use - sanctioned or unsanctioned. If so, the value proposition of paying $20 EXTRA a month to tether your laptop to your iPhone seems much less appealing.

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It's been a long time since my last regular post. Lots have happened since - we moved into new offices, almost went to court and got a pet that slowly learns how to talk. To recap...

Centrro moved into new offices around November-ish. Still in Jack London Square about 4 blocks from the old office. Cool building with interesting architecture. Below are some pics...

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And a very inventive shelving system we built with the help of Ikea and the USPS.

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As for the court thing. Our old landlords over at The Commons were refusing to return our security deposit for damages. Interestingly, not for damage to the actual suite itself but for scuff marks on the stairs. What's even more interesting is that we didn't use the stairs to move our things out since we're on the 3rd floor and would be crazy to haul our stuff down two flights of stairs when there's a perfectly good elevator. After some back and forth including a filing with small claims, they sent us a check minus some bullshit minor charges. I'm still pissed but have spent way more time on this issue than I wanted to so we're dropping the claim. For future reference, I do not recommend doing business with Equistone Partners or their building management firm LCB Associates, which showed a total lack of integrity throughout the process. Oh well, live and learn.

Lastly, when we moved into the Ironworks Building, we were a little miffed to learn that Comcast wasn't available as a data option. Basically only AT&T came into the building so we signed up for AT&T phone lines and DSL. BIG MISTAKE. First, the DSL service was horrible - completely unusable. 6MB down and less than 1MB up for 8+ computers brought everyone's connectivity to a crawl. We were using Ooma VOIP phones at the old office but switched to plain land lines to avoid data congestion but even without VOIP across the lines, the service was just way too slow. On top of everything, AT&T service is not cheap. DSL came in at about $29 a month and each of our 8 phone lines costed us about $55+. With tax and fees our monthly bill was running about $550. After much begging and pleading with our new landlords, we were able to get Comcast into the building. Nice fat 50MB down and 10MB up data connection and 8 digital voice lines. Total monthly cost? Less than $300. It blows my mind why AT&T's landline and DSL business are still around. Not only am I paying half as much for better service, AT&T customer service has got to be one of the worst I've encountered. Once my wireless contract is up, I'll be moving that over to Verizon, as well. Farewell and good riddance, AT&T.

I am an AT&T customer. I have been for many years. I have my family on AT&T Wireless, I have an AT&T landline at home, and my office has AT&T local/long distance plus DSL. All in all, I'm directly responsible for over $500 a month of revenue to AT&T. But after my experience today, I am actively looking for alternatives for every single service I have with them. Let me explain...

I was supposed to have AT&T's UVerse DSL installed at our new offices today. The ordeal to get this in was excruciating. I called almost 2 weeks ahead of time to set everything up and was assured everything would be ready before our move date. AT&T Customer Service told me that someone from the UVerse group would call me with the appointment date/time for installation. A few days go by and no contact. As I am busy with the move, I didn't realize this until we were a week away. I called customer service and was put through hold hell for about half an hour. Then when I reached someone they told me I missed the appointed time last week. Huh? I had no idea when the appointment was because nobody called me! No problem, mistakes happen. I asked them to please have someone out by Friday to get the install in before the employees show up on Monday. They said they'd make it happen. The technician shows up at the appointed time but they activated the UVerse DSL on someone else's phone number, not the ones in my suite. I have to call Customer Service back and beg them to switch it to the proper number. Their response? It may take up to three business days to occur. Basically, my employees are going to be unable to do their jobs from Monday to sometime Wednesday. AT&T Customer Service will cost me 3 days of productivity. 3 days of lost time is an eternity to a small business.

I've included AT&T's Twitter reps in the hopes that they see this. This is your opportunity to step up and be heroes. Excellent customer service is not the absence of complaints but how you handle and solve them. I had an issue with our Ooma phones at the old office and was instantly met with one of the best customer service responses I've ever had. Trust me, if the new offices could accommodate data services faster than AT&T's pathetic DSL, I would have gone that route and dropped my AT&T local/long distance lines. Unfortunately, AT&T has a near monopoly on telecom services in our building and they are using it to bludgeon everyone with horrible products and even worse customer service.

I'm not a fan of frivolous lawsuits (hot coffee in the lap) because they generally take time away from lawsuits with real merit (asbestos, guns, cigarettes, etc). Most recently lawsuits have been lodged against Apple for the iPhone - One for the antenna issue and the other for the AT&T iPhone exclusivity. The first one is clearly an idiotic attempt at a money grab. Sure it's proven that holding the phone a certain way causes you to lose bars (I can't seem to reproduce this issue but others I know have) but so what? If you don't like the way your phone behaves, return the phone for a full refund. You haven't been damaged in any way that would require redress via a lawsuit. That would be like me buying a pepperoni pizza that didn't have enough pepperonis on it. I'd either suck it up or return it for another one that had enough pepperonis. If the pizza place couldn't deliver me a pizza with enough pepperonis on it because of a design flaw in their pizza making process, I'd just go but a pepperoni pizza from another place that could deliver me a pizza with the required number of pepperonis.

The second lawsuit is one that definitely will be beneficial should it prevail. Having the iPhone on multiple carriers will create more competition in the wireless marketplace forcing AT&T (and others) to compete more on price, service, etc. If nothing else, it'll mean that iPhone users will be dispersed across multiple networks so that the strain won't be on one network. To keep with the pizza analogy, this would be like if you could only order a pepperoni pizza from one place. Not to say that the quality of the pizza or the pizza place was bad but it's easy to see that if more places could offer that pepperoni pizza to their customers, this would benefit everyone in terms of more options, faster service, etc.

Dang... I'm hungry now.

We were trying to figure out our office phone solution and wanted to get the most cost effective system. Traditional service from AT&T and VOIP providers like Vonage and Comcast seemed pretty cost prohibitive for business lines (about $35-$50 a month per line). I read about Ooma a while back and didn't really think much of them. At the time, it seemed like a case of too good to be true. Slowly, a few folks I knew started buying Ooma's and were getting great results. We figured it was a good solution to pay $200 or so once versus up to $600 every year for phone service.

We decided to dip our foot in the pool by getting a used Ooma Hub (versus a new Telo, the latest model). We found a great deal on eBay for under $200 and once the device arrived, we figured it was going to be a pretty easy setup. Alas, no. Since the Hub was previously owned, it was still registered to the previous owner and would not allow us to activate it. After a frustrating hour plus call with Ooma Customer Service, I still wasn't able to activate the phone and had to be escalated to Tier 2 for further assistance. I promptly wrote a harsh email to Ooma's PR department stating my disgust with their Customer Service.

What happened next is a classic story of how a company's image can be turned completely around after a horrible customer experience. Ooma's VP of Corporate Marketing responded very quickly and connected me directly to the head of the Customer Service group, Roy. I received a call from him the next day and he made no excuses to the poor service I had gotten and assured me he would personally handle my issue. Lo and behold, a couple of hours later I was able to activate my Ooma and Roy even followed up after he saw my activation to make sure everything was working properly. My opinion of Ooma as a company is probably higher now than it was before I bought the machine. We will probably setup all our employees with Ooma Telo's and will most likely get one for my home. With great people like Roy and Tami on the team coupled with a great product, I will have no reservations promoting their service to others.

I'm just noticing this now, but lately I've been getting excellent 3G coverage here in Oakland. Usually I'm bouncing back and forth between Edge and 3G at home and at the office. But to be honest, I can't remember the last time I've seen the "E" icon on my phone. Who knows if this is only temporary but kudos to AT&T for doing something right. Now if only they can add MMS, tethering, and lower their ridiculous data/SMS prices, I'd be a truly happy customer.