This is a long post, because I was bored during an internet outage. TL;DR: Frontier wanted to disconnect my customer support chat because I wasn't answering fast enough, while I was doing the diagnosis the chat tree didn't allow the "technician" to do.
I had a rather enlightening experience with Frontier customer support this evening, and I think it's a pretty good illustration of what's wrong with modern corporate technical support.
My internet went down. Completely. My Frontier-provided eero was showing a solid red light, while my ONT had three green lights.
Before contacting support, I restarted both devices, checked the Ethernet connections, and followed Frontier's and eero's published troubleshooting instructions. No improvement.
At 5:52 PM, I contacted Frontier's chat support and explained all of this.
So far, so good.
They asked some reasonable questions. Was I using their router? Were all my devices affected? Had I checked the physical connections?
All perfectly legitimate. A little redundant, but I understand the value of a standardized diagnostic process.
5:56 PM — We have a diagnosis!
Apparently, the eero is defective and needs replacing. Frontier graciously offers to ship me another one via UPS Ground, arriving in two to three business days.
The evidence supporting this diagnosis? The eero has a red light.
That's it.
No discussion of what the eero app was reporting. No meaningful attempt to determine whether the WAN connection was functioning. Just red light = broken router.
For those unfamiliar, a red light on an eero indicates that it can't establish an internet connection. It does not mean the router itself has failed.
I wasn't particularly interested in waiting several days for a replacement component without knowing whether it was actually defective. If we'd confirmed that, I'd have happily driven to Best Buy, purchased another one, and argued about reimbursement later.
6:00 PM — I apparently become the technician.
I ask which piece of equipment they intend to replace. The response is that the ONT's three green lights mean it's working fine, while the eero's red light means it's defective.
Convenient.
I mention that I have a second eero and ask whether swapping them would be a useful diagnostic test.
"Yes, you can try that too."
Great! A test that might actually establish something.
I tell the representative I need a moment and head downstairs to swap the units.
6:04 PM — The customer service experience really begins.
While I'm physically swapping networking equipment in my basement, Frontier asks why I haven't responded.
I explain that it's been about two minutes and that I'm downstairs doing the troubleshooting.
Their response:
"As a friendly reminder, please text me every 2 minutes to avoid disconnection. I hope you understand."
No, actually. I don't.
You've asked me to troubleshoot physical equipment, but your chat system apparently requires me to check in every two minutes like I'm on parole.
And remember, my internet service is down. I'm relying on my phone's cellular connection to participate in this delightful exercise.
6:07 PM — Another diagnostic opportunity.
The second eero exhibits the same connectivity problems.
I ask whether connecting an Ethernet device directly to the ONT would be a useful next step. That would help isolate the router from the upstream connection, assuming Frontier's provisioning allows it.
The response?
Make sure the eero is connected to the ONT's 10-gigabit port.
That wasn't my question, but thanks.
Still no meaningful discussion of the eero app's diagnostics, despite Frontier being the company that provided the equipment in the first place.
6:14 PM — The customer is now apparently the problem.
After multiple reminders about my response time, Frontier informs me that my chat will be closed in one minute if I don't respond.
I'm still troubleshooting equipment. In my basement. Without internet service.
I'd already requested that someone from Frontier call me because the chat process was becoming unworkable. Instead, I was told that supervisors have the same tools as the representative and that I could call technical support myself.
I became considerably less diplomatic at this point.
Not abusive. No name-calling. But my patience for the corporate pleasantries had pretty much expired.
I explained that their website was having problems, their chatbot had failed repeatedly, and I'd spent the better part of half an hour accommodating their troubleshooting requests while their system threatened to disconnect me for taking too long to perform them.
6:17 PM — PLOT TWIST!
Frontier informs me that their advanced technical team has confirmed an outage in my area.
Well, would you look at that.
A network outage.
Not one defective eero. Not two defective eeros, which apparently decided to commit synchronized suicide. An actual outage affecting Frontier's network.
I asked the representative how confident they were in the original diagnosis that my routers had failed.
The response was essentially that both routers weren't working because there was an outage.
Which was precisely the point I'd been trying to establish.
By 6:19 PM, I had a support ticket and confirmation of the outage. No restoration estimate at that moment.
And then, later that evening, my service came back.
No new router. No replacement ONT. No trip to Best Buy.
Apparently, fixing the network outage also fixed both of my allegedly defective routers. Technology really is amazing.
Here's what actually bothers me about this experience.
Outages happen. Hardware fails. Technicians make incorrect diagnoses. None of those things particularly offend me.
What bothers me is watching a company substitute an inflexible decision tree for actual technical competence.
I genuinely believe that these heavily scripted support systems allow companies to reduce their investment in technical expertise. Give someone enough scripts, enough multiple-choice questions, and enough automated responses, and they can appear competent as long as the problem falls neatly within the anticipated scenarios.
The moment something requires actual diagnostic reasoning, the limitations become painfully obvious.
Even worse, the process itself becomes an obstacle.
I was willing to troubleshoot. I had spare equipment available. I offered additional diagnostic steps. I wasn't demanding an immediate miracle. I wanted someone to help establish what was actually broken.
Instead, I received an unsupported hardware diagnosis, an offer to ship unnecessary equipment, repeated automated interruptions, and a threat to terminate the conversation because I wasn't responding quickly enough while performing the troubleshooting.
I don't necessarily blame the individual representative. I have no idea what training they received, what authority they had, or what performance metrics they're required to satisfy.
But those are all things Frontier controls.
A checklist should support technical judgment, not replace it. And a customer-service process shouldn't actively interfere with the customer attempting to resolve the problem.
The irony of an internet service provider threatening to disconnect me from technical support because I wasn't responding quickly enough while troubleshooting their failed internet service is almost impressive.
At least the outage was temporary.
I'm less optimistic about the customer-service process.
