I work for AT&T. I have an obligation to inform you that what I say doesn't represent their official blahblah whatever. You should know this isn't an on-message marketing communique.
AT&T, the company that created Unix and C, could be said to no longer exist, or more correctly could be said to be a different company than the one now called by that name.
A little (abridged, simplified) history: AT&T, you may remember, sold its cell business to Cingular long ago. Bell Labs went to Lucent before that. Eventually, it even sold its residential phone business off. They backed out of a lot of markets and dropped the best R&D lab they could have had.
What is called AT&T now is actually SBC, a Baby Bell with a penchant for out-sourcing. SBC bought Cingular, AT&T, Pacific Bell, lots of other companies. Their AT&T purchase was motivated in part by the name: everyione has heard of AT&T.
SBC brought with them metric tons of bureaucracy, all running in IE. Disgusting. It's not just the external web interfaces. We have to deal with this BS internally, too. 1990s web interfaces that only work in IE (sometimes requiring 7, sometimes requiring 6) for every interaction with corporate. Taxes, mandatory training, time reporting, everything.
We have to grab a spare Windows machine or run a VM with XP in it. Most of the tech side of company knows and hates the whole thing. The impenatrable bureaucracy makes it impossible to find out who to complain to. There is no escape. The article is dead-on about what's wrong, and I know first-hand, because we have to eat that dog food weekly.
That said, it's a very cool place to work overall. For us, the consultant-generated tech is a dent in the Porsche. But for a customer trying to give you money? Even my mom doesn't use IE and she wouldn't understand the problem with ActiveX controls.
Thanks for clarifying, I'll put this explanation in the post to make it more accurate. Interesting how an intuitive guess at the cause was so far off; the true cause was more insidious and historical. Inherited cruft from an acquisition.
Over the last 7 years I've set up more than half a dozen DSL/cable/FIOS modems and routers (I've moved a lot). I've always used Linux or OS X (which was as problematic as Linux in 2004).
FWIW, every company I've worked with (AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, others) has a method of activating everything that does not require installing any software. If you have a technician on site installing something they can do it for you; if not you may have to call them to do it.
In my latest round with Verizon FIOS (4 months ago), the technician let me know that they have the option "in case you just moved in and your computer is packed away." Use that as an excuse, or say you haven't purchased your computer yet but your family is over visiting and need to use the WiFi.
I've activated without installing anything with every broadband provider I have had as well and most of the time it is quite easy.
Cable seems to be activated just by using their modem the last few times and qwest dsl can be activated by a simple login on a browser and waiting for them to verify.
>"In short: a simple web-form system shouldn’t end up installing Internet Explorer 8 for you. I think it’s interesting particularly because no lean startup would ever ever do this in a million years, yet we aren’t particularly surprised when a big company is flushing dollars down the toilet in this way."
I would hardly be surprised if doing it this way saves ATT millions of dollars. The default browser for Windows XP is IE6 and a large percentage of new ATT internet customers are highly likely to use whatever browser is on their system, and even a small fraction of ATT's customers is millions of people.
Also keep in mind that this default behavior was almost certainly implemented several years ago when the use of IE6 was even greater than it is today in order to avoid lengthy technical support phone conversations with people like your grandparents when they purchased their first computer.
I'll add that it costs ATT very little to only directly support IE - sure a few calls from Firefox users escalate but that is probably offset by the fact that as a market segment those users are more likely to be technically savvy.
ATT knows its market segment in a way that most startups would do well to emulate - and recognizing how their setup procedure goes to their bottom line is a valuable lesson about focusing on MVP rather than perfect code.
Rule #1 when calling AT&T DSL support: Always, ALWAYS say you're running Windows with IE. Lie. Fake it. Whatever.
If you say anything else you'll derail your support. Your goal is to get through the level 1 did-you-plug-everything-in-lets-restart-your-machine gauntlet.
That, or go to the forums at dslreports.com and hope you can contact a sympathetic AT&T engineer.
This seems to be a good rule for calling any cable/phone ISP.
The last time I mentioned using a Mac the support person ignored that I had already tried pinging certain gateways to check connectivity, and proceeded to condescendingly walk me through going to Applications->Utilities->Network Utility so that I could run ping from a tab there.
Of course I quit after 15 min of this, tried to access again in a couple hours, and it was just a network failure in my area, anyway. Geez.
ATT has a pretty good infrastructure for handling phone calls from customers - being that they are a phone company with more than 120 years of experience in doing so (founded 1885).
So it is probably not as expensive as one might think at first blush.
So, you must have had IE6 or IE7? As much as I hate being forced to run any particular browser, one less machines running these old browsers is a good thing.
Typically, "upgrade your browser" techniques are welcomed in HN. Google drops support for IE6, then IE7 - smiles all around. Apps block off IE6 - "good for them".
AT&T does something similar and it's met with frustration?
Requiring IE* should be frowned upon. But anything that says "upgrade from IE6", in end-user land, is probably a good thing.
I just signed up for AT&T and their whole signup process is incredibly broken. Their customer section is divided into three sections: Wireless; Internet and Phone; and U-verse. Each has it's own login system. One use sequential IDs for logins, one usernames and the other email addresses.
I spent ages fighting the login and ID recovery system before I found out my DSL connection came under "U-verse" and not "Internet". Their login page even has a helpful picture of a TV to illustrate the U-verse link: http://www.att.com/accounts/?source=IC4425j4900s2000
I still have no idea what "U-verse" is and what differentiates it. I just assume that some crappy marketing manager thought the name was cute.
Of course, a lot of this is plain incompetence, but there is a security motive explaining why enterprises only support specific browser versions, even if it's an irrational one. Enterprises fear people will blame them even when the browser is at fault. Celebrity's AT&T account gets hacked? "ZOMG AT&T doesn't care about its users' data."
It's not entirely crazy either, when you consider how mainstream media and consumers perceive security incidents. The problem, though, is when enterprises tend to be overly conservative, not acknowledging "reasonable risk". And being out of touch with browser trends, ie assuming that only a particular version of IE is safe. (In this case, IE is probably required because the developers didn't know any better, but in other cases, an out-of-date understanding of browsers is the rationale for supporting only IE.)
There is (or was) a similar system profiler program that installs itself from Windstream's DSL service, and will not allow itself to be removed from a PC by any means I am aware of. Totally unacceptable on my machines that I purposefully kept perfectly clean!
Comcast installation was/is similar -- done in my case during the course of the Comcast technician's visit. I got rid of their crap when I reimaged the machine. Didn't affect service in any perceptible manner. (It did get rid of their branding from the IE window title, though -- another useless annoyance.)
If I have to go through similar, again, I'm going to do it in a disposable virtual machine image (reverting back to the last snapshot).
So what I want to know is whether the ActiveX control is actually doing anything necessary [1] to automate the install process. Is it telnetting to the modem or something like that?
Other commenters mentioned you can call them to activate your account. What info do you have to give them that's not collectible via a web form?
[1] I'm assuming the whole ActiveX thing is to push a download of IE8 because the code whatever tool they used to build the signup form only works in IE8. But it just boggles.
The landing page [...] plays some audio instructions [...]
There is a five minute pause as AT&T’s website “checks my system.” [...] my browser is not supported — well, I use chrome on ubuntu [...] Firefox. Wrong. It requires an ActiveX control [...] Windows XP [...] IE [...] ActiveX control. I’m getting frustrated by this point.
Wow, this is one patient guy. I would have gotten frustrated by the second point already and would have thrown something against the wall by then!
I noticed a surge in traffic to EndlessForms.com and realized it was coming from this post. Thanks to Joel for mentioning our site[1]! For those of you that don't know what I am talking about, see Joel's comment on the original post where he recommends EndlessForms.com, where you can design objects with evolution and 3D print them. Thanks all for checking it out.
I didn't run an ActiveX control. I did it from my Mac. Granted this isn't Chrome on Ubuntu, but I would be very curious to find out what would happen if you have Chrome on Ubuntu report it's user agent as Safari on Mac.
It would be even better if AT&T could somehow be convinced to run the same code that runs in normal browsers anytime the user agent isn't IE. Even better if they could somehow be convinced not to even run ActiveX in IE.
[+] [-] attempthrowaway|14 years ago|reply
AT&T, the company that created Unix and C, could be said to no longer exist, or more correctly could be said to be a different company than the one now called by that name.
A little (abridged, simplified) history: AT&T, you may remember, sold its cell business to Cingular long ago. Bell Labs went to Lucent before that. Eventually, it even sold its residential phone business off. They backed out of a lot of markets and dropped the best R&D lab they could have had.
What is called AT&T now is actually SBC, a Baby Bell with a penchant for out-sourcing. SBC bought Cingular, AT&T, Pacific Bell, lots of other companies. Their AT&T purchase was motivated in part by the name: everyione has heard of AT&T.
SBC brought with them metric tons of bureaucracy, all running in IE. Disgusting. It's not just the external web interfaces. We have to deal with this BS internally, too. 1990s web interfaces that only work in IE (sometimes requiring 7, sometimes requiring 6) for every interaction with corporate. Taxes, mandatory training, time reporting, everything.
We have to grab a spare Windows machine or run a VM with XP in it. Most of the tech side of company knows and hates the whole thing. The impenatrable bureaucracy makes it impossible to find out who to complain to. There is no escape. The article is dead-on about what's wrong, and I know first-hand, because we have to eat that dog food weekly.
That said, it's a very cool place to work overall. For us, the consultant-generated tech is a dent in the Porsche. But for a customer trying to give you money? Even my mom doesn't use IE and she wouldn't understand the problem with ActiveX controls.
[+] [-] maqr|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jal278|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bane|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dasil003|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ianterrell|14 years ago|reply
FWIW, every company I've worked with (AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, others) has a method of activating everything that does not require installing any software. If you have a technician on site installing something they can do it for you; if not you may have to call them to do it.
In my latest round with Verizon FIOS (4 months ago), the technician let me know that they have the option "in case you just moved in and your computer is packed away." Use that as an excuse, or say you haven't purchased your computer yet but your family is over visiting and need to use the WiFi.
[+] [-] mestudent|14 years ago|reply
Cable seems to be activated just by using their modem the last few times and qwest dsl can be activated by a simple login on a browser and waiting for them to verify.
[+] [-] Swizec|14 years ago|reply
Although, think of it like this: AT&T is doing what every web developer in the world wishes they were able/allowed to do. It's getting people off IE6.
Granted, the process should be "If IE, then update, else, just show form"
[+] [-] brudgers|14 years ago|reply
I would hardly be surprised if doing it this way saves ATT millions of dollars. The default browser for Windows XP is IE6 and a large percentage of new ATT internet customers are highly likely to use whatever browser is on their system, and even a small fraction of ATT's customers is millions of people.
Also keep in mind that this default behavior was almost certainly implemented several years ago when the use of IE6 was even greater than it is today in order to avoid lengthy technical support phone conversations with people like your grandparents when they purchased their first computer.
I'll add that it costs ATT very little to only directly support IE - sure a few calls from Firefox users escalate but that is probably offset by the fact that as a market segment those users are more likely to be technically savvy.
ATT knows its market segment in a way that most startups would do well to emulate - and recognizing how their setup procedure goes to their bottom line is a valuable lesson about focusing on MVP rather than perfect code.
[+] [-] false|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nose|14 years ago|reply
Yeah. DropBox installs Growl without the user's permission. http://growl.info/thirdpartyinstallations.php
[+] [-] rm-rf|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joezydeco|14 years ago|reply
If you say anything else you'll derail your support. Your goal is to get through the level 1 did-you-plug-everything-in-lets-restart-your-machine gauntlet.
That, or go to the forums at dslreports.com and hope you can contact a sympathetic AT&T engineer.
[+] [-] mscarborough|14 years ago|reply
The last time I mentioned using a Mac the support person ignored that I had already tried pinging certain gateways to check connectivity, and proceeded to condescendingly walk me through going to Applications->Utilities->Network Utility so that I could run ping from a tab there.
Of course I quit after 15 min of this, tried to access again in a couple hours, and it was just a network failure in my area, anyway. Geez.
[+] [-] ilamont|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brudgers|14 years ago|reply
So it is probably not as expensive as one might think at first blush.
[+] [-] melling|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dimarco|14 years ago|reply
AT&T does something similar and it's met with frustration?
Requiring IE* should be frowned upon. But anything that says "upgrade from IE6", in end-user land, is probably a good thing.
[+] [-] underwater|14 years ago|reply
I spent ages fighting the login and ID recovery system before I found out my DSL connection came under "U-verse" and not "Internet". Their login page even has a helpful picture of a TV to illustrate the U-verse link: http://www.att.com/accounts/?source=IC4425j4900s2000
I still have no idea what "U-verse" is and what differentiates it. I just assume that some crappy marketing manager thought the name was cute.
[+] [-] Hoff|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zephjc|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sp332|14 years ago|reply
Edit: or in support calls, they sometimes accidentally say "sir" to a woman etc., this might help with that.
[+] [-] mmahemoff|14 years ago|reply
It's not entirely crazy either, when you consider how mainstream media and consumers perceive security incidents. The problem, though, is when enterprises tend to be overly conservative, not acknowledging "reasonable risk". And being out of touch with browser trends, ie assuming that only a particular version of IE is safe. (In this case, IE is probably required because the developers didn't know any better, but in other cases, an out-of-date understanding of browsers is the rationale for supporting only IE.)
[+] [-] soulinafishbowl|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pasbesoin|14 years ago|reply
Comcast installation was/is similar -- done in my case during the course of the Comcast technician's visit. I got rid of their crap when I reimaged the machine. Didn't affect service in any perceptible manner. (It did get rid of their branding from the IE window title, though -- another useless annoyance.)
If I have to go through similar, again, I'm going to do it in a disposable virtual machine image (reverting back to the last snapshot).
[+] [-] chopsueyar|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonah|14 years ago|reply
Other commenters mentioned you can call them to activate your account. What info do you have to give them that's not collectible via a web form?
[1] I'm assuming the whole ActiveX thing is to push a download of IE8 because the code whatever tool they used to build the signup form only works in IE8. But it just boggles.
[+] [-] planb|14 years ago|reply
Wow, this is one patient guy. I would have gotten frustrated by the second point already and would have thrown something against the wall by then!
[+] [-] jeffclune|14 years ago|reply
[1] http://endlessforms.com
[+] [-] sdkmvx|14 years ago|reply
It would be even better if AT&T could somehow be convinced to run the same code that runs in normal browsers anytime the user agent isn't IE. Even better if they could somehow be convinced not to even run ActiveX in IE.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] wjflywheel|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aohtsab|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ori_b|14 years ago|reply