AT&T and Lucent Phones

2 January 2003

This may be another common theme to my ranting: poor quality.

A couple of years back, we were in need of a couple of new phones.  Answering machine was dying, and I was doing a lot of work from home.  So, I went out with a couple of goals in mind:

• A one-line cordless phone with an answering machine.
• A two-line cordless phone with speakerphone and headset jack.

I actually found two phones that fit the requirements.  Both were made by AT&T/Lucent, so I figured they'd be pretty good quality.  And , I figured that they'd be worth the somewhat hefty price tag that came with them.

Well, let me tell you that if I ever buy another AT&T or Lucent product, there'll be a brisk sale on ice skates in Hades that day.

I should have been suspicious when I took them out of the box and hooked up the one phone only to find that one of its settings (no base ringer) could be set, but it didn't actually do anything.  No matter what setting you set it to, the base rang.  And you couldn't do anything about it.

Anyway, the answering machine phone died first.  The keypad on the handset started to work seemingly at random.  Sometimes the 1,2, and 3 keys would work, and sometimes the 3 key would do the same as pressing the power-off button.  This is a problem when you live in the 303 area code and have to dial the area code every time.  Part way through dialing a number you'd hang up.  Handy.  It finally got to the point where the 1,2 and 3 didn't work at all.  The rest of the numbers, evidently jealous, quickly followed suit and died horrible deaths, meaning that the phone was, in essence, a paperweight.  Except that we had it mounted on the wall.

If this had been after, say, five years, that would have been fine.  But this was after a year.  AT&T's response was, "Send it to us and we'll fix it for only $20 plus shipping and handling."  That came to about $10 less than what it would be to buy a new phone, which I would have had to done anyway as I would have been without a phone for "2 to 3 weeks."

The second phone, the two-line one, has lasted a little longer, but with much the same results.  However, instead of failing from the top of the keypad down, it's failing from the bottom up.  As such, the 8 sometimes works, sometimes doesn't.  Sometimes, hitting it once means you get four or five 8's all sent.  This makes it very difficult to dial into a conference call with a 1-888 number.

But wait, there's more.

If all of the above were not enough to convince you to buy anything but an AT&T and/or Lucent telephone, we also use them at the office.  On my home phone, I can get a headset for $19.95 for a really good one.  For this phone at the office, we have to pay $150 for a moderately shitty one.  Nice, huh?

So, what should you have learned by all of this.

• Don't buy a phone from AT&T and/or Lucent Technologies
• Don't take anything lying down
• Yell and scream louder than anyone else

Oh, if you work for AT&T and/or Lucent and are responsible in any way, shape, or form for your hardware...may you develop painful sores in personal regions that can only be cured with lancing.