Qwest Can't Get Wireless Working Because Macs Are "Practically An Obsolete System"
"This year I moved in May 2007. My new housemates and I decided that we wanted to share wireless internet in our house. We order Qwest wireless the first week of June 2007.
When I received the modem and start up disc, none of the codes would work for my computer, nor my housemates. I called Qwest and was told that it was because I had a MacBook. During the month of June I called Qwest over nine times, and was repeatedly told in both polite and in rude terms that the problem was my Mac, not Qwest. During one call to Qwest, an employee told me that he could get it up and running in 30 seconds if my computer were a PC. When I asked him if any of his colleagues were trained for Macs, he told me that hardly anyone uses macs and Qwest should not have to train its employees in a practically obsolete system. He then transferred me, against my will, to the apple support line."
My computer is a 2007 Macbook that receives wireless at every coffee shop or business with wireless; i is not a problem with my computer. The apple support line should not have to pick up the pieces for Qwest employees.The game is called customer service hot potato. Each department receives a request, processes it, then figures out which other department to dispatch it away to, with the problem never getting solved. Lindsey did the right thing and voted with her dollar. It just sucks that she had to go through such hassle on all ends of the transaction. Well they got one part right. They had no problem signing her up as a customer and getting all her billing information.The amount of time spent on the phone with Qwest in June, transfers directly to my cell phone bill. I went over my minutes for the first time in my cell phone contract by exactly the amount of time I was on the phone with Qwest. I admit, I do choose to have a cell phone instead of a landline. This means that 1-800 numbers cost minutes on my plan, yet if Qwest employees had been trained sufficiently in both Macs and PCs, I should have only had to make one phone call, and thus not go over my minutes. I do believe that part of my $57.54 monthly Qwest bill is to having access to customer service.
After this cell phone bill, I asked Qwest for a new modem to rent. I was sent a non-rental and charged roughly $100. I did not learn this until my bill at the end of July.
After receiving the new modem, I had the same series of problems with wireless not working in the household. After three more phone calls, I got a Qwest employee that knew Macs. He got the wireless up and running in under 30 seconds.
Shortly after the wireless got working, I got the bill for the charged modem. I immediately called billing and asked if I could have it transferred on my account as a rental. The first person I talked to did not think they could do it, but then I got them to transfer me to the Loyalties Department. The first person I talked to in loyalties, told me that they could change it to rental status, and because I was a loyal customer, he would give me three months for half price in recompense for all the previous trouble. He told me to wait three days to pay my bill, because he would start the discount that month. I was much relieved. Yet when I called to check on my bill five business days later, it had not changed.
When I called to check with billing they had two different computer profiles for me, one gave the information that loyalties had told me, the other had the higher bill. They could not rectify it, so instead of Qwest figuring it out its own internal error, they forced me to talk to Loyalties, billing, and customer care. I spent over two hours on the phone that day. I should not be the one communicating to each department in Qwest about Qwest's own internal error on my bill. Qwest should be taking responsibility for making sure their profiles on the customer's is correct. I believe this is what costumer service entails.
I canceled my service that day. This was the middle of August. I was told by Loyalties that my plan would be terminated, and essentially erase a month of service from my bill for all the inconvenience, and that she would send me a label with reference number for the modem, so that I wouldn't have to eat the cost of the modem. I never received a reference number. It took the final bill until mid-September to arrive. Loyalties was able to give me the one month discount. Yet the modem had not been credited. I had to call again for a reference number to send the modem back. Again I was told not to pay the bill for the modem.
I sent the modem back near the end of September. On September 26th, I received notification that Qwest was going to send my bill to a collection agency if I did not pay or make arrangements for payments. The bill in question was the combination of the $100 erroneous charge for the modem, the non-credited month of service and a partial month of service. All of these charges I had been told by three separate employees to wait to pay, yet apparently interdepartmental communication had failed again. I called on the 26th and paid everything except for the modem cost, asking if that would stop them from sending it to collections. The Qwest employee told me it would.
One week later, I got another notice to pay the $100 for the modem, or it would be sent to collections. Again, I called and asked to put a stop on the transfer to collections. Again, I was told it would not be sent. Yet today, I got both a collections notice for the $100, and a phone call from collections. It was both the rudest letter and phone call that I have ever received, and it was due to the fact that I waited to pay the bill because Qwest had told me to wait. I paid the collections agency in order to save my credit rating, then called Qwest. I was told that the $100 had been credited to my account and the collections notice was a mistake.
I am dumbfounded that this went to collections despite my communication with Qwest. I feel harassed by this continued ill treatment, and blatant irresponsibility by Qwest. This irresponsibility has added up to a $100 collections bill, a threat to my credit, a $89 charge in overage minutes on my cell phone, and two months of bills paid to Qwest for wireless service when no wireless service was being received in our house. My main complaint is that as an individual paying for a service, I should receive that service in exchange for my payment. I that service should malfunction or not perform with in the bounds of its contract, then the company should be responsible for fixing it. It
is not the individual's responsibility to call every department of a corporation to make sure they are getting proper customer service; it is the corporation's responsibility in exchange for monthly payment to give proper service to the customer.My house has switched to Charter and they had us up and running immediately. The one time that we have had a problem, Charter came to our house, and fixed it for us, free of charge. They did not force us to stay on the phone for multiple hours, or try to tell us that it was our computer's problem.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Lindsey Case
(Photo: Getty)
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Comments:
Why the heck are you leasing a wireless access point from Qwest? Buy your own (can be had for less than $60) and don't pay lame rental fees for something you can own and manage yourself.
I do believe it is unreasonable to expect every company to cross-train their employees in Mac OS.
If they sell to and support Mac users, I damned well expect them to train those employees on how to get the product functioning with a Mac - it should be built into the price.
Even if they only have a few people in the department trained on Macs, that's a loot better than essentially telling the customer that they refuse to honor the products promised benefits - Internet access for Mac users, in this case.
Besides - we're not talking rocket science. If it's a networking product, a half-days training and scripts should do it. More than likely, Qwest went with the lowest bidder on outsourced phone support, and the user got what Qwest paid for - rude and stupid phone support.
This reminds me of the Sony customer services issues where the Sony rep would simply say "Can't fix it" if you admitted to having it plugged into a power strip.
/Typing at my Help Desk support job.
//We support macs!
I work for an ISP the provides ISP Services through Qwest, and I can say that we are not trained in Macs but we will get things working in the right direction, of course we normally need the customer to know a bit more about their mac then we do ;)
@Pylon83:
On the other hand, Apple offers support for a service (iTunes) that runs on Windows. Qwest offering a service that runs on Mac (wireless internet) and not training CSR's to support that OS is comparable to Apple not training CSR's to support the Windows versions of iTunes. Obviously, that would be completely unacceptable.
I'm with PYLON83 on this one - expecting Qwest to provide support for every platform is unreasonable. I have Qwest DSL at home, and I do not expect them to support my Linux or MacOS machines running on the network. Besides, if you go to the Qwest DSL support page, there is quite a bit of information about MacOS 10.3 and later.
Now, dealing with Qwest's different departments can be frustrating, but I've found a real improvement in their customer service area over the last 2 or 3 years. I'd say good luck with Charter...you may find them to be as frustrating as Qwest in the future.
Could someone edit this so I can read it in one evening? All kidding aside, you Mac people know the situation. I use wireless on my PC, pay $60 per month and got the modem for free after the rebate finally arrived.
Things just go easier for your average home user with a PC.
I deal with wireless issues all the time. You can not support everything.
You have many different versoins of Windows and MAC systems, as well as linux, and handheld wireless devices. I would not expect them to support your MAC. I would however expect them to give you a full refund without the collections issue.
As a long term pc user, I have never had any problems with internet service or any problem at all resulting in any real longterm down time. I have had plenty of problems with macs though. It's just easier using a pc these days.
@Pylon83: In these days, if your tech crew can not support Windows/OS X/ and the most popular flavors of Linux, you need to start firing your tech crew, or get out of the business all together.
It is totally unreasonable NOT to support major systems, regardless of marketshare. I take pride in spending the couple of hours that is really needed to be able to work on OS X, Red Hat, and XP systems at my work. Most places, you would NEED to be certified in the basic support of all three to even be able to apply.
The fact is Qwest has no clue how to run their companies support line, which is understandable, since to my knowledge, their support in general is laughable.
Oh and if any of their goons are actually reading this, the settings for OS X and XP are EXACTLY the same. The only difference really between the two is they are both named differently, and Apple consolidates its settings MUCH better than Microsoft does (who instead of having one panel for Wireless, Wired, and Proxys has 3) Even if off the back you couldnt figure it out, a quick google search could help you.
Part of being a troubleshooter is you know the basics of TROUBLESHOOTING. To quote one of my favorite lines, and one which I just recently had to send to my troubleshooting teams when they started fucking around...
work the problem, dont give up and leave it for someone else until you have exhausted all possible avenues of attack.
i like mac OSX and use it as well as windows.
however, being on the PC camp for most of my life and given apples advertising. I cannot help but be a bit smug about this whole incident.
i did not read the complaint, but judging by its length and how little trouble i have had setting up apples, i think the time would have been better spent learning to do it yourself than bitching about quest.
You people act as if Macs are some mysteriously difficult OS to understand. If a tech support person can figure out the crap in Windows, they can figure out a Mac in their sleep.
Another vote for offering a service means being able to support that service.
At the same time I am another Mac user that has employed don't ask don't tell when calling customer support. I'd summarize the problem differently though. It seems customer support can only follow their scripted troubleshooting flow charts instead of practicing some intelligent troubleshooting.
@LionelEHutz: I'm a technician and I don't understand MacOs. How the heck do you use a mouse with only one button?
I love it when people buy crap and then complain when it's not a T1. You want excellent service? Gotta pay for it. $50 a month in the datacom world gets you best effort at best.
@swalve: Are you serious? Apple-brand mice have had two buttons for some time now.
If you're talking about laptops, ctrl+click - not that there is a ton in OS X that requires a secondary menu.
@swalve: its called command click, or use a 2 button mouse...
Its REALLY not that hard, nor is it like you NEED a 2 button mouse. Unless your a techie most people dont use the left button anyway, and studies prove this fact.
not to mention that if your a "technician" you wouldnt be using a gui anyway. Command line is your friend... if your not using it your not qualified to call yourself a computer technician on ANY system.
@Pylon83: It *is* concise. The reason it's so long is that the whole ordeal was so long - it's just precise. If you don't want to read the whole thing, you can skip to the summary of wasted time and money that usually follows these letters. If it were shorter, we'd have plenty of victim-bashers in here claiming that the OP's a liar because they left out details.
Failure to support Macs is ridiculous. Apple's market share is plenty significant. It's not hard to support multiple platforms, as anyone who reads the article can attest to: after a string of incompetent and abrasive service reps, a knowledgeable one got it working in under thirty seconds.
I'm not in the field of IT, so don't take my word as gold or anything, but I'm pretty sure that any worthwhile service makes some attempt to support multiple platforms. Qwest, obviously, is just an instance of shitty, ultra-low-cost customer service.
@swalve: Sorry, you don't get to call yourself a technician if you can't figure those things out.
@Falconfire: I hope your kidding. I would hope a support crew would be experts at windows. Ever hear the phrase " Jack of all trades, master of none." Thats not the support I want.
@louisb3: Ya, can't call yourself a tech. If you work in the field, you know what the users expect of a PC tech.
You get BS from users all the time if your a tech and you do not know a system. Like Copier systems, Fax systems, phone systems, typewriters, ect... Your just not a good PC tech if you do not know how to fix everything that may have a chip in it.
Ok did anyone else catch the fact that he was trying to use a start up disk? Most likely he meant either a driver disk for the modem or one of those install programs. Those work on PCs, not on Mac's. He should have been configuring the wireless without the disk in the first place.
Also I agree with all the comments above that state that the complaint was too long. I only read about 3 paragraphs before skimming through the comments.
Most of the people answering the phones at your broadband support center aren't technicians and don't necessarily have much in the way of experience with computers. Their specialty is flipping a chart in the order drilled into them during the few days they get for training.
Mac training usually doesn't even permit for hands-on exploration; staff are told they shouldn't expect many calls from Mac users and that the flipcharts should do 'em just fine if they get a call.
All the same, when I was doing QA for the Big Giant Cableco, it was always amusing to hear the terror and desperation in the rep's voice when a Mac user dialed in.
@sonichghog: Sorry, was that sarcasm? It was mostly just incomprehensible. Yes, if you call yourself a technician, you should know how to operate a mouse.
I think he was being sarcastic about the mouse people.
I forgot how horrible quest can be.
@almaden:
The issue isn't that Mac OS is so complex and difficult. It's not; not even by a long shot. The issue is that support desks don't understand the topic they're supporting. THAT'S the problem, not that ignorant people can't understand a simple operating system.
@reeg2: Exactly. Supporting Macs not only gets you access to that last 6% or so of the market, it's also trivially easy.
Why am I not surprised that the commenters here miss the point?
Qwest says their product supports Macs, but they don't actually do support for Macs. They lied to the customer. It's not about whether Macs are easy or worthwhile to support (they are), but that Qwest's support department passed the buck.
I agree with many of the comments about not supporting Macs. You can't expect every company to support everything, imagine calling AOL for help trying to install their stuff on Linux. However the Qwest website does say their service works for Macs and as such they should support it. However, it also says that you should check with you local ISP for compatibility, so if the local guys say no Macs, you can't really blame them.
I work in a call centre for a major cable/inet/telco in Canada. Shaw cable. We give connection support to Mac or Pc customers. Yeah I am a bit slower w/ Mac customers, but I have some walkthroughs that have never failed me yet. How hard is it to provide basic support like that? Besides, did they tell her they don't provide service to Macs? Did they offer to cancel her service since they don't support her system the first time she called? That should have been done right away if they really didn't support her system isn't it?
@sonichghog: If you can not understand Macs, Windows, and Linux, you shouldnt be in the support field. Its not a question of Jack of all Trades here, once you peel away the gui and get to the guts of the OS, the OS is basically the same across ALL systems and requires little thought to go between one and the other if your planning to make a career in this field. The idea that a Mac or Linux is a drastically different machine than a PC is pure FUD spread by people who probably have trouble programing their VCR. The basic operation of the OSs are the same, its the underlying OS it's SELF thats different and superior in the Mac and Linux machines cases, as both systems are apt to dump legacy code that Microsoft constantly supports despite calls from the IT world to dump it already.
Hell a Mac OS X machine is basically a linux machine with a few different commands, and a pretty GUI over it all. IF you can support a OS X machine your a lot closer to being able to support a Linux machine than a pure windows user would be able to. But if you cant support all three, you just need to find a better job, because you dont cut it in IT.
Where I live, Qwest offers support for Macs, except for some strange reason, their highest speed DSL is not available for Macs. There's no logic behind it. :(
What about people who use linux?
The people answering the phones at the technical support call centers are for the most part simply NOT technicians - they are typically people with few skills who need a job that pays decently. I say this because I know several people that moved from telemarketing-type jobs over to technical support lines - and these were the same people incapable of connecting the dots to figure out a virus had infected all the computers in their house. We all should know by now that most of the time when you call a big company's technical support line, you are just getting someone reading from a script, not an IT professional.
I think it's a matter of poor training. The tech/customer service guys need to be trained to deal with macs as well as pcs/linux. I called ATT DSL since I have their home phone service and asked if their service was compatible with my mac. The service rep said yes to my desktop iMac, no to my iBook and that I'd need buy their network card for $100 for the wireless service to work. I said my iBook already had a built in network card and she said it was not compatible. I called my apple store and was told no, I did not need to purchase a network card only a router--in fact the apple service rep told me he had ATT DSL. Well, I called Earthlink DSL instead because they advertise they are mac compatible and I had no problems--even got a free modem and wireless router. Their customer service rep was a lot more helpful and in the end, they got my business. I chose a Mac deliberately and I hate when I get smarmy pc people act like I chose the wrong computer. I have used macs all my life and am very happy. I have a newer iMac, an ibook, and old Powerbook that still works and an old first gen iMac that also still works about a decade later. I'm not going to switch computers, I'll just find a service that is knowledgable with macs.
i love a good mac / pc debate. thank you
I've worked as a field tech for 2 major communications companies and can speak from experience about macs. Although they may be growing in popularity, what may not be realized is that most people who have macs know about them and what to do with them to get them working. For lack of knowing the exact numbers, even if macs are growing to 15% or so of the computer market, they are only about 1-2% of the dsl/cable modem jobs I've had to do. So, like it or not, what people forget to realize is that the point of having a company is to make a profit. It's not very cost effective for a company to train based off that. Also, I think people forget they make mistakes themselves and whenever a major company makes a mistake like this, the first thing to do is cancel service and bash the company. I've reacted this way to a few thing as well, but I think a company's reputation should be based on thier willingness to make everything right. Personally, when I have come across a mac in the field, I will take the time to do whatever it takes to make it work, or find out whats causing a problem. But, unfortunately as a field technician, the companies have standards for productivity, and will only give you about 50 minutes to drive to a house and fix a problem. Some techs who have trouble with productivity won't take anytime to solve the problem, and just say, the service is good to your cable/dsl modem and move along. As you can see, everything is a catch 22.
Some of you guys are ridiculous.
Mac support is not impossible. And indirectly, with a certain type of Mac troubleshooting expertise comes enough knowledge to troubleshoot anything similar, i.e. Linux and *BSD. Besides, almost all of the techs you'll encounter in the beginning will be reading off a script (in a way), so what's the problem with providing both and then passing people on to higher level support (and hopefully more expertise), where you don't have to hire that many experienced Mac techs to deal with the issues?
You can't expect a company to provide support for Plan 9 and DragonFly BSD. But it's not unreasonable to provide support for an OS from one company that singlehandedly has a significant portion of the market. Yes, something like a 10% market share (even hard to determine given how many computers are just bundled with Windows and you don't know if they're being overwritten with another version/license of Windows or Linux or some alternative) sounds pretty small, but for ONE manufacturer with ONE operating system to pull that off is not small. Ask Dell or HP or Lenovo/IBM or Sony to do the same, without Windows or Ubuntu, and they'd have a similar market share too. And while we're at it, remind yourself how small that pitiful 10% number might actually be. Apple sold 2.16 million computers in the last quarter and no doubt a significant number were North American sales, and that's just sales in one quarter. Apple also went on to sell 2 million copies of Leopard individually and bundled on computers combined over one weekend. We're not talking about a couple dozen freaks using OS X. We're talking millions of users just in the US alone.
That being said, with the last two ISP's I've had (SBC/AT&T and Time Warner), choosing "Mac" support sent me to a Windows tech that tells me to do things like click the Start Menu. Thankfully the technicians they send to fix issues are a bit more smarter than that and have some semblance of humor ("are you trying to steal my job? you know how to renew the dhcp lease on a mac? you're smarter than most people I encounter!" (oh whoops, did I forget to mention I'm cisco certified and make more money than you as a dev?)).
Then again, if I so much as mention that I have a router or more than one computer running more than one OS, they tend to blame connection and DNS issues on my computers. Yeah, I'm sure that if my Mac OS X, Windows XP, Gentoo Linux and FreeBSD installs all had DNS issues at the same time individually connected and it wasn't an ISP issue according to you and OpenDNS works fantastically...it's definitely an ISP issue.
@larkknot:
How true this is.It is honestly, sometimes a crap shoot for someone who is qualified and concerned about providing good technical customer service.
After a long gruelling punting session with my ISP. Which I asked for some very simple IP numbers to complete the setting up of my LANs static IP's. I was told for security reasons they could not give me my own leased dynamic IP or the DNS numbers. Even after telling them I can get them, but it would entail me directly connecting the machine, to get them. It was a request for a matter of convenience. The icing on the cake was me asking for at least the subnet mask numbers.. "sorry sir, for security reasons we cannot give out that information."
How funny is not being able to give out 255.255.255.0
This is wireless networking. Wireless networks are standardized. The settings you need to have a wireless network for a Mac is the same for any other OS. I find it hard to believe that a tech support center does not have a basic knowledge base that would have step by step instructions for at least basic setup and troubleshooting for wireless settings on a Mac.
This isn't about cross training every technician. It's about not having at least one available expert technician that could (eventually) solve the problem, and not having the basic knowledge base that would let a drunken monkey be able to do basic setups and troubleshooting. That part isn't rocket science, there's no need for a technician to be an expert on a Mac to be able to do that.
Macs not supported: Some of you people are really out their with wacky opinions. 1. Macs usually need no configuring/ they will find the DNS settings on their own. 2. I have service from a regional cable company (Wide Open West) and even they support macs. The other day I called them about an outage. The tech said it was probably my computer.I told him it was a Mac. His response was " then it must be an outage". Ten minutes later he called back to confirm the outage. Oh, and I do have a 2 button mouse. Buy a mac, you never look back.
@Falconfire: i understand your point, but i don't entirely agree with it. the problem is rarely with the os itself & more with its integration into a system. case in point: at my house, i've got 3 xp machines, an imac (os x) & i'm now typing in ubuntu (decided to give it a shot after some suggestions i read here), along with a bunch of other peripherals.
all the computers connect to the internet, but not wireless - the mac just won't do it. i spent a few days troubleshooting it (including reinstalling various firmware versions & reconfiguring the network in numerous ways) & gave up after combing a few message boards that claim that os x & a linksys wi-g (as well as belkin & a few others) just don't mix. pretty much the info i received was "dude, you need an airport". yeah. let me go right out & blow $200 on a router when i can find one for $30 so 1 computer can connect correctly. that's certainly cost-effective.
there's other communication problems even though the machines are all connected - the xp machines can see the mac, but not vice-versa. same problem with itunes sharing, etc.
point is, when you're dealing with an os like mac that likes to keep its solutions proprietary & provides little support for third-party devices (although this is getting much better these days), you're going to run into problems that a troubleshooter cannot solve.
@Falconfire: They are different systems. Saying that all OSes are the same is pure BS. Unless you mean "similar" as they are all Operating Systems.
First, the idea that any alleged debt is sent to collections and damages the customer's credit rating before there is any legal resolution is reached (eg. small claims court) is obscene. Consumers should not be treated as guilty until proven innocent; giving companies the power to damage credit ratings with impunity is one side of the blade being stabbed in consumers' backs (the other being the removal of bankruptcy protection).
Second, I have lost count of the number of "websites" and "internet companies" that are so stupid that they can't handle anything but LoseXP or Infernal Exploder. They "design for" an OS or browser to the exclusion of others, oft times merely testing for non-IEEEEE! browsers to prevent people from using them, rather than any technological wall that can't be breached. (For example, nearly all "IE only" sites I see won't work when Opera identifies itself as Opera but work fine when Opera pretends to be IE.) How stupid are they that they can't just design for HTML, PHP and Java which are all platform independent?
Third, where do Qwest (and some of the less intellectually capable respondents to this story) get the idiotic notion that _every_ service person at Qwest has to know both Macincraps and LoseXP? If Macs account for 5-10% of the market or customers, then have 5% of the tech specialize in Macs and funnel the service calls to them. Is that too difficult a concept? Apparently, it is. 9_9
@mac-phisto: I can promise you your wrong, my home router setup is a linksys and it worked right out of the box. The only one I can say with certain is a issue is Belkin's USB wireless adapter despite having mac drivers, is very poor in its implementation.
What is the age of your iMac? is it a older iMac using a 802.11b airport card, or a g card like the Express uses? If its using a b card then you need to configure your router to talk to b and g cards. Do you have windows sharing on your iMac configured (its in preferences under sharing)
Honestly everything you have stated from a techs view would be a 3 minute fix, so I have a hard time believing that its the iMac, and more that its the user, no offense to you. I am not trying to be snotty about it, but I have worked in a mixed environment for over 10 years now, and I can count on one hand where it was the "mac" or "pcs" fault something was not working right, while I would be here forever listing where it was a user thinking they knew what they where doing screwing everything up. And even at that, between Macs and PCs, I tend to have more issues with drivers on the Dells than I ever have with the Apples, just because of the nature of Dell machines with their commodity off the shelf parts.
@sonichghog: The differences in even pre-intel Apples and PCs is microscopic at best, and was ALWAYS blown out of proportion on the user side. On the programming side it was big, as the chipsets are not even remotely the same, but from the user, aside from the CPU, pre-intel macs used off the shelf parts, though maybe not consumer buyable as in the case of some of the iMacs slimmer GPU cards.
Software wise, at least on OS X systems, the difference is in label. OS X tends to stick with Linux/Unix labeling of settings, while Microsoft makes up their own terms for everything.
"all the computers connect to the internet, but not wireless - the mac just won't do it. "
What ?!?!!?
The only requirements for connecting on a wireless network is an SSID and knowing the 802.11 network type you wish to connect (A,B,G or N). 99% of your typical Wireless networks are B/G so your chances of getting the nextwork type wrong is remote. As for the SSID, your auto-discover will tell you this automatically.
That's it. No strange magic or voodoo here kids. Your wireless connection will not care if it is Linksys/Belkin/Bluesocket, etc. simply because THEY ALL FOLLOW THE SAME 802.11 STANDARD (we'll leave wireless N out of the picture for now).
Most people get in trouble with wireless when they add encryption during the initial configuration process. If you do not understand what WPA2/AES with TKIP means you will quickly head into the weeds because you will not be synchronized with the wireless Access Point.
The problem described above is more about klooless techs than anything else.
As for MAC vs PC, I own both and guess what ? You have to follow the exact same procedure to coneect via wireless. The only difference is that the GUIs are different but they do ask for the same information.
As a sys admin for a school I ran into a similar problem. Using a non-broadcast SSID on 3COM WAPS everything worked fine with the PCs but played hell with the Macs. Everytime the macs would shut down it would flat out forget all of the security settings.
With a limited amount of available time (60 hour work weeks were common) in the end all I could do was hand their macs back to them, shrug, and tell them that they bought a non-standard OS and this is part of the price they pay.
First off, I admit I didn't read the whole thing because it was WAY to long. People need to learn to be concise with their complaints if they want people to read them. Second, on the Mac issue. Let me preface this by saying I own an iBook, that's what I am typing this comment on. However, when I bought it, I understood what I was getting into. Apple only has about 10% of the market (maybe less, depending on the figures you read). I do believe it is unreasonable to expect every company to cross-train their employees in Mac OS. When you buy a computer that is very much a minority as a whole, you cannot and should not expect the same level of support. I think that as an Apple user, you have to learn to be a little bit more self sufficient in your troubleshooting. The best way to approach Technical Support is to not even mention that you have a Mac unless it is absolutely necessary. If you know how to use your Mac properly, you should be able to do all of the required tasks without having your hand held by a tech support rep. Any information he needs you should be able to provide. Just don't go into it expecting the same level of service that a PC owner would get.