Bellsouth advises removing anti-virus software

Jenn M. · 2004-10-21T03:07:42+00:00

I just got off the phone with Bellsouth FastAccesss DSL tech support. One of their newer 'things to do' before they will escalate yourclaim is to have you uninstall your virus protection. Not simplyturn it off, but uninstall it. When I asked why, I was told that "atthis time the Bellsouth DSL product is not compatible with thisthird-party software (any anti-virus software)." When I mentionedthat this was tantamount to asking people to surf the internet,recieve email, and generally use the Bellsouth network without anyform of virus protection, I was assured that most all of the problemsthey have seen recently were due to virus protection software.I was also told that Symantec, the makers of NAV, know of the problem. So if I wanted to call Symantec and talk with them about it, Ishould specifically mention Bellsouth.I dunno, it seems like Bellsouth is asking for virus-laden computersto ruin their network.For the record, after 4 hours of callbacks, my DSL servicemiraculously came back on. Bellsouth contends that is was mycomputer (even thought all the computers on my network were not ableto access the internet - PCs, Macs, and UNIX machines), and theybelieve that it was probably due to the anti-virus software (eventhough the software was coexisting nicely with the internet untiltoday, and after I removed the software the internet still didn't workfor about two hours until it miraculously came back). I believe thatthey were having DNS issues in my neck of the woods, and they didn'twant to own up to it.