Do you trust your Broadband Provider?

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The question says it all my dears...just about ten mintues ago I just got off the phone to a customer who was told by her broadband provider that we should increase the gain on her line. :roll: I thought hold on that cant be done unless ur using dial up. since I work at the faults department and I do have experience in sorting out broadband problems I thought we may aswell help this poor woman after all she was from Newcastle so every more reason to help her out. I first found out customer was using a digital phone which can cause problems to the signal for ADSL (for those who may not know) but it got funnier. she was using a MAC (identified by the startup music which cust was baffled about ) anyway it was situated upstairs and the main phone socket was downstairs. wot she didnt mention til later was that the ext cable going upstairs was in fact part of an ext box on the landing. oh 4got2mention she had 2 filters one at the main socket and the other upstairs so we got rid of the first one in the main socket. anyway we got the second ext cable connected to the ext box in the landing and the filter in the ext cable feeding into the room. connected the modem whacked on the MAC and *dada* she was connected. what Wanadoo failed to do in their part was talk the poor woman into getting connected...and by the sounds of it I dont think they wanted to connect her as they were blaming us (BT) about it all. so when I got customer connected she said I was the first person who got her connected in the 2 weeks she has had broadband. its ok dont all cheer at once. Im just happy to lend a hand with my vast experience with broadband connection.

 

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Not having a broadband provider, I couldn't say. I can say that I've recently encountered some people who have gotten nothing but trouble from their provider. Lots of misinformation and confusion and charging for services they didn't deliver. You can't let up on these characters for a second.

 

i think thats the case with any form of customer support, not many of them have a decent team, and some dont have a single person with a clue,
i only ever called my uk broadband isp to check for outages, never really needed there help so cant comment

speakeasy cant deliver to me here apart from SDSL, which bugs me coz i dont need a business package that costs a bomb, i need a high bandwidth consumer package (just upgraded from 256/128 to 1.5/896 and it costs about 20 quid a month)

personaly i dont get too many problems i cant fix myself, so i hardly ever call support lines, but i have heard the horror stories from end users, not a pretty picture

 

Hey Ryan. Have you noticed that the only two board members who have responded to the gentleman from Aberdeen are in Idaho?

 

that true I was expecting people from the UK to answer aswell...but yeah the horror stories are true Phoenix....and I hate when customers get given the wrong info...makes me

 

Your a good sort noelg24, most support staff just done have the patience you have. If they cant sort it out with in a few minutes then they pass the blame or even pass the call onto somebody else. Its all about meeting targets. That goes for BT too, I remember numerous times trying to get a fault fixed with BT that I clearly knew the route of the problem but getting somebody with the authority to investigate without being passed on from one member of staff to another was another story.

Anyway, I don't want to turn this thread into a BT public lynching . I really wanted to commend you for having the spirit to make that extra bit of effort to help somebody in need. Good on you Lets hope theres more like you out there.

 

Ask not what IT can do for you, ask what you can do for IT

Do I trust my ISP.Hmmm, no not really.Hardly ever interact with them really.After a major fiasco with bills a while back (other tiscali cutomers probably know about this also), I check all my bills they send me very carefully.
There's zero trust as far as finance is concerned.

Generally, they provide an adequate service, but I couldn't wholeheartedly say that I trust them implicitly.

 

The legacy of JFK lives on, eh flex. No that you were even born when he made the statement your are parodizing? It was about one of two or three things that people all over the world remember he said...that and how he blew trying to say "I am a Berliner" in German.

 

Really , you mean some other guy used my line.Amazing eh, such a small world these days

Oh forgot to say.My ISP still charges me about £29 a month for 512k.

Apparently is now only £20 at BT.

Do I trust that my ISP will follow the trend before they've sucked a few more months worth of Rip off prices from their customers :?:

Nah, not likely

 

First of all thank you Si...I have to admit I do tend go that extra mile even tho I dont get any praise for it...but hey I do it for me and cos it makes me feel good . And Flex as for prices...Im paying or rather me and my girlfriend are paying only £26.99 a month for a 1Meg connection to a company called CentralPoint...talk about more 'bang for your buck' eh kids? and I have to say I am very pleased with it. these guys dont use IPStrem they use DataStream for the ADSL signal check it out at www.cpbb.co.uk and you will be amazed at the prices...you can get 2Meg for just under £36!!! and as for BT doing £20 a month...if you read it carefully they only give a 1Gig allowance per MONTH so if u ask me..not worth it and that goes for other companies doing the same...altho Bulldog are very good with their prices....so there u have it...if u guys want more info on ADSL and stuff go to www.adslguide.org

 

dont worry noelg i lived in england for 22 years until last week :P
apart from a 6 month stint in texas

so most of my experiances are UK based

im justh appy i can get 1.5/896 here for 20 quid lol, the increased upload will be handy for me lol

 

Mind you, my ISP might have reduced the price, but I wouldn't know about it.
But I don't think they have, so time for a change (if I can egt out of the contract).

I'm terrible with decisions though.Like out of the frying pan and intot he fire scenario.But hey, life's all about risks, will check out those other links.

Geez I'm gonna be busy with all these links I've acquired this evening.

 

OK,come on, come on, come on, you Guys...

Not often I get genuinely defensive in response to Threads on here as you know, but I want to respond to some of the gun-slinging above.

Firstly, as a Tech Support guy for an ISP, I effectively am the person described above, so I know exactly what it's like on this end of the phone.

Consider this - the guy who didn't automatically pick up on the fact that the woman was using a modem on the end of an extension cable, filtered on both ends, and whilst also having DECT phones (I believe) cannot be held solely responsible straight away. There is an onus an customers (End Users - EU's from now on) to be aware of the requirements of setting up ADSL in the home. This is balanced by the equal responsiblity of ISPs to make EUs aware of these requirements.

In this case, the 2 filters, extension and DECT phones just scream NO CONNECTION.

Secondly, although ADSL has been around for many a year now, it is still relatively young, in terms of new ISPs springing up, as well as "big name" providers" all scrabbling to gain your custom in the race towards Broadband Britain (and its worldwide equivalents)


Goodwill is something you encounter, in whatever aspect of life, mostly down to the individual you happen to get when you phone that Support line - regardless of industry or department. Personally, I take pride in my approach to EUs on a day to day basis, but have any of you Guys never had a bad, or at least "grouchy" day at work, when you're just not 110% client-focused ? Nope - thought not.


Technical support on the end of a (normally) highly-priced phone line CAN be hard to swallow - I fully appreciate this, but please remember the following:

We are human, we cannot see the setup where you are. We want to help you. We take many, many calls in each day. ADSL does not stop with us - it involves the Billing details of your account, the state of the copper wires in your house, the state of the exchange your connected to, the state of the ADSL hardware at your exchange, and the myriad factors that come into play when it is reliant on BT's (or whoever) infrastructure.

In this situation, BT's ADSL engineers are first rate at acting when they receive a Fault report from the ISP. Resolution is usually ensured within hours. But by the time the fault has reached the ISP from the EU, then on to BT, then the same process reversed, you may easily be looking at nigh on two weeks.


Please, just for a second, think about why that call costs what it does, and why it may not solve your problem straight away.

 

firstly, i appreciate your point of view gav, remember the majority of us are speaking from technicaly compitent positions and have alot less patient for techs as we can generally a) tell when they are talkin c*ap, b) fobbing the blame to everyone else when we know darn well whats wrong and c) just having a bad day
im sure the end users have much less of a problem with them than we (techies) do as they are somewhat more oblivious to there methods and are genuinley in need of help rather than just some hard information

i mean, how often have those of us who are technically competant called a support center for some hard info and been spun around and treated like were clueless end users who read a PC mag last week?

so no beef with the support guys in general mate, just from a technical competant point of view its a different picture

 

No beef "taken" Ryan, my friend - these Boards are "vegetarian" as far as I'm concerned

I'm simply trying to introduce an element of fairness into the argument, no more, no less. There are times when both "ends of the phone" could do better.

I fully hold my hands up, and say that the Industry in general, and several ISPs in particular could do much more to educate EUs prior to providing internet access to them, but this is countered by my argument that EUs should endeavour to put in a little effort themselves to understand at least the very basics of what is a very complex process.

From my particular experience, one of the biggest problems is when EUs stubbornly believe they know far more than they actually do, and will not believe they, or their equipment could possibly be in the wrong, when in 4 out of 5 cases, it actually is something they have, or have not, done correctly that is the root of the problem.

To agree with part of Waliu's original point, the best EUs to deal with are the ones who are pleasant, rational, and genuinely in need of help, and are prepared to listen to you, perhaps for slighly longer than they wish to pay for. They will usually carry out any requests you make, however awkward, and generally find that the problem is resolved much quicker.

For EUs such as these, I'm sure no one would mind "going the extra mile". Oh, and they are usually the type who will (un-necessarily) say "Thank You" afterwards.

 

Especially when that "other guy" happened to be one of the most famous American Presidents of the 20th Century.

Speak for yourself. I'm a meat lover from way back.

 

I agree with you totally Gav, some EUs read last months PCW and are now 'broadband experts' gotta love em, or not

 

Well it happened again!!! another customer with an ISP I have never heard of blaming BT for his ADSL not working I again talked the customer thru his connection and this was worse than the woman I had last week the guy had 3 phones but FOUR filters not only that he had a double adapter in one of the filters...talk about making things worse for yourself. so we got rid of the adapter and the filter and hey presto the dude was connected. and I said to him I am not happy his ISP are blaming BT again for his ADSL not working. I said to him it is their duty to make sure you get connected!!! If I get another customer in the same situation I will personally ring their ISP and tell them exactly what I think of their so called technical helpdesk....damn fakes...no offence by the way Jak

 

I am sure someone is trying to make my life hell!!! again I got another customer with ADSL problems. I wont make this one long cos I am already going mad...basically cust had 3 filters but with the first two he was not able to use his phone but ADSL worked fine. to make it worse his ISP(AOL) told him to get an ADSL ext cable as the normal phone one wont work. this is not entirely correct as I got cust to use the 3rd filter and when I did a test on his phone line it was testing ok but with the other 2 filters they were causing faults on the line. I nearly gave up and was about to send out an engineer. but luckily the dude had a 3rd filter or he would have had a bill for £140 for the engineer visiting and doing the work. anyway managed to get him connected and I think I will be on the phone to AOL about this and any other ADSL ISP for that matter. Man this is making me Hey here's a thought maybe I should setup a site and have diagrams of every possible ADSL connection in the house so that customers know how to connect to ADSL without being told by their ISP to contact BT cos its their fault...what do u guys think?