Terrible Support and Experience with Cool Ideas

[lkpat]

Thanks, and yes, I completely understand. Engaging with another ISP around this is frivolous as it's Vumatel relative. I should have some feedback this am.

How can it be frivolous when the other ISPs are able to resolve Vumatels issue but cool ideas not?

 

[PBCool]

This does not appear to be promising. So, for the foreseeable future, we should anticipate to be offline?

That's not what I said at all

Vumatel have confirmed during maintenance they changed vlans without informing us.

 

[PBCool]

How can it be frivolous when the other ISPs are able to resolve Vumatels issue but cool ideas not?

Because Vumatel didn't change their vlans it seems so were unaffected.

Unrelated impact to what is happening to us.

 

[lkpat]

Thanks. These are all wireless related issues. For a stable connection, I would advise either run a cable or get an additional access point.

If its for work purposes, then cable is first prize.

Is this an option where they are? How do wireless services even compete?

 

[PBCool]

Its the pass the buck mentality that's the problem. "Oh its the line providers fault therefore its not the ISP"
The customer is with the ISP and they should be the one following up until the issue is resolved not leave the customer having to constantly chase them and log tickets and escalate matters. Its a bad system and the government should put laws in place like there was for phones that drops this "best effort" nonsense.

It's not a pass the buck mentality, it is a transparent mentality. I will happily admit if it was our fault.

And it is our responsibility, which is what we do. Sometimes, the processes simply aren't designed to deal with unexpected network changes during maintenance.

 

[PBCool]

Is this an option where they are? How do wireless services even compete?

Yeap so it's a Vumatel reach service which is an integrated solution from Vumatel, provides built in wireless and an ethernet port.

I'm not sure what you mean with "do wireless services even compete"

 

[PBCool]

Sounds like Vumatels have it in for cool ideas then.

My toruble with cool ideas was having no access to my router. No insight as to what's happening on that end and default (weak) passwords. No longer a cool ideas client, but something to think about if it hasn't changed.

Why didn't you have access to your router? Routers are supplied with default wireless passwords which are typically strong.

 

[lkpat]

Yeap so it's a Vumatel reach service which is an integrated solution from Vumatel, provides built in wireless and an ethernet port.

I'm not sure what you mean with "do wireless services even compete"

Maybe it was me who misunderstood your point about wireless being the issue. So this isn't a wan issue then?

 

[PBCool]

Maybe it was me who misunderstood your point about wireless being the issue. So this isn't a wan issue then?

No IE internal wireless.

 

[lkpat]

Why didn't you have access to your router? Routers are supplied with default wireless passwords which are typically strong.

Oops my bad. I'm thinking of mind the speed. Post deleted

 

[PBCool]

Oops my bad. I'm thinking of mind the speed. Post deleted

:|

 

[DeanMF21]

That's not what I said at all

Vumatel have confirmed during maintenance they changed vlans without informing us.

This information took Cool Ideas nearly 5 days to figure out - and the only reason I know this is because I had to write about our problem on a public forum since your support team is a failure - can you see how this does not inspire confidence?

 

[DeanMF21]

That's not what I said at all

Vumatel have confirmed during maintenance they changed vlans without informing us.

Also, so they informed all the other ISP's, just not you? And it took all the other ISP's less than 10 minutes to figure it out and fix it - but Cool Ideas only found out today? This does not make sense at all.

 

[swakop_toe]

Thanks. These are all wireless related issues. For a stable connection, I would advise either run a cable or get an additional access point.

If its for work purposes, then cable is first prize.

No, you are only reading what your staff noted.
Did they note that the laptop in use is a Lenovo IdeaPad S145 with no ETH port?
Did they note that the device is less than a meter from the wireless router and the router is hardwired to the FNO (installed by Vumatel).

The same device is used at my office with zero issues to a Ubiquiti AP more than 10m from him.

I myself ruled out WiFi issues by monitoring his connectivity with Wireshark. We are very IT tech versed, FWIW.

But your support staff insists on a hardlink test to the FNO, which is not possible.

And why, when Vumatel reprovision the line, is it fine for 24hours or so, then degrades again?

This is not a user device issue.

 

[FrikkieSwag]

Also, so they informed all the other ISP's, just not you? And it took all the other ISP's less than 10 minutes to figure it out and fix it - but Cool Ideas only found out today? This does not make sense at all.

You clearly didn't read his reply so here it is again:

This does not appear to be promising. So, for the foreseeable future, we should anticipate to be offline?

That's not what I said at all

Vumatel have confirmed during maintenance they changed vlans without informing us.

How can it be frivolous when the other ISPs are able to resolve Vumatels issue but cool ideas not?

Because Vumatel didn't change their vlans it seems so were unaffected.
Unrelated impact to what is happening to us.



So what were the other ISPs trying to figure out?

 

[DeanMF21]

You clearly didn't read his reply so here it is again:


That's not what I said at all

Vumatel have confirmed during maintenance they changed vlans without informing us.



Because Vumatel didn't change their vlans it seems so were unaffected.
Unrelated impact to what is happening to us.



So what were the other ISPs trying to figure out?

Are you an employee of Cool Ideas? Sounds like it, because you do not make much sense.

Consider this: Why would Vumatel only change the vlan of Cool Ideas and leave everyone else the same without informing them? Why does it take Cool Ideas 5 days to figure this out and are still not able to fix it, yet all other ISP's are online? Now there is a 4th party involved who must supposedly fix this, however the Cool Ideas support keeps blaming Vumatel, yet we have to pay for a service we don't receive with no chance of being refunded for the poor support?

Honestly, I am not sure who you are, or who you represent, but if you are not able to fix the issue or contribute to a solution for Cool Ideas, please don't get involved. Unless you're a troll, then Welcome to my thread.

 

[FrikkieSwag]

Are you an employee of Cool Ideas? Sounds like it, because you do not make much sense.

Consider this: Why would Vumatel only change the vlan of Cool Ideas and leave everyone else the same without informing them? Why does it take Cool Ideas 5 days to figure this out and are still not able to fix it, yet all other ISP's are online? Now there is a 4th party involved who must supposedly fix this, however the Cool Ideas support keeps blaming Vumatel, yet we have to pay for a service we don't receive with no chance of being refunded for the poor support?

Honestly, I am not sure who you are, or who you represent, but if you are not able to fix the issue or contribute to a solution for Cool Ideas, please don't get involved. Unless you're a troll, then Welcome to my thread.

Not an employee of Cool Ideas, just someone with 20/20 vision

 

[lkpat]

You clearly didn't read his reply so here it is again:


That's not what I said at all

Vumatel have confirmed during maintenance they changed vlans without informing us.



Because Vumatel didn't change their vlans it seems so were unaffected.
Unrelated impact to what is happening to us.



So what were the other ISPs trying to figure out?

So much confusion in one post.
Hard to know which are your words and others if you don't use the quote feature.

 

[PBCool]

Also, so they informed all the other ISP's, just not you? And it took all the other ISP's less than 10 minutes to figure it out and fix it - but Cool Ideas only found out today? This does not make sense at all.

Let me elaborate a bit more here:

So a typical Vumatel maintenance event entails us getting notice, Vumatel making changes on their side be it backhaul upgrades, equipment changes or the like. Typically nothing facing us changes, unless they give us notice of there being changes. (In this case there were no planned changes)

So in this case Vumatel made changes, and once done customers come back online.

It affected a particular package relative to us (A vlan they removed by accident), which means most customers came back online, but not all.

This then doesn't trigger any major events for us and so is treated as regular line downs, that is all we can see from our side. (And so regular process follows, log with Vumatel, Vumatel checks line is up, closes ticket, dispute ticket and so forth)

Once we have been through said process we can escalate further for the Vumatel netops team to investigate, which is what happened this morning. To which they found in error they removed one of our vlans affecting you and a couple other customers.

I hope this explains it better, IE the change impacted us only and a specific bunch of customers.

I believe Vumatel re-instated the affected vlans this morning and will get a report from them for you.

 

[DeanMF21]

Let me elaborate a bit more here:

So a typical Vumatel maintenance event entails us getting notice, Vumatel making changes on their side be it backhaul upgrades, equipment changes or the like. Typically nothing facing us changes, unless they give us notice of there being changes. (In this case there were no planned changes)

So in this case Vumatel made changes, and once done customers come back online.

It affected a particular package relative to us (A vlan they removed by accident), which means most customers came back online, but not all.

This then doesn't trigger any major events for us and so is treated as regular line downs, that is all we can see from our side. (And so regular process follows, log with Vumatel, Vumatel checks line is up, closes ticket, dispute ticket and so forth)

Once we have been through said process we can escalate further for the Vumatel netops team to investigate, which is what happened this morning. To which they found in error they removed one of our vlans affecting you and a couple other customers.

I hope this explains it better, IE the change impacted us only and a specific bunch of customers.

Thank you, this actually does make a lot more sense now.
I hope that now that the fault has been identified, it will be fixed soon.