We are not alone with adsl problems

[grahambell]

Always on, except when it's off

Broadband offers the salivating prospect of a fast and always-on internet connection, until something goes wrong, as BBC News Online's Gary Eason found out.
We like the internet. We use it for all sorts - news obviously, weather and travel information, maps, shopping, digital radio and so on.


Going nowhere fast
So we got "always on" ADSL as soon as it was affordably available in our area of Buckinghamshire last year and soon could not imagine being without it.

Until Wednesday 30 July this year, that is, when BT Openworld suffers a major fault at an exchange in Reading which also affects many other exchanges. We and numerous others lose our ADSL service.

When it is still not back next morning I ring BT Openworld Technical Support - press 2, press 2 again, and listen through interminable recordings telling me things I already know.

When finally I get a person he tells me we should be back online "by lunchtime or early afternoon". We aren't, but at least he has given us a dialup modem number so we can connect.

Closed

We are out most of the Friday, but when the ADSL line is still not responding by that evening I ring Support once more - press 2, press ... you get the idea.
Read more
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3192055.stm


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[pdos]

Lovely story, but note that they were twice offered two free months rental as compensation.

 

[ASF]

That's the value of competition - give the client a freebee and keep him / her longterm OR loose the business altogether...

Unfortunately not the case her in good old SA with the Telkom monopoly - their time will come though...

 

[grahambell]

Look on the positive side Telkom might read the article and respond accordingly.
We can but live in hope !!!!

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[grahambell]

Enjoy this very humurous supposedly authentic letter.....

What follows is a superb example of British humour in A LETTER THAT WAS TRULY WRITTEN AND SENT. The piece suggests two things:

1) Americans and Canadians (or South Africans) are not the only ones who get poor service from their ISP, cable and/or alarm companies. (NTL is a cable operator in Britain).
2) The Brits probably write the world's best letters of complaint.

Dear Cretins:
I have been an NTL customer since 9th July 2001, when I signed up for your four-in-one deal for cable TV, cable modem, telephone, and alarm monitoring.
During this three-month period I have encountered inadequacy of service which I had not previously considered possible, as well as ignorance and stupidity of monolithic proportions.
Please allow me to provide specific details, so that you can either pursue your professional prerogative and seek to rectify these difficulties -- or more likely (I suspect) so that you can have some entertaining reading material as you while away the working day smoking B&H and drinking vendor-coffee on the bog in your office.

My initial installation was cancelled without warning, resulting in my spending an entire Saturday sitting on my fat arse waiting for your technician to arrive. When he did not arrive, I spent a further 57 minutes listening to your infuriating hold music, and the even more annoying Scottish robot woman telling me to look at your helpful website. HOW?

I alleviated the boredom by playing with my testicles for a few minutes -- an activity at which you are no doubt both familiar and highly adept. The rescheduled installation then took place some two weeks later, although the technician did forget to bring a number of vital tools -- such as a drill-bit, and his cerebrum.

Two weeks later, my cable modem had still not arrived. After 15 telephone calls over four weeks my modem arrived, six weeks after I had requested
it -- and begun to pay for it. I estimate your internet server's downtime is roughly 35% -- the hours between about 6 pm and midnight, Monday through Friday, and most of the weekend. I am still waiting for my telephone connection.

I have made nine calls on my mobile to your no-help line, and have been unhelpfully transferred to a variety of disinterested individuals who are, it seems, also highly skilled bollock jugglers. I have been informed that a telephone line is available (and someone will call me back); that I will be transferred to someone who knows whether or not a telephone line is available (and then been cut off); that I will be transferred to someone (and then been redirected to an answering machine informing me that your office is closed); that I will be transferred to someone and then been redirected to the irritating Scottish robot woman. And several other variations on this theme.

Doubtless you are no longer reading this letter, as you have at least a thousand other dissatisfied customers to ignore, and also another one of those crucially important testicle moments to attend to.

Frankly I don't care. It's far more satisfying as a customer to voice my frustrations in print than to shout them at your unending hold music. Forgive me, therefore, if I continue.

I thought British Telecom was ****; that they had attained the holy piss-pot of god-awful customer relations; and that no one, anywhere, ever, could be
more disinterested, less helpful or more obstructive to delivering service to their customers. That's why I chose NTL, and because, well, there isn't anyone else is there?

How surprised I therefore was, when I discovered to my considerable dissatisfaction and disappointment what a useless shower of bastards you truly are. You are sputum-filled pieces of distended rectum incompetents of the highest order. BT -- ****ers though they are -- shine like brilliant
beacons of success in the filthy mire of your seemingly limitless inadequacy.

Suffice to say that I have now given up on my futile and foolhardy quest to receive any kind of service from you. I suggest that you cease any potential future attempts to extort payment from me for the services which you have
so pointedly and catastrophically failed to deliver. Any such activity will be greeted initially with hilarity and disbelief and will quickly be replaced
by derision, and even perhaps bemused rage.

I enclose two small deposits, selected with great care from my cat's litter tray, as an expression of my utter and complete contempt for both you and
your pointless company. I sincerely hope that they have not become desiccated during transit -- they were satisfyingly moist at the time of posting, and I would feel considerable disappointment if you did not experience both their rich aroma and delicate texture. Consider them the very embodiment of my feelings towards NTL, and its worthless employees.

Have a nice day. May it be the last in your miserable short lives, you irritatingly incompetent and infuriatingly unhelpful bunch of twits.



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[rpm]

Hi GrahamBell

A truly well-written complaint. After this letter I am grateful to be with Telkom Thanks for sharing this…I had a nice laugh.

Regards,

RPM
[email protected]

 

[Gamos]

<Post removed>

 

[ASnogarD]

LOL - brilliant, I had a great laugh. Prehaps we should use that as a template (after editing to match context) for future correspondance with services we are unsatisfied with []

Thanks for the laugh []

 

[microfast]

Grahambell,

Please could we have more of this - superb, I have not laughed so much on this forum.

 

[grahambell]

Glad you guys enjoyed it...I also had tears in my eyes.
You can just so sense his frustration...no copywrite so use at will[]
But more on-subject note; read this, which comes off the BBC website.

Goodbye to a flat rate for broadband?
BBC News Online technology reporter


The days of paying a flat rate for broadband access may soon be gone -we could be charged according to what we download, to ease congestion online and share bandwidth more fairly.

Some use a lot; others a little
Ever been out to dinner with a big group of people, only to feel cheated when everyone splits the bill equally?

The way Britons pay for broadband internet access in the UK is remarkably similar - customers who only log on to pick up e-mails pay the same as those with big appetites for fat downloads. But this could change soon.

Broadband is more widely available than ever, with BT announcing 80% of the UK able to get it if they want it. As such, competition between service providers has forced down subscription prices.

Many of those who sign up are attracted by peer-to-peer file-swapping, and downloading or streaming large files of video and music.

Problem is, the broadband pipes are getting crowded. As one user downloads their e-mails, another next-door might be trying to watch the latest Kylie video. The resulting congestion makes the broadband experience less satisfactory for both.

Congestion charge

Between 60 and 80% of bandwidth is being eaten up by a fraction of customers - who are mainly engaged in peer-to-peer activity - and, according to the industry, the rest are penalised because of the heavy users sharing the network.

Heavy users are using so much of the network that another who wants to talk to someone online suffers


Some organisations have tried imposing daily limits on how much people can download, but this has not proved popular.

Now service providers are testing ways to tighten the bandwidth belt. Many are trialling technology that helps manage traffic on the network and also shows who is using broadband, what for and when.

"The last four or five years has been about building this infrastructure of a high-speed network, providing a dumb access," says Milind Gadekar, vice-president of P-Cube, whose monitoring system is being tested by service providers in Europe.

Now, he says, service providers need to make their networks "intelligent" so they can identify users and the applications used. This will eventually allow them to offer priority access for some services and so avoid traffic jams.

Pay for what's used

This also opens the way for flat rates to be replaced by a tiered price list depending on usage.


Congestion is a problem online as on the roads
It sounds like a good idea, as no-one wants to pay over the odds for unused services.

"All consumers are not equal," says Mr Gadekar. "You have some of the heavy users who are using so much of the network that a user who wants to do a simple video stream or talk to someone over the internet suffers.

"If my mum only does web and e-mail and wants her high-speed connection to only do that, she doesn't care if her streaming video is slow."

So with the technology, service providers could start to offer people like Mrs Gadekar cheap broadband access - for, perhaps, £20 a month, which competes with dial-up access - which provides fast e-mail and slow streaming.

Fast and slow

The idea is that bandwidth can be divided up more sensibly so each user gets what they want. Critics say this is one way to lure customers into signing up for a level of access they rarely use.


Too slow to play?
What it does mean is that how we pay for broadband could change, such as a bandwidth on demand model, says Celine Bak, of Bridgewater Systems, another supplier of this technology.

Online gamers, for instance, could pay to boost their bandwidth speed from 512kbps to 3mbps for the duration of the game. And those working from home could automatically up it for a set period each day, or on an ad hoc basis.

What could be difficult is to persuade new customers to plan what they want to do on the web. At least in the short-term, perhaps many would prefer to split the bill evenly while they sample what is on offer.




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[Wendy]

My, my - I truly wish I had seen this before I sent my letter to Telkom - says exactly my feelings in a far better way.....[] Thanks for the great laugh!