Broadband explained...

Hi there all.. it's Sunday afternoon, and the promised post about our internet problem is happening today.

Promise I'll try and keep cool and calm while posting...

Righto. So we moved into the flat on the 21st of May, signed the 3 month contract. The Monday afterwards I didn't do much other than to get my bicycle from previous place to here. For the 1st week it was all about just getting used to living here and settling into a semi kind of routine.

So the checklist was set up, need the following. 1st off, require BT line.. so applied, went through the whole process of ordering and activation, which was done remotely as this is an apartment block and they basically only had to activate the line on the exchange (pre-wired). Line was activated on the 3rd of June and so on the following Monday ( 5th) I went through the online process of ordering broadband service from Tiscali UK. Now this was done because we used them in the previous house and all things considered it was fairly painless to set up and get going on it.

They quoted the normal 10 - 15 working days to receive service, which was fine although I did phone up and they said that normally it only takes 8 working days to complete from ordering to activation, the quote is for if something goes wrong. More than acceptable as everything on my side was in the right I was of the thinking that it would all be sorted out.

This only amplified my surprise when I received an email from Tiscali the next Tuesday (at 16:20) that our application was rejected, because.. the phone line provided was not a BT line.. (after having received an email on the Thursday 8th I think...., that line tests were being conducted to make sure that service would be possible). I was not happy, and this is where the downward spiral starts.

So I have about 40 minutes of time ( cause the order chasing department of Tiscali closes at 17:00) to sort this out. First off I phone up BT, ask them if there is any markers on the database on the line that would have triggered something on the Tiscali system to say that it wasn't a BT line. They assured me there was nothing on their database that indicated any problems or any "markers" as they called it. Additional to that I asked if they could do a line test for me to see what kind of DSL speed would be available to me on the line. They put me through to a very Irish bloke who helped me very professoinally, and assured me that BT could provide me with 5.5 Mb/s dsl service. Sounded very tempting but they don't have an unlimited account policy and thus I phoned up Tiscali again.

So right, I phone them up. Told them that I spoke to BT and that the line is a BT line as there was never any other line at this address/extention and it was newly ordered. They apologised for the inconvenienced and said that they'll be resubmitting the order. Now with hindsight I should have cut my losses right there and went with someone else, but alas.. mistakes are there to be made.

I said that it was not acceptable that I basically had to have a new order from scratch because of a mistake on Tiscali's part. Because of Tiscali having remote (other country) call centers this was not the best call to be putting over my distaste in the progress of matters.

So I called back again about 30 minutes later, got a very keen guy on a much better line who told me that he completely understands and that he will escalate all this to a higher level and basically promised me dsl service by the next Tuesday afternoon.. which.. all things considered nowI should have know was a ruse. But I was a fairly easy bite at that moment, so I was caught.

So on the Friday I phoned up on the Tuesday to check on progress on the order, just to be told that my order has not progressed due to difficulty in their ordering system. This had me up in arms... I was not at all happy, and the only thing keeping my anger at bay was the fact that I was at work and my boss sits just two seats away from me.. I was not at all happy. I spoke to this lady and explained that I know it's not her fault, but that I could not accept this at all. She told me that she was going to put this order through as top priority and that she would escalate it to the highest network level possible.

After about 30 minutes on the phone to this lady and explaining the whole thing I decided it was time to get off, I was enraged with anger and nothing good was going to come out of just going on with the conversation. I kind of had to accept their plight of apology and the extended 5 - 8 working day schedule that was becoming the norm for me calling up.

So on this Tuesday past I call up again ( having previously been promised that service would be activated on the 19th of Jun), this time I had to hear that my order had been "stuck" in the order system due to outtages in their software in the previous 2 weeks.. *sigh*... I basically lost it right there and then, clearly voicing my distaste, as the record of my calling and having problems ( with all the internal service requests ) being in front of the consultant I was talking to. I voiced that I realised this was not his fault, but that he was now receiving my anger because of the company he's working for.

He assured me that he would have felt exactly the same had he be in my place. He assured me that he will escalate the order to top top priority and have this supervisor take personal care of the order, he convinced me, due to him being soft spoken and very considerate.

They gave me a final promise of service for this Wednesday evening, or Thursday morning latest. I have subseqeuntly phoned up a few times since Tuesday to make sure that things are in progress.

And thus it is that on Wednesday I hope to put up the DSL modem and check it all out and get going on our own inet.

This then concludes my rant of service problems in the UK. To be honest I think it was just one particular case and I was the unlucky bugger to receive it.

I was going to post about my new toys today as well, but I'll leave that for somewhere in the week, got other things I have to be doing as well.

Hope all is well with all the readers ( 2 or 3 I bet, if even that much )...

Greets
Z