CentralPoint / Fast24 migration problems

So there I was, happy as Larry with my ISP - CentralPoint, who were
providing a sterling service. Any problems which came up were dealt
with very swiftly via an 0845 support number, or use the effective
web-based helpdesk system.

Then, in August, CentralPoint were bought out by Fast24. What started
as a flowery mutually complementary press release delivered to my inbox
has translated to a complete loss of connection (1 week and counting),
daily calls to a premium rate 0906 support number which, if you're
lucky enough to get through, all seem to end with a promised call back
which never materialises, and ultimately my decision tonight to can
them completely and find a competent ISP.

I have a few questions:

a) My legal position. I have no contract that I'm aware of with Fast24
unless they have somehow used a loophole to "buy" my contratual
commitment to CP when they bought them out. I don't propose to pay for
any service beyond last Tuesday, which is when my connection died.
This will involve me in needing to get a refund. Where do I stand with
regard to telling my credit card provider that any debit taken by
Fast24 is without my consent and getting a chargeback applied?

b) Fast24 inform me they don't issue MAC codes, all they can do is
cease the connection and then I'll have to order service from someone
else. Any way around this so I don't have a long gap in service?

c) I need a good ISP! I'm thinking Bulldog, Pipex or Plusnet. My
wants will be 2 Meg service, no port blocking, and a static IP would be
nice. Any recommendations?

Thanks all, I'm not very clued up on broadband providers as I've been
with CP for a while. All good things have to come to an end I suppose.

On 19 Sep 2005 [sometime], "Sniffy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Then, in August, CentralPoint were bought out by Fast24....
>ultimately my decision tonight ... find a competent ISP.

>a) My legal position. I have no contract that I'm aware of

I expect you do, as you've stuck with them since they took over CP.

>This will involve me in needing to get a refund.

blocking future payment might be most you can do and you might still
be liable for 1 month's notice, but I'd risk it with "Take me to court
for the money... when they hear my side - no active connection, costly
phone calls to support, no return calls despite them being promised,
and see who they award compensation to as I'd counter-claim."

>b) Fast24 inform me they don't issue MAC codes, all they can do is
>cease the connection and then I'll have to order service from someone
>else. Any way around this so I don't have a long gap in service?

Probably not. If you are in dispute, don't expect them to contact BT W
to cancel ADSL - your line could be flagged as having "active" ADSL for
some time if you go into dispute. I'd be ordering a second phone line,
and possibly giving up the one you have, if it goes for a month without
being able to sign up with any other ISP.

>c) I need a good ISP! I'm thinking Bulldog, Pipex or Plusnet. My
>wants will be 2 Meg service, no port blocking, and a static IP would be
>nice. Any recommendations?

Depends how much traffic you want each day... Plus.Net has no port blocks
on the account I use (Broadband Plus) but does do traffic "calming" such
that Usenet and peer-to-peer are slow. On their more costly Premier a/c
they have no port blocks but if you exceed 30 GB (a month) of traffic in
their peak hours of 16:00 to midnight, you might find yourself put onto a
"traffic throttling" facility for those hours (drops data to 67 kbps for
the whole of that 8 hour period). Metronet at 26.99 (?) gives 150 GB of
traffic a month, Freedom 2 Surf, AOL, Demon, Fasthosts, Zen all claim no
limits on traffic on various accounts, some might be well over 30 quid to
have that at 2000 kbps. Depends where you are for Bulldog/UK Online but
you might be able to get faster than 2000 kbps. Forget the static IP
with a number of those services, however.

Peter M. (14.99 account, but because others have signed up, pay less!)

--

UK ADSL <http://tinyurl.com/5jpa4> - Happy to save cash with Plus.Net!!

On 19 Sep 2005 11:18:54 -0700, "Sniffy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

I have had no service issues with them, but want to move for financial reasons.

On the metronet site it says that since the 2nd of August all ISPs should be able to issue a MAC
code. Ive asked for one but have not got one yet.

If you need to phone them look them up on BT.com they have a normal number



Chris

>So there I was, happy as Larry with my ISP - CentralPoint, who were
>providing a sterling service. Any problems which came up were dealt
>with very swiftly via an 0845 support number, or use the effective
>web-based helpdesk system.
>
>Then, in August, CentralPoint were bought out by Fast24. What started
>as a flowery mutually complementary press release delivered to my inbox
>has translated to a complete loss of connection (1 week and counting),
>daily calls to a premium rate 0906 support number which, if you're
>lucky enough to get through, all seem to end with a promised call back
>which never materialises, and ultimately my decision tonight to can
>them completely and find a competent ISP.
>
>I have a few questions:
>
>a) My legal position. I have no contract that I'm aware of with Fast24
>unless they have somehow used a loophole to "buy" my contratual
>commitment to CP when they bought them out. I don't propose to pay for
>any service beyond last Tuesday, which is when my connection died.
>This will involve me in needing to get a refund. Where do I stand with
>regard to telling my credit card provider that any debit taken by
>Fast24 is without my consent and getting a chargeback applied?
>
>b) Fast24 inform me they don't issue MAC codes, all they can do is
>cease the connection and then I'll have to order service from someone
>else. Any way around this so I don't have a long gap in service?
>
>c) I need a good ISP! I'm thinking Bulldog, Pipex or Plusnet. My
>wants will be 2 Meg service, no port blocking, and a static IP would be
>nice. Any recommendations?
>
>Thanks all, I'm not very clued up on broadband providers as I've been
>with CP for a while. All good things have to come to an end I suppose.

"poster" <us-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed). net...

Please will you give it a rest with your constant plsunet promoting, its
broing and anyway they wont be around much longer judging by what people at
adslguide forums are saying

Sniffy wrote:

....
> c) I need a good ISP! I'm thinking Bulldog, Pipex or Plusnet. My
> wants will be 2 Meg service, no port blocking, and a static IP would be
> nice. Any recommendations?
....

Get Blueyonder. Static IP, uncapped, no blocked ports, no traffic shaping
[that I can detect, anyway]. The downsides are that it's 35 quid a month,
and only 256k upload, but the upside is that it'll be 10Mbit pretty soon.

I've had it three years, and I've had less than 12 hours of downtime. They
only charged me 25 quid to re-install it when I moved house. I'm yet to
call customer services. The transparent proxy server is exactly that.

--
<http://ale.cx/> (AIM:troffasky) ((E-Mail Removed))
21:41:28 up 8:14, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.04, 0.03
This is my BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMSTICK

In news:(E-Mail Removed),
alexd <(E-Mail Removed)> opined very noisily:
> Sniffy wrote:
>
> ...
>> c) I need a good ISP! I'm thinking Bulldog, Pipex or Plusnet. My
>> wants will be 2 Meg service, no port blocking, and a static IP would
>> be nice. Any recommendations?
> ...
>
> Get Blueyonder. Static IP, ( not correct ,it is a dynamic IP but will
> normally stay the same) uncapped, no blocked ports, no traffic
> shaping [that I can detect, anyway]. The downsides are that it's 35
> quid a month, and only 256k upload, but the upside is that it'll be
> 10Mbit pretty soon. (and 348k upload)
>
> I've had it three years, and I've had less than 12 hours of downtime.
> They only charged me 25 quid to re-install it when I moved house. I'm
> yet to call customer services. The transparent proxy server is
> exactly that.


--

Yddap
Remove guts to reply

>
> a) My legal position. I have no contract that I'm aware of with Fast24
> unless they have somehow used a loophole to "buy" my contratual
> commitment to CP when they bought them out. I don't propose to pay for
> any service beyond last Tuesday, which is when my connection died.
> This will involve me in needing to get a refund. Where do I stand with
> regard to telling my credit card provider that any debit taken by
> Fast24 is without my consent and getting a chargeback applied?
>
> b) Fast24 inform me they don't issue MAC codes, all they can do is
> cease the connection and then I'll have to order service from someone
> else. Any way around this so I don't have a long gap in service?
>
> c) I need a good ISP! I'm thinking Bulldog, Pipex or Plusnet. My
> wants will be 2 Meg service, no port blocking, and a static IP would be
> nice. Any recommendations?
>
> Thanks all, I'm not very clued up on broadband providers as I've been
> with CP for a while. All good things have to come to an end I suppose.


Just do what i did. I asked them to cancel my account which they said they
would do. They've stopped taking money but at the moment I'm still
connected.(Just over two months!!!) Staying put till they kick me off

> Get Blueyonder. Static IP, uncapped, no blocked ports, no traffic shaping
> [that I can detect, anyway]. The downsides are that it's 35 quid a month,
> and only 256k upload, but the upside is that it'll be 10Mbit pretty soon.
>
> I've had it three years, and I've had less than 12 hours of downtime. They
> only charged me 25 quid to re-install it when I moved house. I'm yet to
> call customer services. The transparent proxy server is exactly that.

Indeed, if you're lucky enough to be in a BY area, go for it.

However, I'd be cautious due to the impending merge with NTL; hopefully the
merged company will take on BY's approach to broadband rather than NTL's.

poster wrote:

> On 19 Sep 2005 [sometime], "Sniffy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
> > Then, in August, CentralPoint were bought out by Fast24....
> > ultimately my decision tonight ... find a competent ISP.
>
> > a) My legal position. I have no contract that I'm aware of
>
> I expect you do, as you've stuck with them since they took over CP.

Hmm, not convinced about this one.

> > This will involve me in needing to get a refund.
>
> blocking future payment might be most you can do and you might still
> be liable for 1 month's notice, but I'd risk it with "Take me to
> court for the money... when they hear my side - no active connection,
> costly phone calls to support, no return calls despite them being
> promised, and see who they award compensation to as I'd
> counter-claim."

Yes, maybe an option. As it happens, I'm now reconsidering whether to
cancel right now. There's a fault. They're dealing with it. If I
cancel the service now and go elsewhere it's possible I'll just loose
the time involved in swapping services and then still have a faulty
service with the new provider. Maybe the thing to do is to wait until
Fast24 get things up and running then plan a more seamless switch.

> > b) Fast24 inform me they don't issue MAC codes, all they can do is
> > cease the connection and then I'll have to order service from
> > someone else. Any way around this so I don't have a long gap in
> > service?
>
> Probably not. If you are in dispute, don't expect them to contact BT
> W to cancel ADSL - your line could be flagged as having "active" ADSL
> for some time if you go into dispute. I'd be ordering a second phone
> line, and possibly giving up the one you have, if it goes for a month
> without being able to sign up with any other ISP.

Yes, another reason not to leave while in dispute.

> > c) I need a good ISP! I'm thinking Bulldog, Pipex or Plusnet. My
> > wants will be 2 Meg service, no port blocking, and a static IP
> > would be nice. Any recommendations?
>
> Depends how much traffic you want each day... Plus.Net has no port
> blocks on the account I use (Broadband Plus) but does do traffic
> "calming" such that Usenet and peer-to-peer are slow. On their more
> costly Premier a/c they have no port blocks but if you exceed 30 GB
> (a month) of traffic in their peak hours of 16:00 to midnight, you
> might find yourself put onto a "traffic throttling" facility for
> those hours (drops data to 67 kbps for the whole of that 8 hour
> period).

I'm not keen on services which are restricted in any way.

> Metronet at 26.99 (?) gives 150 GB of traffic a month,
> Freedom 2 Surf, AOL, Demon, Fasthosts, Zen all claim no limits on
> traffic on various accounts, some might be well over 30 quid to have
> that at 2000 kbps.

I wouldn't touch Demon with a rotting bargepole after a past dispute,
AOL likewise, just because they're AOL. Will look at the others,
thanks.

> Depends where you are for Bulldog/UK Online but
> you might be able to get faster than 2000 kbps. Forget the static IP
> with a number of those services, however.

Static IP probably isn't essential right now. I'm not running servers.
It just makes set up for bittorrent easier.



--

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:

> On 19 Sep 2005 11:18:54 -0700, "Sniffy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
> I have had no service issues with them, but want to move for
> financial reasons.
>
> On the metronet site it says that since the 2nd of August all ISPs
> should be able to issue a MAC code. Ive asked for one but have not
> got one yet.
>
> If you need to phone them look them up on BT.com they have a normal
> number

I'm aware of their standard rate number, it's on their website. Lately
it's been no use at all as they've simply had a recorded announcement
informing centralpoint customers of the need to change their username
(since they failed to inform people in advance of a critical change in
username format that basically cut off all the previous CP customers
last Tues).