A story..of the installation from hell.

First of all, many thanks to everyine here who has helped..my neighbour!

I think this story is worth recounting, as it illustrates many of the
pitfalls of broadband when things don't go right.

The story was, this is an unssophisticated person who was on AOL dialup
for many years,and decided to 'go broadband' so they ordered AOL broadband.

That was back in September.

Nothing happened.
They phoned up numerous times, and then were told the usual guff in the
usual unintelligible englsih, until they asked me, as they had bought at
AOL's insistence, a Belkin router, and 'could I get it working'

Well I got the router working, but there was no ADSL.

It transpired that they had been on DACS, and BT had to rewire them with
a proper line.

That had taken about 8 weeks, and AOL had not felt it worthwhile
informing them. They were so incensed that they canceled their broadband
with AOL - which had never happened, and said 'is there anyone better?'

So we tried IDnet, after recommendations here. That reported a
pre-existing service on the line. I phoned up IDnet, and glory be
praised, spoke to an intelligent clearly English speaking support
engineer, of (even better) the female persuasion who said 'yup, your
tagged to AOL, now what you want to do is phone them up, and insist on
being connected to a manager in England: That is your right as enforced
by OFCOM or OFTEL (I forget which) and either get a MAC code from them,
also your right, or if they wont play ball, insist on the tag being
taken off the line, whereuopon we can reconnect you at a fee of the
usual 47 quid'

Armed with these clear instructions, my neighbour was ultimately able to
get a MAC code ou of AOL after 4 phone calls and being disconnected on
tree of them, and a refusal to do it, 'because you haven't got a service
with us' but then a final admission that 'there was a MAC code on that
line with us, so here it is and bugger off'

I just had a confirmation email (had to use mine: with no internet
access how could the neighbour receive one) that the online ordering is
through, and the neighbour should have broadband by the 30th.

I was PARTICULARLY impressed that the order half way through said
'*estimated 4Mbps service'. None of the 'up to 8Mps' crap.

The neighbour was totally happy to pay a few more quid a month for the
sake of having someone at the end of a phone who spoke their language
and understood the situation, and was able to truly support.

There is a lesson in there for the big ISP's. Support is part of what
you are selling chaps. Not just an overhead.

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
The Natural Philosopher <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:
> There is a lesson in there for the big ISP's. Support is part of what
> you are selling chaps. Not just an overhead.

The whole point of being big, selling _anything_, is that eventually, you
have enough customers that aren't, or don't have, any trouble that you can
afford to shit on the ones that have, or are, trouble. The _numbers_ of
customers with problems is roughly constant, so you just need to be large
enough so that that number, as a percentage, becomes small enough to
ignore. This works for ISPs, banks, supermarkets, pretty much anything.
--
SAm.

"The Natural Philosopher" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> First of all, many thanks to everyine here who has helped..my neighbour!
>
> I think this story is worth recounting, as it illustrates many of the
> pitfalls of broadband when things don't go right.
>
> The story was, this is an unssophisticated person who was on AOL dialup
> for many years,and decided to 'go broadband' so they ordered AOL
> broadband.
>
> That was back in September.
>
> Nothing happened.
> They phoned up numerous times, and then were told the usual guff in the
> usual unintelligible englsih, until they asked me, as they had bought at
> AOL's insistence, a Belkin router, and 'could I get it working'
>
> Well I got the router working, but there was no ADSL.
>
> It transpired that they had been on DACS, and BT had to rewire them with a
> proper line.
>
> That had taken about 8 weeks, and AOL had not felt it worthwhile
> informing them. They were so incensed that they canceled their broadband
> with AOL - which had never happened, and said 'is there anyone better?'
>
> So we tried IDnet, after recommendations here. That reported a
> pre-existing service on the line. I phoned up IDnet, and glory be praised,
> spoke to an intelligent clearly English speaking support engineer, of
> (even better) the female persuasion who said 'yup, your tagged to AOL, now
> what you want to do is phone them up, and insist on being connected to a
> manager in England: That is your right as enforced by OFCOM or OFTEL (I
> forget which) and either get a MAC code from them, also your right, or if
> they wont play ball, insist on the tag being taken off the line,
> whereuopon we can reconnect you at a fee of the usual 47 quid'
>
> Armed with these clear instructions, my neighbour was ultimately able to
> get a MAC code ou of AOL after 4 phone calls and being disconnected on
> tree of them, and a refusal to do it, 'because you haven't got a service
> with us' but then a final admission that 'there was a MAC code on that
> line with us, so here it is and bugger off'
>
> I just had a confirmation email (had to use mine: with no internet access
> how could the neighbour receive one) that the online ordering is through,
> and the neighbour should have broadband by the 30th.
>
> I was PARTICULARLY impressed that the order half way through said
> '*estimated 4Mbps service'. None of the 'up to 8Mps' crap.
>
> The neighbour was totally happy to pay a few more quid a month for the
> sake of having someone at the end of a phone who spoke their language and
> understood the situation, and was able to truly support.
>
> There is a lesson in there for the big ISP's. Support is part of what you
> are selling chaps. Not just an overhead.

I've mentioned this before, but I can always tell if a line has a
DACS just by lifting the receiver. The dial-tone sounds different.
Don't know why more people aren't sensitive to this, my farther
played the violin a bit, maybe it's that.

--
Graham.

%Profound_observation%

Sam Nelson wrote:
> In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
> The Natural Philosopher <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:
>> There is a lesson in there for the big ISP's. Support is part of what
>> you are selling chaps. Not just an overhead.
>
> The whole point of being big, selling _anything_, is that eventually, you
> have enough customers that aren't, or don't have, any trouble that you can
> afford to shit on the ones that have, or are, trouble. The _numbers_ of
> customers with problems is roughly constant, so you just need to be large
> enough so that that number, as a percentage, becomes small enough to
> ignore. This works for ISPs, banks, supermarkets, pretty much anything.

The *percentage* of customers with problems is maybe constant if your
service is, but when the bean counters start squeezing the bandwidth and
the support team so they can spend on national advertising, you will
lose customers.

Permanently.

you also lose their recommendations - the most potent form of marketing
there is.

In article <giqlr7$f4$(E-Mail Removed)>, Graham. <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>I've mentioned this before, but I can always tell if a line has a
>DACS just by lifting the receiver. The dial-tone sounds different.
>Don't know why more people aren't sensitive to this, my farther
>played the violin a bit, maybe it's that.

Ah, you youngsters...

I was on a customer site some time back to swap out a faulty
phone/headset. The girl was complaining of a whistle when she hung
up on a call - handed me the headset after finishing a call and said:
You listen to that horrible noise.

I put the headet on and couldn't hear anything.

She said it goes down in pitch after going off-hook/on hook a couple
of times before dissapearing... and sure enough 3 on/off cycles later
I could hear a high pitch tone.

But she'd able to hear it all the time. A new phone fixed it.

I guess making/selling phone systems isn't compatable with deafness.

Bother.

Gordon