I don't know if this subject has been aired before. We have been having awful trouble with faults, idiotic call centres, helpless and hapless engineers. There is a culture of grabbing your money and not caring about service. The 'infrastructure' (wires, exchanges, etc) seems to be crumbling, and the organisations are both Machiavellian and Kafka-esque. I know I am not alone, because having been on a merrygoround of buckpassing for the past five months, I have become aware that many others have experienced similar...in some cases unbelievable...problems. Does this strike a chord with anyone on The Forum?
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I am with TalkTalk and despite their bad reputation for customer service I've had no problem with them (touches wood!). When a troublesome router finally packed in they sent a free replacement very quickly and, so far, (touches wood again!) it has performed well.
No complaints from me."The sound is the handwriting of the conductor" - Bernard Haitink -
Absolutely! We had a significant period before Christmas with no or very limited service for over two weeks. There was a real problem apparently - water got into the network cables about 3/4 of a mile away - but TalkTalk would not talk to BT sensibly, and when we asked for compensation for loss of service they claimed that they could not do that because it was an "outage" - they even use different terminology. While I accept that TalkTalk was not in this case responsible, they seemed to be dilatory regarding pushing for the faults to be rectified with BT/BT Openreach, and also I would be very surprised if there were no contractual arrangements between TalkTalk and BT Openreach. TalkTalk should have been able to claim from the third party companies, and pass at least part of any penalty claims back to customers. We had/have two ISPs - the other being John Lewis. Services from both ISPs were affected by the same infrastructure faults. JL acknowledged the faults, kept us informed about what was going on, and claiming for the loss of connection was done very well and we thought they did rather well.Originally posted by ardcarp View Post
As a result of this, we gave up on TalkTalk, and switched back to BT - this time a fibre based service, which so far appears to have fewer technical problems - though still has some. The BT download rates over fibre are very significantly better, which is good for some things. However BT can be voraciously expensive, with expensive bundled telephone service, and broadband download charging can become expensive if one goes over monthly limits. We still have the JL link, which technically is not perfect, but it provides both phone and broadband services at reasonable cost. We now use the JL line for all outgoing phone calls, after I noticed how much BT outgoing phone calls were after only a few weeks. The cost of additional equipment to exert more control over which ISP gets which traffic has almost certainly been recovered by now - probably within only one or two months. I spent a few pounds on a long telephone cable to link to one set of cordless phones - for the outgoing calls, and about £66 for a new wireless access point plus two powerline adapters to give improved wireless coverage inside our house for the JL service, which is useful for downloads. There's a slight inconvenience of having to remember which AP to connect to in order to get different types of service. Bulk downloads are done via JL. Occasionally we make a mistake and dial out on a phone connected to the BT line, but it's mostly manageable. Probably phone calls via TalkTalk were cheaper than using BT - though not cheaper than our current usage patterns.
Ideally it would be good to only have to deal with one ISP - which is what most people do - but we find that overall we do get greater reliability by having two and an internal infrastructure which allows us to switch between them. It is more complex though, and we reached this situation almost by accident. We were going to simplify and go down to only one ISP, but reliability and charging issues, and some other technical issues and patterns of usage related to wireless coverage in our house have persuaded us to keep the two for the time being.Comment
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Here's an idea
As more or less (and i'm sure we all know of a few folks who don't !) everyone in the country uses a telephone line and wants a way to connect to the internet. SO why not, instead of having lots of folks doing what amounts to the same thing, often using the same infrastructure that we have a single organisation (maybe that we all own ?) responsible ? Then we all know where to go ?
That would mean that the endless fake 'choices' that we are constantly asked to make are reduced and we can redeploy our critical faculties to more important and significant issues such as vibrato in Baroque music, Belgian beers, cheese and understanding Ornette Coleman.
You never know , it might catch on as an idea and we could even end up with other significant things being shared. Just think what it would do to the country if we had a National Health Service
The one constant in all of these discussions about phones and ISP etc is that they are more or less ALL sh*t , most folks (and I would class myself in this) who have something that (almost?) works will stick to it in fear of it all coming tumbling down again !
I don't want more choice about this..... I want to spend that time thinking about what particular variety of broad beans to grow and whether the voicing of the chord i've written is right !Comment
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Hurray for Gongers!!! AND water AND electricity AND refuse- collection AND the postal service AND railways. But hang on, we had Thatcher a couple of decades ago who put rampant get-rich-quick capitalism on a pedestal and (IMV) destroyoed idealism, honour and integrity in public service.SO why not, instead of having lots of folks doing what amounts to the same thing, often using the same infrastructure that we have a single organisation (maybe that we all own ?) responsible ? Then we all know where to go ?
Back to the ardcarps' phone. Yes, it's been a Talk Talk/BT Open Reach cock-up for us too. And when you get one of the BT engineers to talk off the record they tell a sorry tale about the state of things.
Every time an engineer calls Talk Talk slap an extra £50 on the bill for the service we're not receiving anyway. As the fault is not (and never has been)on our premises they shouldn't do this...and every time we spend hours on the phone getting the charge removed again.
As for compensation for things such as loss of earnings, kids unable to do schoolwork online, HUGE inconvenience, etc, etc, well HAHAHAHAHA.Comment
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For both broadband and telephone, I use small companies introduced to me by word of mouth. They have been excellent. Once we had to call in BT engineers to repair an external fault of the line but they did internal work as well without our asking them. We got a bill of £600. The telephone company dealt with it for us very quickly. My ISP knows me by name and always very patient and helpful.Comment
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Can you let me know the company name, dovers? Either here or by PM?
Thanks!Comment
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PM's on the way
Best
dsComment
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MrGG
So it's not OK to have choice in broadband and phones - and I agree with some of your sentiments re service quality etc.
However, is it OK IYO to have a choice of 80 different recordings of Beethoven's 2nd symphony and to have R3 airwaves filled with a couple of critics waffling on about them? Why not have just one? It's the same music - innit?Comment
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Choice can be a pain in the arseOriginally posted by Dave2002 View Post
or
it can be a wonderful thing
I was at a meeting this week with some folks designing a sound mapping ipad app one of the first questions from the geekwizards was whether what we imagined already existed. Some people / companies spend endless amounts of time making things that are already there.
Meaningful choice is what we need not "choice" for the sake of it !Comment
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I don't get to high-powered meetings like that, but I totally agreeOriginally posted by MrGongGong View Post
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Well to these companies customer service is simply a cost, with the result that we see. ("We are receiving unprecedented levels of calls". Yes, sure you are.) But I don't share MrGongGong's unalloyed enthusiasm for nationalization. Such 'industries' have a tendency to be run in the interests of those who work in them, and associated apparatchiks, particularly if trade unions can get their hands on the levers of power. After all, isn't that the point of socialism: power to the workers and all that? The NHS seems to be an incorrigible example of this tendency, though I should perhaps qualify the point to 'in the interests of managers and clinicians'.Originally posted by MrGongGong View PostComment
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er...shareholders?But I don't share MrGongGong's unalloyed enthusiasm for nationalization. Such 'industries' have a tendency to be run in the interests of those who work in them,
Choice is fine in areas where there is a genuine choice. But, AFAIK water and gas come through the same pipes and telephone and electricity come through the same wires. So in these 'natural monopoly' situations, choice is simply who you choose to grab money off you.. The complicated and arcane accounting systems within the networks are bad enough, but when it comes to who is responsible for customer service, well, don't get me started.Comment
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Of course some things will change when the price of copper means that it becomes economically viable to rip up all the 6 core phone cables (of which only 2 are used !) and replace them ........
Life isn't necessarily a choice between unfettered capitalism and inefficient socialism you know
more things are possible..... maybe a bit more imagination is called for ?
What would Turing have done ?Comment
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www.eclipse.co.uk.
Been with them for years. They speak English.I have a medical condition- I am fool intolerant.Comment
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