91–100 of 153 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are monopolies that aren't regulated as utilities and have zero competition from the public sector.
> They are monopolies that aren't regulated They are actually heavily regulated. But they use that regulation as a way to prevent new competitors.
They told me I couldn't cancel in advance, I had to ring the month before I wanted the service cut, otherwise I'd cancel and it would end at the end of the month. When I rang during that month, they then told me I had to give a month's notice and would be charged for an extra month. Took me a few hours of phone calls to eventually get that dropped. A good consumer protection law would be some requirement that cancell…
In the UK, use this: https://www.aa.net.uk/ I'm not affiliated with them in any way. They just have a great reputation for good technical knowledge, privacy, and support.
Further more, their stance on internet censorship is laudable ("The Government says we have to offer customers a choice of censored internet. So here's your choice, if you want censorship pick another ISP.")
Nothing is harder than cancelling internet service, with the possible exception of cancelling a gym membership. In order to cancel Mediacom's 'service,' I had to send a letter[1] to them, with copies to their general counsel, threatening 99 kinds of lawsuit. I made the letter intentionally deranged, complete with footnotes about financial BDSM, to give them the impression that I would actually do it. They cancelled t…
The last time I changed my mobile phone number I did it to get away from the incessant harrassment from a gym after I canceled my membership (canceling was itself extremely difficult).
I feel this is one of the great beauties of the internet. It's so much harder for companies to hide behind branding when they display bad behaviours.
I’ve tried to cancel my virgin media subscription twice (because it’s too expensive), and each time was upsold a more expensive package. I explained this to my wife, who laughed at me, then the same thing happened to her.
I cancelled quite easily, because I explained that I was not only moving house, but moving into a house that already had Virgin Media broadband. I guess that moved them to the part of their script where they actually go through with the cancellation. I would probably use that again in the future, even if it were a lie.
Nothing is harder than cancelling internet service, with the possible exception of cancelling a gym membership. In order to cancel Mediacom's 'service,' I had to send a letter[1] to them, with copies to their general counsel, threatening 99 kinds of lawsuit. I made the letter intentionally deranged, complete with footnotes about financial BDSM, to give them the impression that I would actually do it. They cancelled t…
This is an anti-pattern that some companies follow. I remember trying to cancel an account from a grocery delivery service. There was no option online to cancel the subscription. The only option was to call them during their working hours which were different from mine because we were in different time zones. After waiting for 30mins I finally got connected to a human on the other side. They tried pressure sales tact…
This brings back memories of one of my first jobs. I worked for a call center outsourcing company doing overnight tech support for a nationwide ISP that would advise you when you received mail. One of the things we did was to dump all calls into the same call queue after 2am in my time zone so the first four hours of my shift were normal technical support calls and the last six hours were everything, including billing.
The contract owners in Virginia were very motivated that we continue the heavy-handed "retention" efforts even in the generalist phone queue. I remember one script we were given for cancellations ran to fifteen pages, including notes and policies.
But one of the myriad nice things about working in the middle of the night is there are no managers around to give a shit and the on-shift Quality Assurance rep was an employee of my call center company, not of the big ISP like on other shifts, and the overnight QA people officially gave zero shits. If anyone wound up in the all-purpose queue asking to cancel, we'd all do it with minimal hassle because we hated the process as much as the soon-to-be-ex-customers.
(When Virginia rolled out new policies to "verify" script compliance, like flagging cancellations made on calls with a handle time under ten minutes--which is saying something in itself--we'd just put the customer on hold for 12 minutes to "process the cancellation" and go on a free break.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We offer both the slower ADSL services and the faster VDSL (fibre to the cabinet) services, FTTP and G.FAST services where available. The package is available with a copper pair or you can use with a phone line you buy from another Openreach-based provider such as BT. https://www.aa.net.uk/broadband/home1/
I wish I understood, are you agreeing with me, or your quote is a contradiction?
Edit: to clarify, I'm saying they don't singularly operate on the copper ADSL component of the open reach network.
In the UK, use this: https://www.aa.net.uk/ I'm not affiliated with them in any way. They just have a great reputation for good technical knowledge, privacy, and support.
They're expensive, they have a data cap (but it's generous), and don't currently offer the higher g.fast or FTTP speeds, but:
- the support is consistently excellent and no-nonsense, and there's no upselling or questionable sales tactics
- phone calls are usually answered within seconds by someone who can actually help and doesn't just have a script, and they'll even give support over IRC if you want
- easy access to extra fixed v4 and v6
- they support the Open Rights Group, and have a clear stance against internet censorship
I've been a customer for over a decade now, and I still have no intention of leaving. Good CS on the odd occasion I need it more than makes up for the cost for me.
Only thing I'd love to see is access to faster FTTP speeds (330/50)!
It's not that easy to get a contract either... First they said "health and safety", they can't get a man to bring the cable up to 2nd floor. I said fine, how about I buy that cable, I drill my own walls, and bring you the cable down to the ground, can you connect that? "Sure, let's set up a date for engineer visit". All is ready, engineer comes carrying a modem... wtf... you are supposed to connect this to your box o…
Agreed, it is terrible. I ended up going with an enterprise-grade leased line that costs ~400£/month because that was the only choice besides Virgin, but honestly I'd rather be paying that much and know it pays fair wages to honest people then pay less but having it go in scammers' pockets.
Thankfully in London there is Hyperoptic and G.Network who offer real fibre (none of this fake fibre DSL or cable bullshit) at an affordable price (~50/month) so I'll switch to them as soon as they become available.