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78 days, and still no broadband (Sky/Openreach, UK)

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Re: 78 days, and still no broadband (Sky/Openreach, UK)

#31

Post by jjoonathan »

arethuza wrote: post #29
DanBC wrote: post #22

One of the mistakes people make in situations like this is to make all their communication (and complaints) via telephone. Start writing real letters, on paper, in an envelope, with a stamp. Get proof of posting (but not proof of delivery) and start building up a paper trail. This way you get to show them what they promised, and that they didn't deliver that when they said they would. Learn how to write a complaint l…

I remember submitting a complaint to Vodafone once and when I submitted the relevant form on their website it gave a error - so I ended up complaining about their complaints process. :-)

Broken support systems seem to be the rule rather than the exception these days.

Re: 78 days, and still no broadband (Sky/Openreach, UK)

#32

Post by traceroute66 »

Oh ...Sky.

For those not intimately familiar with the UK ISP industry, allow me to fill you in.

Sky's home-broadband service was a spin-off from Easynet which was a spin-off from UKOnline (Easynet's business broadband went Interoute -> GTT).

UKOnline were a fantastic ISP back in the day, really, really good.

Then Easynet bought them. They kept the techies, which meant things still got fixed correctly and in a timely manner.

The shit didn't really start hitting the fan until the Easynet spinoffs started. Once the residential customers moved to Sky and the business customers moved to Interoute ... that's when the service levels dropped off a cliff.

As for who to use now ?

Well, others have mentioned Andrews & Arnold.

I would concurr. They might me more expensive than the rest, but they employ techies who know their stuff. And if their techies find out you are a techie, they will treat you as one and have a proper conversation, you don't need to beg and scream to speak to a level 3 tech .. at AAISP, most techs are highly knowledgeable.

Not only that, but the Andrews & Arnold management and monitoring system is one of the best I've seen. They've got these fancy graphs they generate 24x7. And you can see the full activity log in relation to your account (even down to notes left by Openreach engineers when they came to fix your line).

Not only that, but Andrews & Arnold will do things other ISPs won't do. You want some static IPv4 ? No problem. You want a /48 IPv6 ? No problem. Want to manage your own PTR records ? No problem.

For home users and small businesses who can't yet afford a leased line, Andrews & Arnold is the dogs bollocks.

Re: 78 days, and still no broadband (Sky/Openreach, UK)

#33

Post by arprocter »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #23
jon-wood wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You want to talk to ISPs that target themselves at business use, rather than consumer ISPs who are indeed all in a race to the bottom, with a side-serving of barely different custom routers. Zen Internet (zen.co.uk) have pricing comparable to consumer ISPs, but provide significantly better service, and have support staff who can actually fix your problems. Andrews & Arnold (aaisp.net.uk) are very much priced for busi…

Zen were terrible when we used them at home. Having used Zen in the past I was expecting better. They eventually provided a service, but it took longer than it should have and there were a lot of unnecessary mistakes and support calls along the way. We were literally trying to get them to work through a set up procedure they had somehow forgotten to do - on Christmas Eve, which was at least a week later than it shoul…

Although I haven't had the 'pleasure' of dealing with any of this in a good while, my experiences mirror your last paragraph.

It seems like a lot of the problems in the UK are down to the state of the POTS copper - if you're in an area that got NYNEX'd back in the day then cable is the way to go

Re: 78 days, and still no broadband (Sky/Openreach, UK)

#34

Post by mkohlmyr »

digianarchist wrote: post #26
Aeolun wrote: post #18

Meanwhile, getting my 2Gbit fiber cable installed and connected (in Japan) took only a few days. I’m continually surprised by these kinds of stories. Also by nobody seeming to have any idea about the situation. How hard is it to add a note to the customer file (and read it)?

The Labour Party’s national broadband policy isn’t looking so stupid now. https://www.bbc.com/news/election-2019-50427369

Just out of interest, what makes you think that nationalising OpenReach would make them deliver a better "customer" experience?

In my personal experience dealing with e.g. HMRC, local councils etc does not offer me much confidence on that front.

The only benefit I can see personally is that there might be less room for error if there's less need for changes as people move in and out of properties.

Re: 78 days, and still no broadband (Sky/Openreach, UK)

#36

Post by FerretFred »

DanBC wrote: post #22

One of the mistakes people make in situations like this is to make all their communication (and complaints) via telephone. Start writing real letters, on paper, in an envelope, with a stamp. Get proof of posting (but not proof of delivery) and start building up a paper trail. This way you get to show them what they promised, and that they didn't deliver that when they said they would. Learn how to write a complaint l…

> communication (and complaints) via telephone

If I do this I normally use a digital voice recorder but tell the drone at the other end that "I'm recording the conversation for training and quality purposes": that normally focusses their attention.

Re: 78 days, and still no broadband (Sky/Openreach, UK)

#37

Post by kawsper »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #23
jon-wood wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You want to talk to ISPs that target themselves at business use, rather than consumer ISPs who are indeed all in a race to the bottom, with a side-serving of barely different custom routers. Zen Internet (zen.co.uk) have pricing comparable to consumer ISPs, but provide significantly better service, and have support staff who can actually fix your problems. Andrews & Arnold (aaisp.net.uk) are very much priced for busi…

Zen were terrible when we used them at home. Having used Zen in the past I was expecting better. They eventually provided a service, but it took longer than it should have and there were a lot of unnecessary mistakes and support calls along the way. We were literally trying to get them to work through a set up procedure they had somehow forgotten to do - on Christmas Eve, which was at least a week later than it shoul…

Agreed about Zen, we experience random dropouts at night sometimes for hours, I don't know if they are doing unannounced infrastructure changes or what it is.

Re: 78 days, and still no broadband (Sky/Openreach, UK)

#38

Post by C1sc0cat »

digianarchist wrote: post #26
Aeolun wrote: post #18

Meanwhile, getting my 2Gbit fiber cable installed and connected (in Japan) took only a few days. I’m continually surprised by these kinds of stories. Also by nobody seeming to have any idea about the situation. How hard is it to add a note to the customer file (and read it)?

The Labour Party’s national broadband policy isn’t looking so stupid now. https://www.bbc.com/news/election-2019-50427369

It was stupid back then still stupid now.

Re: 78 days, and still no broadband (Sky/Openreach, UK)

#39

Post by phtrivier »

Forza to the poor soul navigating this (not an insurmountable problem, especially on 2020's scale, but annoying for sure.)

Anecdotally, it seems to me like this kind of horror stories only happens with ISP/Telco (to the point were I dread switching ISP for years)

Is that just an impression ? Was there an industry as prone to mishandle basic customer service like this in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, etc... Before ISP came to basically ruin our lives once every few years (and provide access to the greatest source of info in between ?)

I conjectures that the industry is so new that there has never been a "decent ISP" to set a gold standard, and that everyone is just operating into a "well, we shitty but so is everyone else" mindset. Is that accurate ?

Re: 78 days, and still no broadband (Sky/Openreach, UK)

#40

Post by craigmccreath »

Yep, similar issues with my provider moving in August, took 6 weeks to get a proper connection. Took a well-mannered engineer to basically press on while his boss was telling him to give up. From what I was able to get from my ISP (who also use Openreach for install) - it's a massively common issue and most of the lines have delays on them.
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