A change of ISP
One of my responsibilities at work is to look after our network and its Internet connection. I’ve been unhappy with our current supplier, Demon, for some time now.
It started when we found out they’d been overcharging us – at least that’s how I see it. They would say that they reduced the cost of our service but did not automatically reduce our charges as it is their policy not to make reductions for existing customers until asked to do so. I know this because they told me when I complained. I decided then to look for an alternative ISP. I didn’t find anything suitable straight away.
Recently we’ve been having a lot of problems with our router. It’s a BT supplied box and comes with the service from Demon. The line keeps dropping and the usual thing that works to get it back is to cycle the power on the router. If that fails then logging the router on to the BT test address then back to our normal connection works.
Naturally I’ve become fed up having to do this mucking about a couple of times a week and tried to get the router replaced. First of all I called the support line which sounded like it had moved offshore. After about half an hour explaining myself to the chap on the other end, who had to put me on hold and check stuff every couple of questions, I thought I was coming to a satisfactory end (I think he was going to report it to BT as a fault) when the line went dead. Not being able to face another phone call I decided to e-mail in the request – but Demon seem to have removed all their support e-mail addresses.
So I thought I’d try out their web chat thingy. That was a laugh; it’s essentially an instant messenger application running in a small browser window. In order to keep the screen up to date it is constantly refreshing making some nice flickering to distract you from any work you might want to do while waiting for a reply from the support guy. Now I said I thought the phone support had gone offshore well this chap was off planet! The replies took about ten minutes each and, although he seemed to know what he was talking about, I wasn’t getting anywhere so I asked if we could speak by phone. No he didn’t have access to the phone. Could I get back to the chap I was speaking to earlier? No he couldn’t help there either. So I went back to explaining myself in the messenger.
By now I’d been on this messenger thing for over an hour. Between messages I was trying to get on with other stuff (despite the constant flashing) and sometimes didn’t reply immediately. When I ask a question the support chap says that he thought I’d gone away. I told him I was still here but was doing other stuff as well. He didn’t reply to my question so I re-sent it and got the reply that he’d logged off. I decided to look again into changing our ISP.
This time I found an outfit called BISCit who seem to have an SDSL offering that has all the features we need so we’re going with them. Unfortunately we have to rely on BT for the physical installation and they always seem to have boundless creativity for finding new and exciting ways to cock thing up. Already I’ve found that they don’t do SDSL installations in the afternoon which really narrows down the times when they can get access.
I’ll let you know how it goes. Now, I’ve got to get Demon to lower our TTL. Oh bol…
It started when we found out they’d been overcharging us – at least that’s how I see it. They would say that they reduced the cost of our service but did not automatically reduce our charges as it is their policy not to make reductions for existing customers until asked to do so. I know this because they told me when I complained. I decided then to look for an alternative ISP. I didn’t find anything suitable straight away.
Recently we’ve been having a lot of problems with our router. It’s a BT supplied box and comes with the service from Demon. The line keeps dropping and the usual thing that works to get it back is to cycle the power on the router. If that fails then logging the router on to the BT test address then back to our normal connection works.
Naturally I’ve become fed up having to do this mucking about a couple of times a week and tried to get the router replaced. First of all I called the support line which sounded like it had moved offshore. After about half an hour explaining myself to the chap on the other end, who had to put me on hold and check stuff every couple of questions, I thought I was coming to a satisfactory end (I think he was going to report it to BT as a fault) when the line went dead. Not being able to face another phone call I decided to e-mail in the request – but Demon seem to have removed all their support e-mail addresses.
So I thought I’d try out their web chat thingy. That was a laugh; it’s essentially an instant messenger application running in a small browser window. In order to keep the screen up to date it is constantly refreshing making some nice flickering to distract you from any work you might want to do while waiting for a reply from the support guy. Now I said I thought the phone support had gone offshore well this chap was off planet! The replies took about ten minutes each and, although he seemed to know what he was talking about, I wasn’t getting anywhere so I asked if we could speak by phone. No he didn’t have access to the phone. Could I get back to the chap I was speaking to earlier? No he couldn’t help there either. So I went back to explaining myself in the messenger.
By now I’d been on this messenger thing for over an hour. Between messages I was trying to get on with other stuff (despite the constant flashing) and sometimes didn’t reply immediately. When I ask a question the support chap says that he thought I’d gone away. I told him I was still here but was doing other stuff as well. He didn’t reply to my question so I re-sent it and got the reply that he’d logged off. I decided to look again into changing our ISP.
This time I found an outfit called BISCit who seem to have an SDSL offering that has all the features we need so we’re going with them. Unfortunately we have to rely on BT for the physical installation and they always seem to have boundless creativity for finding new and exciting ways to cock thing up. Already I’ve found that they don’t do SDSL installations in the afternoon which really narrows down the times when they can get access.
I’ll let you know how it goes. Now, I’ve got to get Demon to lower our TTL. Oh bol…
posted by Paul at 8:15 pm
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