I need a new ISP
2005-11-13
Anyone got one they want to recommend?
Just been on the phone to Tiscali's broadband customer support, a foreign gentleman who was a little hard to understand when I was going through the simple stuff (my name, my address), and with whom there was almost total mutual incomprehensibility once we were discussing things that actually matter. I tried to explain that I understood contention and didn't want the speech about peak times, but he gave it anyway, although frankly the only reason I had any idea what he was trying to say was because I already knew what it was meant to be.
When we got to the crux of the matter ('I realise that the bandwidth will be less than the quoted maximum at peak times, but the incredibly high latency and the packetloss are unacceptable') I think I lost him completely. He asked when it had began, I explained that my computers had been out of action during last week and that I'd only got around to resetting the router on about Wednesday, so it could have been any time between Saturday and Wednesday.
His suggestion was to reset everything by completely uninstalling the modem software and starting over (spot the problem there?), and he would do the equivalent at his end. I pointed out that I'd last reset the router to factory settings on Thursday, and that while I could do the same again, I didn't expect it to make any difference. When he realised it was a router he said I could simply reboot it rather than going to the factory defaults; I've already done that three times this afternoon and it hadn't helped.
Ironically Tiscali's wholesale support is very good, but then that's because at work I'm the first-line support (and I still don't quite know how I got roped into that) and by the time it goes to Tiscali I've already got the data from all the tests I expect them to ask for and a few more that I wanted on the side. It's just that with all the outsourcing and exporting that they've done, they've ended up with first line support who can't even tell when they're out of their depth; they don't even seem to understand the magic 'I've already done all the tests you can ask me for, put me through to the next line up' approach any more.
So, who has an ISP they want to recommend? I'd get it from work, but they only sell B2B and don't support out of office hours (which may or may not be a moot point, since it's me the does the support anyway). Beyond that I've heard good things about NTL (NTL is available here but not Telewest, although I think the mutual exclusivity of those things may now be a given), and may end up having to go with them, since I don't really trust BT's ADSL over POTS setup as much as I used to.
Just been on the phone to Tiscali's broadband customer support, a foreign gentleman who was a little hard to understand when I was going through the simple stuff (my name, my address), and with whom there was almost total mutual incomprehensibility once we were discussing things that actually matter. I tried to explain that I understood contention and didn't want the speech about peak times, but he gave it anyway, although frankly the only reason I had any idea what he was trying to say was because I already knew what it was meant to be.
When we got to the crux of the matter ('I realise that the bandwidth will be less than the quoted maximum at peak times, but the incredibly high latency and the packetloss are unacceptable') I think I lost him completely. He asked when it had began, I explained that my computers had been out of action during last week and that I'd only got around to resetting the router on about Wednesday, so it could have been any time between Saturday and Wednesday.
His suggestion was to reset everything by completely uninstalling the modem software and starting over (spot the problem there?), and he would do the equivalent at his end. I pointed out that I'd last reset the router to factory settings on Thursday, and that while I could do the same again, I didn't expect it to make any difference. When he realised it was a router he said I could simply reboot it rather than going to the factory defaults; I've already done that three times this afternoon and it hadn't helped.
Ironically Tiscali's wholesale support is very good, but then that's because at work I'm the first-line support (and I still don't quite know how I got roped into that) and by the time it goes to Tiscali I've already got the data from all the tests I expect them to ask for and a few more that I wanted on the side. It's just that with all the outsourcing and exporting that they've done, they've ended up with first line support who can't even tell when they're out of their depth; they don't even seem to understand the magic 'I've already done all the tests you can ask me for, put me through to the next line up' approach any more.
So, who has an ISP they want to recommend? I'd get it from work, but they only sell B2B and don't support out of office hours (which may or may not be a moot point, since it's me the does the support anyway). Beyond that I've heard good things about NTL (NTL is available here but not Telewest, although I think the mutual exclusivity of those things may now be a given), and may end up having to go with them, since I don't really trust BT's ADSL over POTS setup as much as I used to.
Comments