Wanadoo

[Guest]

Well thanks to Wanadoo, now Orange, I have not been able to connect for five days.

I am sick to death of talking to Technical Support who do not have a clue as to what they are talking about and do no more than read through a check list as a means of trouble shooting. They haven't suggested anything I hadn't tried myself anyway. I am left with a dead connection and the dissapointment of realising that there is no-one in the company who can assist me in getting reconnected.

I am amazed at the complete incompetence, unwillingness to help and the system that does not allow any of the clowns to talk to each other. I have spend about 2.5 hours talking to so-called technicians, obviously in foreign countries who do not employ based on an ability to speak English, and got absolutely no-where. There is no way I can get any form of satisfaction so I have no alternative than to change my provider.

Orange, you are a disgrace and deserve to go out of business for your complete lack of support to your customer.

[John]

Tiscalli seem to offering the best deal at the moment, but if you can get cable I would get Telewest/NTL I think the last downtime I had was about 2 years ago, and as for call centre's in other countries that's one of the reason's why I've canceled Sky and moved my TV to Telewest too, you spend ages talking slllloooowww so they can understand, then when you finally think your getting somewhere they put you through to someone over here, why didn't they just do that in the first place!!

[Guest]

I just changed from Tiscali to NTL.

I was on the Tiscali "Unlimited 2Mbit" plan, but apparently if you use their Broadband to download more than a few GB in a month they change the service so you share the bandwidth during peak hours.

This shared bandwidth was so slow - I couldn't even log on to do internet banking as it would just time out, it was worse than dial up!

The odd thing was that the total of my downloads was only about 5 Gb in the one month, which is less than Tiscali's cap on accounts with a download limit!

I made an enquiry with Tiscali which they were supposed to reply to within 24 hours and got no reply...I was quoting the Oxford English Dictionary's definition of "Unlimited" though.

I wouldn't recommend Tiscali to anyone. It's good if you use the internet very infrequently but if you subscribe to any services or need to download content frequently steer well clear.

NTL are good - their service works and it's super reliable. The only problem I'd suggest watching what the technicians are up to when they install it and if you value the price of your property even take the time to drill some holes to run their cable etc! I had to try to piece the box together after they had screwed it to the wall and shattered all the screw lugs off - it was held on with the biggest wedge of clear silicon sealant I've ever seen.

Also NTL's technical support is non existent. Think 2 hours on the phone to try to get your PIN/PID number and then end up going back to dial up to find out the details via a google search...

Tiscali is for people who want to think they have Broadband and pay for a broadband service but actually recieve a limited kind of dial up speed.

Regarding Orange's lack of customer support though, I experienced that too when I had to set it up for someone - I wanted to confirm the username and the person on the other end of the phone was obviously in India and went through the username spelling out each letter so slowly I almost lost the will to live...I then repeated the username and asked if they could just confirm it. They then put me on hold and said they needed to put me through to their manager....obviously my response wasn't printed on their piece of paper they were reading and threw them a bit.

[wonwinglo]

I agree,my friend who uses E-bay a lot uses the rubbish Tiscali service,having wrestled with it myself it is a joke to call it Broadband,it times out and would be totally useless for uploading a web site.

NTL ( originally diubbed 'Not Till Later' ) was rubbish in the early days but now works fine when it is working,the downtime can be annoying especially as they never inform you beforehand,and even if they do then it is not listed for your area,on the plus side it is good value but they have a weird system of accounting which is confusing,you get three bills total of different amounts,work that one out ?

Technical help is a bunch of monkeys who dont know a keyboard from a hard drive,regarding installation they froze up my system by short circuiting the co-axiel cable input and left the house saying that the signal would reach the computer in one hour ?!

Why is it that these companies cannot get it right ? it is not exactly rocket science.

Car Phone Warehouse still seem to think that they can succeed,my advice would be to go the Sky route,they have some good offers at the moment and are investing heavily in technology.

[Guest]

glad to see that these things dont only happen in the U.S., know what you mean buy the tech line people, it seems that they are always foreign, and dont have a clue. good luck

[Guest]

Thanks for the thoughts guys.

I have a guy from Telewest coming round on Wednesday but I am going to be talking to him as regards cable runs etc before I commit. Crapy wiring is something I will not put up with!!

[Guest]

I can only agree with The NTL statements. I have a 10mb connection which rarely goes down. And when it does i just reset the cable modem.

Ntl is currently testing a 100mb service which will be rolled out next year.

I cant wait.

We have a BT 8 mb line (we used to have Tiscali, its awefull) at work and you will never see those speeds in reality. but with NTL i often take pleasure in seeing my movies download at full 10mb speed (800mb movie in 15 minutes)

[Guest]

Thanks for the thoughts guys. I have a guy from Telewest coming round on Wednesday but I am going to be talking to him as regards cable runs etc before I commit. Crapy wiring is something I will not put up with!!

When the Guy was drilling the holes for the rawplugs for the ntl cablebox he was drilling through the backplate of the box to locate them - as I had a look out the front door to see what was going on outside, I watched the box spinning around on the end of the drill bit at about 1500 rpm - it was a little funny actually.

[Guest]

They'll have me looking over thier shoulder every step of the way!

[Guest]

Yesterday "all my troubles were so far away"?

I updated to IE7 and today nothing works on the tinternet except that e-mails come in and seem to disappear to infinity.

Thank god for System Restore

It beats Windows 96/97/98/se etc.

[Guest]

Thanks for the thoughts guys. I have a guy from Telewest coming round on Wednesday but I am going to be talking to him as regards cable runs etc before I commit. Crapy wiring is something I will not put up with!!

My father was with Telewest and it could take 20 mins to log in and then he would get kicked out. Sometimes it was 5 days between emails. The cabling is not the problem,they have too few servers.

[wonwinglo]

Thats one of the big issues,they rely heavily on proxy servers who cannot cope with the demand,you would have thought by now that they would know the useage and invested accordingly ? many it seems are clinging to a thin rope thinking that the problem will go away,we all know it is only going to get far worse if they do not put money into their systems.

[Guest]

Now I have doubts about Telewest and they were recommended to me by a very reliable source.

OK gents could you all please give me an idea of who you use as an ISP and what you think of them.

I would be particularly interested in the big boys such as BT, Talk Talk, Telewest etc.

Thanks for your help

[Guest]

Fortunately throught work i have experienced all the big players in broadband ISP's.

BT and NTL/telewest are the only two worth even considering.

If you are in a cable braodband area then i would definately choose NTL/telewest, it is easily the fastest and most reliable. We currently have BT 8mb line at work (Awesome but it is never 8mb, ever as we are some distance from the exchange. But it is always on. Had it for three months no outages of service so far. before that we had Tiscali and before that we had AOL, both were utterly hopeless)

At home I have been with NTL for 7 years now. In the first years they were horrendous but then again so was everyone else at that time.

But now they are truly awesome. They keep all maintenance work to early hours of the morning and help/assistance isnt provided by some half wit in a hut that doesnt speak English.

They also offer the fastest broadband in the country at a whopping 10mbps which equates to 1000kbps, trust me i have seen those speeds on my own computer when downloading movies/music etc.

They also have an offer on £30 a month for phone, 2mb broadband and digital tv.

If you can get cable braodband, get it. There is no worthwhile alternative.

Also please bare in mind that all other providers are at the mercy of BT, and have limited bandwidth made available to them.

Cable networks are all owned by NTL/Telewest. And have unlimited bandwidth.

[Guest]

Fortunately throught work i have experienced all the big players in broadband ISP's.BT and NTL/telewest are the only two worth even considering.

If you are in a cable braodband area then i would definately choose NTL/telewest, it is easily the fastest and most reliable. We currently have BT 8mb line at work (Awesome but it is never 8mb, ever as we are some distance from the exchange. But it is always on. Had it for three months no outages of service so far. before that we had Tiscali and before that we had AOL, both were utterly hopeless)

At home I have been with NTL for 7 years now. In the first years they were horrendous but then again so was everyone else at that time.

But now they are truly awesome. They keep all maintenance work to early hours of the morning and help/assistance isnt provided by some half wit in a hut that doesnt speak English.

They also offer the fastest broadband in the country at a whopping 10mbps which equates to 1000kbps, trust me i have seen those speeds on my own computer when downloading movies/music etc.

They also have an offer on £30 a month for phone, 2mb broadband and digital tv.

If you can get cable braodband, get it. There is no worthwhile alternative.

Also please bare in mind that all other providers are at the mercy of BT, and have limited bandwidth made available to them.

Cable networks are all owned by NTL/Telewest. And have unlimited bandwidth.

Very much appreciate your help Tiger, thanks.