BB UTV NS ESAT Eircom Install hassle 20 June to 29 August and counting...

ozmo

Probably a warning to any of you out there who think you can change DSL providors.

The story so far:

I had ISDN - nice connect times, fast ping - but relatively slow and very expensive.

Went to UTV for their clicksilver product. Looks good with a 1 Gig higher cap than eircom and 10 euros cheaper- plus you get to keep the free modem (99 installation inc vat including the modem). A friend and Lots of folk in newsgroups (ie.comp & www.boards.ie) reporting all good experiences(good pings and good download speeds), but up to 4 weeks install time.

20 June:
Signed up for UTV -Line checked out ok -
Two weeks later: 99 euros taken from my account - no sign of bb yet.

24 July:
(Another Two weeks later) - I got an email to say bb is installed - just plug in the modem. But the ISDN was still active on the line probably would have fried the modem had I tried.

Two days later - ISDN disconnected - now I've no internet at all.
No engineer called to remove the ISDN box.

5th August:
And many many hours on the phone complaining - still no broadband - UTV were blaming Eircom - Eircom were blaming Esat and Esat were blaming eircom also - and no one actually knew what was wrong - line was ok but there I seemed to be connected wrong at the exchange. Could take a week more to fix or maybe two...?
Quick call to comreg to check my rights about the 12 month contract thing - and I canceled the UTV account so I could try again with Netsource
(Netsource: more expensive - but no cap and some have had reported as low as a 6 day installation). UTV said in their experience of Working with DSL in UK - it would take a maximum of three working days to cancel their side.

Then - many many many calls to get the account canceled.

14th August(1 week later):
And eircom still had not processed (or maybe not received from UTV?) the cancellation. Then it took them another week to disconnect the physical line on

August 21st:
UTV say the eircom says line is cancelled - I can go to another providor now.

Now I find there is another stage to go through - my request to cancel is at the 'Provisioning Managers Office' in Eircom - no idea who he is or why he is taking so long so far to rubber stamp by cancellation. I been told The department are likely on holiday!!? How can the country's only source of DSL all go On Holiday??

Other things I have been told that amazed me : By Eircom Tech Support 1901
- "Installation time wise - Preference is given to I-Stream" - I really hope this is not true.
- " Well DSL providors have the option to buy the lines, but currently they are just renting them - if they bought them themselves they could provide a faster installation time" - Interesting.....

August:
So - after over two months - I am nearly back at the point where I started - except I'm on a 33K modem. I'm still waiting for the DSL (that never worked) to be removed so I can wait another 11 working days at least (that's over two real weeks) to hopefully have DSL installed.
Lots of line checkups - lots of hassling the biddies on 1901 and the Eircom DSL office. Every time its the same stories "its UTV's fault" "You dont have DSL" "Its not Istream we cannot help" "It should be fixed by Monday"

27 August:
Got a Winback call - Eircom asking if I wanted Broadband- boy did I let them have it. Spent a lot of the day talking to Customer Service at Eircom and waiting for calls
back - everything looks canceled ok - cannot understand why netsource cannot book it. They said they could do IStream for me immediately there and then - maybe thats their game?

28 August:
Eircom suddenly discover that my DSL ports are assigned to Esat (!) They cancel the ports. Netsource still cannot book dsl

29 August:
Got in contact with some TroubleShoorter Eircom guy - he verified the Esat ports were gone. Then, from his console, he connected my ports for istream and then unbooked me just to prove that Netsource could do the same (all in 20 seconds - why does this noramlly take them 11 working days to do??)

Netsource still not happy - dont know why... Said something about the computer system they are using is not connected to the exchange and its still not really disconnected, but they will sort it for me by monday...... I havent got a clue who's leading me the garden path anymore.

Maybe I'll look at the satellite option again...

ozmo.

molinaalexis

WELCOME TO IRELAND THE LAND OF THE BEER, THE LAND OF THE TAKE IT EASY.

Paddy20

molinalexis,

Very interesting. I do not know where you found the patience too go through all that?.. As far as I am concerned you have just clearly outlined another fine example of :- the RAT at work, i.e. Eircon! full stop.

When you mentioned a problem at your local telephone exchange!, I had to ask myself, now who has a monopoly on the telephone exchanges. The bloody stinking rotten RAT of course!.

I had better stop there. Before I become really annoyed at what our government continues to allow those Eircon B******S to get away with.

P.:mad:

ozmo

Just got notification that Netsource have at last been able to Start my installation today... wahey.

Let this be a warning to anyone switching dsl providors.

Now I wait my 11 working days... (or less maybe).

Hopefully Netsource have their stuff sorted by then...


ozmo

ozmo

Originally posted by ozmo
Just got notification that Netsource have at last been able to Start my installation today... wahey.

Let this be a warning to anyone switching dsl providors.

Now I wait my 11 working days... (or less maybe).

Hopefully Netsource have their stuff sorted by then...

ozmo

I am not getting the modem from Netsource - but today
I just got 3 DSL Splitters posted to me from Netsource.

Very nice of them..
Just a small point but I didnt get any splitters from UTV when I didnt order their modem.

ozmo.

De Rebel

Ozmo

Judging by your experiences, difficulties with a transfer between providers appear to be substantial.

As i said here "this is the sort of anti-competitive behaviour that ComReg continually profess to be concerned about. ComReg respond well to specific cases"

Why don't you document your case (just cut and paste the above) and send a formal complaint to ComReg. Their fundamental task was to facilitate competition in the Irish marketplace. Your experience proves that they are failing.

You may have got a solution for now, but wouldn't it be nice to know that if you want to change in the future it would be seemless?

Do it, complain formally now and let us know the outcome.

tuxy

Originally posted by ozmo
- "Installation time wise - Preference is given to I-Stream".

that seems to be the case also i was told by eircom when i was with a differnt carrier , while trying to get a line fault repaired that preference is given to customers that have eircom as their carrier

i realy dont understand why utv allows this to happen they dont seem to be complaining about it at all
yet it must have a very bad inpact on their business