Clicksilver Users Gather Here Please

mike65

Anyone who has Clicksilver will be aware by now of certain issues - in particular pings and periods of statis when nothing happens for 5 or 10 seconds which may not sound like a big thing but should happen! Last night was particuarly bad with the 1 mb speedtest indicating a through put of 122kbs! :eek:

Charles on the newsgroup has said a major upgrade is on the way but that was weeks ago and nothing mentioned since. I'm not aware anything has been posted here on the matter.

I remember when one of Scott Taunton, Malcolm Thompson, Martin UTVi and others were looking in here every few days now many here wont know thier names. One can only suspect now they have us in thier 12-month grasp they're no longer too bothered what we think.

So if you are pissed-off with the state of play please add your thoughts and
then subscribe to the utv.support newsgroup and get posting your pings and other connection woes!

Mike.

Moriarty

mike65 wrote:

I remember when one of Scott Taunton, Malcolm Thompson, Martin UTVi and others were looking in here every few days now many here wont know thier names. One can only suspect now they have us in thier 12-month grasp they're no longer too bothered what we think.

Afaik they were chased away from boards by a small but vocal group of moaners. They saw they were getting nothing but grief here so decided to stop posting. It'd be nice to have them (and other telco reps, but I think there's two chances of that) back here, but I can't see it happening unfortunatly.

LoBo

Yep, shame they left but I can certainly see why. I'm sure they have better things to do with their time than get flamed by a minority of users.

That being said, the current quality of my UTVi clicksilver is at an all time low and has been for the last two weeks. All traceroutes to anywhere (including utv ips) start at 200+ for the first hop. Naturally this makes gaming more sluggish than I was used to with dialup. I rang their tech support tonight and they confirmed that they had heard unofficially about an upgrade that UTV were 'considering', but that there was no official confirmation of it happening, let alone a date for when it would happen. Their advice was to ring between 9 and 5 tomorrow to talk to Charles (head of tech support and presumably Charles UTVi who occasionally posts here) who would know more, and that if I wanted to register a complaint they were the person to talk to.

I'll let you know how I get on. Fingers crossed that UTVi sort this out- I still believe they are the best Irish ISP for price, competition, and actually giving the slightest about their customers. Shame about the woeful quality of the connection

rymus

upgrade? connection problems? ya wha? Am I the only person that hasn't noticed any problem? Granted I haven't been spending much time on the internet lately and I'm not exactly a hardcore gamer but anytime I've gone to download anything it always comes down at around 50k. Still though, an upgrade to say.... 2mbit would be nice.

Come back Charles & Martin, don't mind all the moaning bitches.

parsi

I was a UTV dialup customer for 12months without probs , now I am on the 3month bb trial and up to a few days ago had no issues - however for the last few days it has been slow and the speedtest on adslinfo gives a downstream speed of 155k which proves to me that my gut feeling that my downloads were slow was true..the prob now is whether to signup or go somewhere else and UTVs silence in their own news groups is a bit unsettling (mainl because they used be so visible..)

PiE

Personally, I'm mega pissed off. It's been said again and again, but just a little bit of communication or status updates on what's going on would reassure 90% of UTV's customers. Unfortunately, the bitter world of Irish ISP's seems to have taken it's toll on UTV and the sort of openess that we enjoyed not so long ago seems to have been destroyed. *Sniff*

I actually get the feeling that the suits at UTV told the more vocal employees to tone down the their free-flowing chat with the customers, it's the only explanation I can think of for such a huge turnaround in customer interaction and support.

How and ever, the current quality of service wouldn't be acceptable in outer Mongolia, let alone the mega-advanced E-HUB OF EUROPE!1 Really makes me sick to see Eircom/IOL customers (on what basically amounts to the exact same package as me), having little or no problems whatsoever.

All I can say to UTV is to get a new bandwidth provider ASAP or pull out of the BB market altogether, because at this rate they're never gonna be able to repair their reputation.

Also, can we ban any non-UTV customers who jump in criticising us paying customers for complaining? Thanks.

jonski

While I feel its good to get the thread going I strongly reccomend making the phone calls , typing the e-mails , and then maybe posting back the replys

RuggieBear

parsi wrote:

I was a UTV dialup customer for 12months without probs , now I am on the 3month bb trial and up to a few days ago had no issues - however for the last few days it has been slow and the speedtest on adslinfo gives a downstream speed of 155k which proves to me that my gut feeling that my downloads were slow was true..the prob now is whether to signup or go somewhere else and UTVs silence in their own news groups is a bit unsettling (mainl because they used be so visible..)

Perhaps it is all the warez monkeys downloading a certain game....

p

jonski

Nah , it's going on much longer than that .

RuggieBear

jonski wrote:

Nah , it's going on much longer than that .

Well that i'm afraid is the limit of BB knowledge....

PcP

mike65 wrote:

So if you are pissed-off with the state of play please add your thoughts and
then subscribe to the utv.support newsgroup and get posting your pings and other connection woes!

Mike.

My thoughts are that I'm very pleased not to have re-signed with UTV when the wholesale price drops went through. The sooner I can move on, the better.

As for the moaners/whingers thing, when people have complained by phone, mail and newsgroup to no avail, are they wrong to complain on boards? UTV didn't get flamed away they just couldn't defend the poor service they were/are providing.

_Kaiser_

Agree with PCP on this one, and to be honest I'm suprised at the reaction by some of the people in this thread.

Surely part of the reason the UTV staff were posting here was to get honest feedback from their customers? To label people as moaners for highlighting legitimate issues is unfair I think. You may not agree with them, but that doesn't mean they don't have a point.

UTV have ongoing and serious issues with the service they provide - which seems to come down to that they have no control over most of it.

For example: I was billed for 8 months worth of calls this month because of some problem between UTV, Esat and Eircom. Now while the girl I spoke to on UTV's support number was very nice, all she could tell me was that the problem occured because Esat (who apparently provide the infrastructure) "lost" these calls.

Now as a UTV customer I don't CARE about their problems with Esat. All I care about is that I've received a massive bill from my provider, but to be told by them that "it's not our fault" and "you'll still have to pay it" - in fact when I discovered it, the credit card order had already gone through - isn't very helpful or inspiring.

As I said, UTV's primary problem is the lack of control they have over their service... until this changes I think they're going to continue to have problems and customers are going to continue to be frustrated by "pass-the-buck" answers (even though they may be true) or total silence to complaints raised.

tomk

I've been a happy Clicksilver customer for 12 months, and I signed up for another twelve months when the prices dropped. I don't game, so the service suits me down to the ground.

Yesterday evening, my download speed dropped to 15KB/s from the usual 50+, so I've sent a mail to UTV Support asking for an explanation. I'll post the reply here.

Paddy20

In defence of U.TV Internet. I have to state that my experience with them to date has been heaven. When compared to my nightmare when I was using EirCoN.

I have just upgraded from UTVip XL to Clicksilver Broadband, and it is currently operating at a speed of 512.0 Kbps. So I have nothing but praise for U.TV Internet, it's package deals, and it's groundbreaking pro-active relationship with IrelandOFFline's members on this forum in the past.

So no complaints from me. In fact I truly believe that but for the sterling voluntary work of IOFFL's commitee and U.TV Internets introduction of 'Flat-rate' internet access packages here in the Republic.

Most of us would still be trapped with crappy Rip-Off dial up internet per minute EirCon costs.

Good luck

tomk

tomk wrote:

Yesterday evening, my download speed dropped to 15KB/s from the usual 50+

No reply yet, but something's changed - currently doing a Debian upgrade at 53KB/s i.e. back to normal.

Anyone else seeing this?

CitySickness

I'm having the same ping problems as everybody else, always over 200ms to Irish servers from about 8-midnight (and more recently, even until 3am). This is when I game, this is when I expect reasonable pings (ie better than dialup would be nice) from my ISP.

Has anyone had any joy getting out of the contract without having to pay the severance fee, on the basis of the poor performance of the product?

I called UTV support last Monday, was told to "call back and talk to Charles when he comes in on Thursday." Is running an ISP a sort of hobby thing for UTV, something to do in their spare time? Do they even log the calls? Surely you'd think their (always friendly, rarely reassuring) support staff would have some sort of standard policy line on this issue by now...

dub45

tomk wrote:

No reply yet, but something's changed - currently doing a Debian upgrade at 53KB/s i.e. back to normal.

Anyone else seeing this?

I have been getting very solid speeds since the last debacle over bandwidth but in the last few days they have dropped like those reported here. They seem to be recovering late on at night and certainly at about 2.00 am they were fine (as they were at 9.00 am this morning)this is what was happening the last time there was bandwith problems very poor speeds during the popular times and then back to normal for night owls. (Bear in mind this is only a couple of months ago!)

And it does not appear to matter what contention rate you are on (I am on the low one)

The lack of response from UTV just makes the situation worse.

It is interesting to note too that none of the other isps seem to be having speed problems over the past few days which would suggest it is strictly a UTV issue.

Unless something changes during the day(and if the problem is indeed bandwidth related) it is likely based on past experience that your speed will take a dive again tonight after 8pm or so.

dub45

Paddy20 wrote:

In defence of U.TV Internet. I have to state that my experience with them to date has been heaven. When compared to my nightmare when I was using EirCoN.

I have just upgraded from UTVip XL to Clicksilver Broadband, and it is currently operating at a speed of 512.0 Kbps. So I have nothing but praise for U.TV Internet, it's package deals, and it's groundbreaking pro-active relationship with IrelandOFFline's members on this forum in the past.

Sadly most of us felt this way ........once!
and that is why we wanted to stay with UTV for bb but alas...........here we go again with speeds diving poor pings for months and months and dire communication with customers - the one thing that at one stage really set UTV apart from other isps.

By the way if I read your posts correctly you are only on bb for a matter of hours? Its very early days at that rate to be lavishing such praise!

tomk

dub - I'm a bit confused....

dub45 wrote:

this is what was happening the last time there was bandwith problems very poor speeds during the popular times and then back to normal for night owls.

So, daytime = slow, nighttime = fast.

it is likely based on past experience that your speed will take a dive again tonight after 8pm or so.

So, nighttime = slow.......?

Anyway, I've just received the following:

Email from UTV Support
Thanks for the email.

We have escalated a number of reports regarding slow speeds to our management team for investigation. I would expect a response to be posted on the utv news group.

I've also checked my download again, and I got 303MB in 1 hour 52 minutes - for those who don't have their calculators handy, that's 45.1KB/s average.

I've never had a need to access the newsgroup, so if something does turn up there (I've asked them to mail me as well), could someone post it?

I'll do some more downloads after 8, dub, and let you all know how it goes.

dub45

tomk wrote:

dub - I'm a bit confused....



So, daytime = slow, nighttime = fast.



So, nighttime = slow.......?

Anyway, I've just received the following:



I've also checked my download again, and I got 303MB in 1 hour 52 minutes - for those who don't have their calculators handy, that's 45.1KB/s average.

I've never had a need to access the newsgroup, so if something does turn up there (I've asked them to mail me as well), could someone post it?

I'll do some more downloads after 8, dub, and let you all know how it goes.

Sorry to be confusing - last time it was pretty good speeds up to peak time 8pmish then they would dive until about midnight or so when they would return to normal. In fact it was a running joke in the newsgroup that it was a group of monks somewhere that was causing the problem as it so sooooo regular.

And so far the symptoms seem to be similar unfortunately. Given the number of reports and comments on it already in the support newsgroup UTV are well aware of the problem as it has been there now for a couple of days.

It is easy to forget know but immediately prior to the last bandwidth problem which was Esat's fault as they forgot to order the proper bw UTV were having very similar problems to this and they were sort ofmerged with the Esat one.

For those who still dont know where the UTV support group is its news.utvinternet.com and then utv.support

seamus

Sorry guys. Widespread technical problems are more suited to broadband. Moriarty can throw it back if the majority disagree.

parsi

I got this from them:

Hi ***

Thanks for the email.

We have escalated a number of reports regarding slow speeds to our management team for investigation. I would expect a response to be posted on the utv news group.

Regards

Ed
(UTV Technical Support)


Sales & Admin.
UK 0845 2470000
RoI 1890 926000

Support
UK 0845 2470001
RoI 1890 926111

"This e-mail, and any attachment, is confidential. If you have received it in error, please delete it from your system, do not use or disclose the information in any way and notify me immediately. The contents of this message may contain personal views which are not the views of UTV unless specifically stated".

andrew163

imho...

I agree, that their service for the last few months has been unacceptable and not worthy of the title "broadband". This MUST be fixed. Between pings and download speeds, this better be fixed before everyones contract expires in a few months....

But their customer service is still far greater then anything IOL or eircom will ever cough up at you. I don't know about netsource, hosting365 or digiweb so I wont comment on them, but UTV are great in this field. The reason I think alot of you are moaning about it is because it used to be even better than it is now. But that doesn't mean its not the best service any telco in this country offers.

just what i think....

dub45

andrew163 wrote:

imho...

I agree, that their service for the last few months has been unacceptable and not worthy of the title "broadband". This MUST be fixed. Between pings and download speeds, this better be fixed before everyones contract expires in a few months....

But their customer service is still far greater then anything IOL or eircom will ever cough up at you. I don't know about netsource, hosting365 or digiweb so I wont comment on them, but UTV are great in this field. The reason I think alot of you are moaning about it is because it used to be even better than it is now. But that doesn't mean its not the best service any telco in this country offers.

just what i think....

Your post seems to be me to be quite contradictory - surely the basic job of any isp is to provide a reliable and fast connection?

No matter how good the customer service is its largely irrelevant if the basic product is not right. And asking people to phone back later in the week (as has been reported here) when Charles returns is not very good customer service to put it mildly!!!

Ripwave

dub45 wrote:

And asking people to phone back later in the week (as has been reported here) when Charles returns is not very good customer service to put it mildly!!!

The guy asked about a rumoured upgrade, and was told that they had heard about it unofficially, and that if he wanted to find out more specifics, he'd have to talk to Charles.

Yeah, you're right, that was pretty unprofessional. They should have been told that there is no information available about any planned upgrade.

Gonzo

utv customers have a perfect right to bitch and moan, they are paying between €30 and €45 per month of their hard earned cash for a service advertised as broadband which is in some cases worse than dial up and its been like this since day one for some people. Imagine the backlash if such a service was happening in the Uk or sweden, even tho the problem could be outside of utv hands, its still up to them to change their dodgy backbone infrastructure provider and make the service just like any other broadband isp.

PowerHouseDan

Apologies for the delay in posting about the ongoing RoI bandwidth issues.

The bandwidth upgrade that I posted about at the start of last month took
place but due to ongoing demand did not resolve all the issues that have
been reported here and directly into support.

Today I have been given confirmation of further work that is scheduled to
start mid month and we expect that by the end of the month that we should
have a total resolution of the reported increased pings and slow downloads.

I appreciate that this issue has been causing major problems for users of
our ADSL service and I will try to keep everyone updated as the month
progresses.

Charles

Mid month Fu8k that!!!

kin9pin

Mid month??????
So what he's basically saying is "Hang in there guys, you only need to waste €30 or €45 this month and we MIGHT have it fixed by September. Oh, I haven't mentioned refunds/credit so don't bother".

btw, I was checking UTV's T&C's and came across this:

15.6 Neither party shall be liable to the other, either in contract, tort (including negligence) or otherwise for direct or indirect loss of profits, business or anticipated savings, nor for any indirect or consequential loss or damage or for any destruction of or impairment of access to any data arising in relation to this Agreement including, without limitation, UTV Internet's ability to provide the Service.

So what I read into this, in my own warped mind, is that if we stop paying UTV due to their inability to provide the Service, we shall not be liable to them for their loss of profits (our subs). That to me sounds like a way out, but then I've been shot down before so feel free to ridicule me.

jonski

Here is Charles' post from the 9th of July

I've just got conformation that a substantial bandwidth upgrade has been
planned and it due for completion imminently. This upgrade is expected to
address the increasingly poor ping times reported here and through the
support team, it is also expected to address the reported '8 minutes pause'
issue.

I will post updates as I get them.

Charles

Obviously not substantial enough

LoBo

glad to hear *something* from them, but clearly this level of connection quality continuing for another month (or more) is unacceptable.

I was advised today on the phone by Tech Support to email my complaint to support@u.tv w/ attn Charles. Will do so tonight when I can grab some example ping/tracert info.

The more customer complaints that land on their desk, the more likely they will do something about it quicker (rather than, say, go shopping for that new boardroom table).

jonski

seamus wrote:

Sorry guys. Widespread technical problems are more suited to broadband.

I would have thought this fell more under a 'service' issue ?