Thread

I have found the support of cable and DSL ISP’s to be worthless anyway!

Just yesterday, a friend with a Mac and Comcast (cable) called me and said she has not been online for a week or more. She spent a couple hours online with support and they told her everything was OK on their end, but she would have to upgrade her mac OS or Hardware (10.2.8).

Of course, I told her this was bunk…...

Took me about 5 minutes over the phone to see that she had a valid IP and ethernet connection to the cable modem….....told her to remove and replace the DNS numbers in the mac sys prefs…....and, of course, it worked immediately!

I have had numerous instances of the cable companies DNS not working, so I have a bunch of public DNS servers listed on mine…..but for the tech to not consider this shows complete ineptitude! It should be one of the first things on the checklist…..like making sure the washing machine is plugged in!

Moral of the story…..always check and replace your DNS servers when things are slow or not working…..

No DNS servers set here at all. Never had to and Orange say you shouldn’t have any in there.

When we were with SKY we had no DNS servers in there and all was fine. The ineptitude is definitely right though the tech support staff have absolutely no idea!

Best wishes,

Mark

Have you tried a different modem? Have them remove your modem mac address from the their system and add a new.
Can you show the trace route...
Sorry, don’t mean to pour salt over the wound I am just nosy…I deal with ISPs all the time and love to give them crap for the lack of advertised service. Not a Mac expert here but networking is networking no matter the OS.
Either way sounds like your hat if full and at this point you should switch just for the peace of your mind. 😊
Sorry Mark, I understand your pains…good luck with the battle!
All the best!

Hiya,

Thanks for the kind words. They really are a load of numpties. Their tech support guys don’t even know the difference between USB and Ethernet so I really don’t stand much chance of getting anything worthwhile out of them!!

One person I read about today is a BT engineer and Orange told them that to get faster internet speeds they needed to defrag their hard drive!! UN-BE-LIEV-ABLE!!

They have now told us that we can’t cancel the agreement and we are stuck in an 18 month contract. They have admitted though that they did something wrong to the line and have conked it out so have told us that we are entitled to 1 months free internet and if in that time (30 days) they haven’t fixed the problem then we are legally entitled to cancel with no cancellation fees.

I don’t care any more about whether they fix it or not and will definitely be on to the ISPA and OFCOM to report this. This kind of behavior just can’t go on any more!

If I did this to clients in my day job making radio adverts then we would be out of business in a week!!

Regarding the connection all tests show that our achievable rate could be around 6.5Mbps. We used to get about 3.5Mbps and now get 0.1Mbps. It’s actually the throughput which is to shot.

We will have to give them the 30 days now although when we asked for this in writing they said they couldn’t do that! How the heck can we be in a contract when they won’t even show us what we have agreed to!

ISPA and OFCOM here I come!!

Best wishes,

Mark

We will have to give them the 30 days now although when we asked for this in writing they said they couldn’t do that! How the heck can we be in a contract when they won’t even show us what we have agreed to!

That’s one thing that’s puzzled me with long 18 month contracts - if the service you’re paying for is “not fit for purpose” you should be able to get out of it. I’m quoting our wonderful UK consumer laws here - if you brought a new telly and it conked out after a week you would expect your money back wouldn’t you (or at least a working replacement) - I don’t see how an internet connection is any different?

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=90236

Link takes you to more Orange biz practices. Funny stuff. Great company.

Wow…can they make it more complex than it should be.
Generally, first thing I do with IPS is make sure that they have a min. speed guarantee in writing (especially if we are talking cable connection). Then on the day of activation go and measure this speed and take a note of it with screenshots and printouts and file them away along with bill and contract. Any other dispute I keep these handy in PDF/scan image format…anything for an easy delivery. If they don’t deliver within the reason I quote them on their ‘fine print’ of promised speed. If any ISP can not guarantee the speed I would seriously reconsider….
for what is worth…
All the best!

Well they say that we are tied in for 30 days whilst they try to fix it! I will be ringing the Trading Standards tomorrow, the ISAP and OFCOM. One of the customer support people told us this last night but then when we asked for him to send it through to us in writing he said he couldn’t do this! I am going to insist on this tomorrow and I am going to record him saying this if he still insists on not sending it through.

If he is telling us our contract verbally then we have a right (I should think?) to have it written down or else it’s just their word against ours?

The fact that we set the internet account up on the phone is also a word of mouth contract so unless they recorded that (they probably did I suspect?) then they wouldn’t have a leg to stand on either.

If they are telling us the truth about the 30 days then I suspect that if they are telling us this is our contract then legally we have a right to see this in writing?

They really are a bunch of idiots!! Going to move across to Virgin as soon as we can.

Best wishes,

Mark

Well, wish I had words of comfort…one thing that I have experienced with tel lines and DSL that techs in the field will often mess up the line and ‘fix it on the fly’ leaving you with degraded service. This really is truly fixed with nothing more than an easy re-punching of 66 block where you line come in. If the new provider lags or experiences ‘issues’ with re-delivering you new services then demand that they dispatch a field technician to double check on the copper lines itself….wish you were closer 😊.

Until the service is down we really don’t realize how depended we are on the ‘little green light’ being on 24/7.
Good luck Mark and hang in there….
All the best!