V+ & VIP Installed but broadband woes....
 

Dear All,
Firstly apologies for length of post but got a fair bit to say!

Had V+ and upgrade to VIP on Friday 16th. All went well with the V+ install - engineer waited for hits etc to upgrade box then my channels. Also got shiny black box which looks good on black glass stand!

First thing that worried me was he didn't had the relation of existing STB on job sheet. Not a problem he said and he carefully relocated it to upstairs room with some very discreet cable runs round front of my house.

He conected the co-ax to the cable modem (ntl 250) and gave me the BB install CD saying it won't be any trouble to get this up and running. Off he went and I was happy. (Question: Should he have ensured the BB service was working before leaving?)

I tried to install the BB however no joy as the IP address could not be renewed. Tried few more times no joy. Tried using different computer - no joy. Rang BB faults went thru the usual switch off, wait, switch on etc... no joy. Engineer booked to come Saturday between 12 and 6.

Saturday 12 noon came. Getting jumpy by 4pm so rang BB faults. No help at all. Tried to make me go through off/on process again eventhough I only wanted them to confirm the appointment was booked for today. So rang CS to confirm appointment booked and Engineer still coming. "Yes" said the very helpful chap and he even gave me the missing modem PIN which apparently was in the letter I never received.

Saturday 6pm came but no Engineer did.

Rang CS - closed at 5pm!! (Why oh Why?).

Rang BB faults. Asked why "no show" by Engineer. He could only apologise. He then checked with the Engineering Department and said my appointment is for Monday 19th between 12 and 6!!!!

Now either both myself and the CS chap are unable to read dates correctly or someone has rescheduled my appointment to Monday as they ran out of time on Saturday.......

Thoroughly pee'd off as you can imagine.

Got up this morning, still angry. Idea..... try connecting to internet thru old, relocated STB.... and loe and behold it's still live hence being able to write this rant now!!!

Not sure what to do now....

- Should I wait for Engineer to call tomorrow and have another day away from work?
- Should I ring BB faults and explain what I have found and will thye be able to transfer my service to the cable modem successfully on a Sunday?

Any advice gratefully recevied especially if from a VM staff member who understands how this will be resolved from their end.

bye for now!

Re: V+ & VIP Installed but broadband woes....
 

There is an awful familiarity about that...did the "Engineer" have an interesting accent?

Re: V+ & VIP Installed but broadband woes....
 

LOL! No, not at all - in fact he was a good old essex boy (like myself!)

Re: V+ & VIP Installed but broadband woes....
 

The one who left me in the lurch sounded Kiwi..I'm not a million miles from you, so I thought I'd ask.:)

Re: V+ & VIP Installed but broadband woes....
 

you can leave your bb connected through your stb for the time being but it does need to be sorted, firstly you will be billed for BB through your stb, so your not going to be getting the 10mb as is the VIP.

id keep on to tsb and cs

Re: V+ & VIP Installed but broadband woes....
 

Thats funny, they did that to me too on Saturday (for a phone engineer). I waited until about 5pm, called CS and was told, "Oh no madam, your appointment is Tuesday between 8.00am and 1.00pm". I was adamant that I had the right date, she checked again and said that they had tried to call me on my other line and that there was no answer.... funny how they left no message and the old call log did not show it! I just wish they would be honest ... that would be so refreshing!!!

Re: V+ & VIP Installed but broadband woes....
 

Hello,

I appear to have the same problem as thechangingman. Spent two hours on the phone on Saturday trying to get bband to work through cable modem only to find that the IP address couldn't be renewed. Realised that my good lady wife would kill me if she couldn't play her browser games when she got back, so plugged the ethernet cable back in to the STB & it worked fine.

Can anyone confirm that this shouldn't be the case & the reason that that I can't get an IP address is because it's still going through the STB rather than the modem? Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Re: V+ & VIP Installed but broadband woes....
 

Re Installation Problems

I also had the same experience on Saturday. I sat in my flat from 8am-1pm waiting for the engineer to turn up. By 1.30pm he hadn't arrived so called customer services to see if he was running late. Good job I called as when I finally got through, after 20 mins holding, I was told my appointment had been moved to 20th March! I said nobody had contacted me about this and the woman goes "we sent you a letter". I then find out the date on the letter was Sat 17th Feb - the day I was supposed to be having BB installed! I told her I had cancelled my Sky subscription to coincide with this date, so she put me on hold to find out why. 15 mins later (I am calling on my mobile aswell) I am still on hold so hang up with frustration. I then called back to cancel my contract and after another 15 mins holding I find I have been transfered to the Teeside area and she will direct me to the London calll centre. This was another 10 min hold. To cut a long story short - I have no broadband or cable tv even after spending an expensive hour on hold on my mobile. They had no excuse apart from "there is a block in the cable and we need to get council permission to dig up the road". If you live in the SW18 area of London you will be affected by this! This is the worst customer service I have ever experienced.