Its the same with all large tech support IMHO. At freeserve (wanadoo/orange) they hired a girl with very little english and who had never seen a pc before let alone used or supported one.
One thing that is good is the rise in take up of
ITIL. This encourages IT tech support departments to have technical and business knowledge and also encourages proactive internal tech support as opposed to simply out sourcing.
Hope fully this will enable more uk based tech support and a rise in the level of support they can ofer.