How long??

I'm posting this on behalf of a mate of mine who's has a big problem with his BB connection.

On Wednesday morning at around 1am his BB connection stopped working, when it stopped working he said sod it and went to bed thinking it would be on in the morning, he got up at 3am to see if it was working, it had downloaded 1 email since 1am the one he'd been trying to get at 1am.

On Wednesday morning he phoned tech support who tried all sorts of tests but to no avail, they then passed him onto level 2 tech support who told him it wasn't his Cable modem, they booked an engineer to call on Monday Now this was Wednesday morning and they could only get an engineer for Monday

He made another phone call to Glasgow for more info on a engineer, the lady advised him to phone at the end of the day to see if there had been any cancellations, he phoned back only to be told that the systems were down.

He phoned Glasgow again on Thursday morning, a guy called Steve who was one of the most jobsworth people you could ever wish to come across in a call centre, all he did was go through the motions telling him that nothing more could be done at this time his attitude stunk.

That afternoon he phoned tech support again to see if there had been any change, they told him that there had been a system failure in the area and he would be back on within a few hours, now bear this in mind his neighbours who are on NTL their systems were working fine The Indian guy told him to unplug all the wires from the back of the modem and leave it + he was told to turn the PC off and leave it that would cure it. No Change

Later that day he phoned C/S in Manchester and spoke to a cracking girl called Danielle who was 100% genuine (unlike Steve in Glasgow.) She put a complaint for him, she also told him to write a letter of complaint to NTL she gave him all the addresses to write to.

Now my mate has worked with computers since 1988, he was the main programmer for CPL in Chesterfield, he's built no end of machines for people, he's built no end of websites for people, he's got a cracking reputation round Mansfield for his PC skills, to get his machine working he's done a IP renew, deleted the TCP/IP and reinstalled the protocol.

I have his Mac address here if any of you kind NTL bods can give him a dig out.

57 views and no replies, come on guys this lad needs help.

[danielf]

Errm, it's the weekend now. He's got an engineer coming on Monday...

[Russ]

That's exactly why I haven't stepped in - it's highly unlikley anything could be done before monday anyway.

If however he gets no joy after that, I'll get on to my ntl contact straight away.

[Racingdick]

ok ill pick up on a few things here, if he called wednesday mornign and an engineer was booked for the soonest available time monday why did he see a need to call back in?

also

Now my mate has worked with computers since 1988, he was the main programmer for CPL in Chesterfield, he's built no end of machines for people, he's built no end of websites for people, he's got a cracking reputation round Mansfield for his PC skills, to get his machine working he's done a IP renew, deleted the TCP/IP and reinstalled the protocol.

ntl treat all customers the same whether there IT wizkids, old grannies or frumpy grandads.

If monday was the soonest then monday was the soonest (barring cancelations)

Originally Posted by Racingdick

ok ill pick up on a few things here, if he called wednesday mornign and an engineer was booked for the soonest available time monday why did he see a need to call back in?

also

ntl treat all customers the same whether there IT wizkids, old grannies or frumpy grandads.

If monday was the soonest then monday was the soonest (barring cancelations)

He was told to phone back that evening to see if there were any cancelations.

---------- Post added at 18:32 ---------- Previous post was at 18:31 ----------

Originally Posted by Russ D

That's exactly why I haven't stepped in - it's highly unlikley anything could be done before monday anyway.

If however he gets no joy after that, I'll get on to my ntl contact straight away.

The engineer got booked on Wednesday morning Russ, they usually come out the next day, why a wait till Monday?

[fudge]

Each time i have booked an engineer for the tv i have been given a next day appointment but the only time i needed them for my broadband i had to wait 5 days.

[Russ]

Originally Posted by Nidge

The engineer got booked on Wednesday morning Russ, they usually come out the next day, why a wait till Monday?

Because you let us know about this yesterday ie Saturday.

If this had been posted a few days before, perhaps something could have been done.

Originally Posted by Russ D

Because you let us know about this yesterday ie Saturday.

If this had been posted a few days before, perhaps something could have been done.

I know Russ he asked me to post it him on Friday night, when I've needed an engineer they've been the next day, I wonder if he'd have the same problem if his modem went belly up on a Monday morning???

[Russ]

It can depend on the contractor's workload.

As I've said, let's see how tomorrow goes then we'll take it from there. Doesn't seem any point in looking in to it before then.

Originally Posted by Russ D

It can depend on the contractor's workload.

As I've said, let's see how tomorrow goes then we'll take it from there. Doesn't seem any point in looking in to it before then.

He's a bit miffed though because his neighbour is on NTL and his is working fine, a lad a few doors away is also on NTL and his is working ok, I said to him it sounds like your modem has gone belly up, he's got one of the old Terayon modems.

[Chris W]

Originally Posted by Nidge

He's a bit miffed though because his neighbour is on NTL and his is working fine, a lad a few doors away is also on NTL and his is working ok, I said to him it sounds like your modem has gone belly up, he's got one of the old Terayon modems.

right...

so it sounds like an individual issue... which needs an engineer visit... which is booked in for tomorrow.

it is highly likely that the engineer visit tomorrow will resolve the problem. Nothing the forum can do to help before then, so why not wait for the engineer visit, and then come back to us if he is still having problems?

[Ignition]

Umm internet is not an essential service, it's not like telephone. TV also takes priority in the fault booking stakes.

Can't see where ntl went wrong here. Seems more like your mate is complaining because he couldn't get an engineer to visit when he wanted one to be honest.

Not entirely sure what you expected people to do when you post on here on Saturday afternoon when the guy is getting an engineer visiting Monday.

If your mate is using his connection for business purposes and needs it that badly he should pay the extra for the priority support.

A lot of things can go wrong just affecting him, it doesn't mean his modem is dead just because his neighbours are online.

As above ntl really don't care who you are when booking an engineer, I had to wait a week for one when I was actually working for them. I had no priority treatment at all so while your mate may have a fabulous reputation around Mansfield for his skills it doesn't mean a thing to his ISP.

[cmk]

Ok chaps here goes.

I'm the one who had the problem. The engineer arrived yesterday with a new CM. One of those little blue efforts. He plugged it all in and tested it but nothing was doing. He plugged in his laptop and said it was working fine but I saw no evidence of this. He told me that NTL were remote updating the CMs and it looks like mine was done early hours Wednesday morning and it had gone haywire. Nice of them to tell me they were doing this in the first place mind.

He was happy the connection was working and it was a local issue. It seemed to be the case but before the update it was fine so as I see it what NTL did knackered things up somehow. I spoke to tech support again who suggested a winsock issue. I called a mate later that night who was checking out the error codes from ipconfig which did suggest this to be the case. I removed the winsock and winsock2 references from the registry and also uninstalled TCP/IP. Upon reinstalling and checking Ipconfig the net fired up at about 10pm last night.

Now I'm not overly sure why this all happened but it does seem a little coincedental that the engineer suggested CM updates were going on and mine gets fried at the same time. Also, and it would seem from other posts on here that it's a standard thing, six days is nothing short of ludicrous for a call out. I would expect two days max from decent support. £60 a month to NTL and that level of call out? It's not exactly a selling point type feature is it. I may be making a way out comparison but if we'd have suggested a six day call out where I used to work we'd have had the rollocking of our lives and been lucky to be in a job but I guess that's the difference between decent customer relations and NTL.

I know some of you work for then and will argue against the above which is fine. The main thing for me is the timescale. Six days is shoddy no matter what anyone says or how it's dressed up. I expect a decent service if things go wrong. Things did and I didn't get one.

[Nedkelly]

6 days is a long time .The only thing i can think of is that there has been a lot of problems in your aera and the lead time has gone through the roof as it is normally 2 to 3 days in your aera