eircom wholesale - dsl - kafkaesque

zynaps · 19-01-2004 6:54am #1

This is the story.

Back in October last year, soon after we'd moved in, I called eircom about a line test for dsl, never intending on getting it straight from them, for a few reasons.

I found out in early November from the web test thingy that my line should pass, and confirmed this on the phone.
Eircom's sales people then called somewhere around the 7th of November and got me ma, who assumed I wanted it installed and from them and gave them a passive go-ahead.

Literally 10 minutes later, I called to cancel and all seemed well.

Then, after applying with Irish Broadband for wireless internet fell through pathetically (hisssss), I applied for radsl with UTV in early December.
UTV then contacted me just after Christmas to say the application failed due to the line having 'open status' listed in the spreadsheets eircom wholesale send out.

So... after having to wait till the 3rd of January before I could get to eircom's dsl sales staff, I queried this with them and they confirmed that the order had been cancelled, gave me the cancellation number and date it was cleared - the 21st of November, and that there must be some mistake.
After much calling back and forth, utv hinted that what was likely the case is that eircom wholesale never released the port on my line, which needs to be done before a new application can be made, and that I should ask eircom retail to do it (it seems impossible for members of the public to contact eircom wholesale, even though they're the only people who can do it, seemingly. Stupid bureaucracy), and they would email their contacts in eircom wholesale.

After many, many calls, including a few to complaints (who basically say they won't take the complaint because it's utv's responsibility to handle it, even though I'm the end user and utv have so far gotten no joy from eircom wholesale), one to comreg (still waiting on that one to develop) and one to some engineer at eircom who wondered how I'd gotten his number, nothing has changed.

It's 2 months since I asked eircom to cancel the order (on the day it was ordered, with no forms ever having been sent out either), and I'm still being held up with my application to another provider.

Any suggestions? UTV claim that eircom can drag their heels on this because DSL is unregulated (?), and I can't get in touch with the people who were supposed to do their jobs back in November and seem to ignore requests from utv and indeed eircom retail who also said they would "email up" the request to fix the problem.

Sorry bout the size of this....

zynaps

The Brigadier · 20-01-2004 12:25pm

I had a similar problem to you when moving from Eircom to another provider...

Comreg will do nothing..and say that it is up to UTV to make a complaint - not you(wtf!) as you do not have any agreement with Eircom for a DSL service..

Your best option is to move to a 1st world country...bannana republic DSL doesn't work very well...:mad:

zynaps · 20-01-2004 2:12pm

Well, it seems at least comreg has enough of a bark to shake up whichever wasters were in charge of handling that part of the application - someone called me yesterday from eircom about it saying it was fixed, though I still have to call utv and confirm, which means I have to wait till I get home in 2 hours or so...

No way am I calling them from my bloody 085 phone and listening to "thank yoy for holding............... thank yoy for holding" for 3 or 4 minutes just so they can look up a spreadsheet.

When I asked them to make a complaint about it to comreg they said they would, but maybe a little too quickly... is it possible that utv is afraid of 'trouble' by entering a complaint against eircom? I'm sure esat will have done so if eircom have done the same to them, though comreg wouldn't tell me. Ahh well.

zynaps

dahamsta · 20-01-2004 2:17pm

I think UTV's line on this is that they're not in a position to complain, because it's Energis that deals with network issues, not them. Of course if that's the case, they should be passing complaints onto Energis, but there seems to be a general reluctance among OLO's to complain, perhaps because of fear of retribution.

If there isn't a lack of complaints, Comreg should be finding out why. If there is, Comreg should be finding out why...

If that sentence is working correctly, you should have a headache now.

adam

zynaps · 22-01-2004 5:39pm

It seems getting Comreg to talk to eircom about it helped matters, or they just happened to fix it around the same time.

So now I just have to wait another week or two before I can actually have it installed.... *grumble*

Hopefully utv have/will complain about it too, they just said they forwarded the request to their manager who would take it under advisement, or something.
I really do wish there were real options by which we could completely free ourselves of eircom and get our phone calls and broadband cheaper and better, but it doesn't seem likely in the intermediate future.

Good luck,
zynaps

ps. nice sentence

oscarBravo · 23-01-2004 11:58am

Originally posted by dahamsta
I think UTV's line on this is that they're not in a position to complain, because it's Energis that deals with network issues, not them.

...or perhaps EsatBT? Don't UTV buy bitstream from EsatBT, who in turn buy it from Eircom?

dahamsta · 23-01-2004 12:35pm

Originally posted by oscarBravo
...or perhaps EsatBT? Don't UTV buy bitstream from EsatBT, who in turn buy it from Eircom?

Sorry, I keep doing that. They used (or still use) Energis/Nevadatele for CPS.

zynaps, I guess it's too late for you, but if this happens to anyone else: First, complain to Comreg yourself, just to get it on the record with them. Then tell your provider that you want them to complain to Comreg. Don't settle for "it's been passed up the chain", ask for explicit confirmation within 24-48 hours that a complaint has been made.

If they don't make a complaint, they're not making a reasonable effort to deliver their product in a timely manner, which nullifies your offer. Now you can cancel your order and reorder with another provider, and tell /them/ to complain. If you run out of providers - there aren't a hell of a lot of them there remember - your own complaint to Comreg will have much more weight behind it.

adam

zynaps · 26-01-2004 8:32am

Originally posted by dahamsta
If they don't make a complaint, they're not making a reasonable effort to deliver their product in a timely manner, which nullifies your offer. Now you can cancel your order and reorder with another provider, and tell /them/ to complain.

Actually, it looks like this may be the case as a matter of coincidence - IBB finally contacted me after I applied for a LOS with them months ago, and offered to waive the install fee if I was still interested.

If they make it out and I pass the test before the DSL order is fully set up, I will certainly be cancelling it with utv - if so, they will probably be somewhat frustrated with the knowledge that had eircom not held up my application by at least a month, I would have been signed up with utv well before IBB ever bothered getting back to me.
That'll give them a little more reason to get complaining to comreg

zynaps

jabaroon · 26-01-2004 9:45am

I had exactly the same problem....

In Sept I ordered the service from Eircom. Finally got a date and all tests passed etc....They were due to be out on (say) the Friday to install everything....so I took the day off work and waited.....but you guessed it, nobody showed up!

So here's when things got interesting!.....

Rang Eircom the next working day and requested to know the situation etc....was told that the engineer had called out and completed the installation (according to their records)! Equally interesting was the fact that I was also told that my ISDN (which I was still using at the time) had also been downgraded to PSTN!!!!!!!

The person at the other end of the phone would not believe my version of events. Their computer said my ISDN was a PSTN and that the engineer had called out to my house and installed everything. What do you even say to such stupidity???!!!!!

A further weeks worth of calling and complaining finally got me practically nowhere. So I rang them and cancelled everything.

Since late Sept, I have been trying to get NetSource to do an install, but they cant do anything because the line is marked as locked (or whatever). Have rang Eircom millions of times and they insist that it isn't....but each time NetSource call, they are told no dice!

Eircom are clearly the muppets we all know them to be....but this latest s**t they are pulling has got to be illegal??.....Surely their actions are that of attempting to create a monopoloy by refusing to meet their obligations etc...??

Die Eircom, Die!!

Jab

dahamsta · 26-01-2004 9:59am

Originally posted by zynaps
Actually, it looks like this may be the case as a matter of coincidence - IBB finally contacted me after I applied for a LOS with them months ago, and offered to waive the install fee if I was still interested.

Tell 'em you want the first month free too. Never accept the first offer!

zynaps · 26-01-2004 10:09am

Originally posted by jabaroon
A further weeks worth of calling and complaining finally got me practically nowhere. So I rang them and cancelled everything.

Ringing eircom seems to be useless, and whoever deals with other providers in eircom wholesale seems to be dead, or something... call comreg, I'm sure the more people that are willing to give them something to work with... ie, complaints, the more they'll feel like they can do something.
It worked for me, anyhow.
Can't let eircom away with it... they seem to think that hiding from the public by making eircom wholesale uncontactable and not giving any numbers out allows them to do what they want.
How about a witch hunt!

zynaps

dahamsta · 26-01-2004 10:25am

I ordered from UTV and checked the box for an ISDN connection for an extra €150/200. (I might add that UTV still haven't been able to justify this seemingly extortianate fee, even though I've asked them both publically and privately about it.) The Eircom engineer rang in a timely manner to arrange an appointment, and then rang an hour later to cancel it on orders from head office, ostensibly because "DSL needs to be provisioned from Dublin". I remain convinced that this happened because Eircom is "working to rule", i.e. working precisely to the deadlines imposed on them by ComReg with orders from third-party providers.

On the day that the engineer had arranged with me, I got a call from the engineer to tell me that he'd set up and tested the line, and it was a-ok. Sure enough, my ISDN was dead and I assumed that the dude would be up to my gaff shortly to uninstall the ISDN and lob a DSL splitter on the line. Silly assumption, he never arrived, and I had no connection -- next morning I had to fly into town to buy a modem, because UTV's DSL modem hadn't arrived yet. When UTV's modem did arrive, I had to uninstall the ISDN box myself and rewire my own socket.

The aforementioned Peter looked into this for me months later, and found that no order for installation had been logged on the system by Eircom. Of course the engineer that moved my line from the ISDN port to the DSLAM port would have seen this, but nothing was done about it. UTV never billed me for the installation, nor did they answer my questions about the delay, nor did they complain to ComReg about the delay. These seem to be ongoing issues with UTV: shoddy email support* and a scaredy-cat unwillingness to complain.

adam

* I mean queries directed to support@. Utter waste of time, it's unlikely you'll get a response at all. If you have the email address of one of the guys though, they're great.

eircom wholesale - dsl - kafkaesque

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