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"~misfit~" <> wrote in news:44061508
@news2.actrix.gen.nz:

> I then have to give it a week and if there are still problems to ring an
> 0800 number he gave me and quote a job number which he also gave me.
>
>

At least you got the job number, we all know how important that is .

--
Ciao, Dave

On Wed, 01 Mar 2006 21:51:57 +1300, Richard wrote:

> Crash wrote:
>
>> Don't worry about the threat of costs. The techies who come visiting, I
>> found, are not interested in finding a reason to charge you. I was
>> charged for one visit but this was credited when I queried it. Other
>> than that there were no costs involved.
>>
>> Go for it and don't let up until the problem is resolved.
>
> And these faults will be so much easier to get fixed when unbundling occurs
> right??? Doubt it...

Unbundling is about competition, not fault fixing. Ha!

On Wed, 01 Mar 2006 23:41:49 +1300, ~misfit~ wrote:

>> Aren't Orcon and Telecom bedmates ?
>
> Yes, very much so. One of the few guys I spoke to on Orcon's helpdesk who
> sounded like a NZer and seemed to know stuff said as much. He said that
> Orcon enjoy a "special" relationship with Telecom, that it wasn't publicised
> or well-known.

Ah, so shutting the jack up, is a wolf in sheeps clothing.

Interesting we have Telecom doing some rebranding. Still in the business
world these days who owns whom?

"~misfit~" <> wrote in message
news:...
> I dumped Orcon as a providor mainly because of the way their helpdesk
> treated me and my concerns that >50 PPP drop-outs a month was excessive.
> They claimed it was acceptable, my fault, and refused to let me speak to
> someone who knew what PPP meant yet alone escalate the problem to Telecom.
>
> So, after two weeks with Actrix I'm still getting PPP drop-outs (although
> not as frequent as with Orcon) and I decide that today's the day I talk to
> their helpdesk about it. The phone is answered promptly by someone who's
> first language is English (A trend I've noticed with Actrix). I relate my
> story to... let's call him Bob. He is amazed that Orcon consider that many
> drop-outs as acceptable and says it's certainly not as far as Actrix is
> concerned and we start going through the "isolation" trouble-shooting
talk.
> I tell him that I've done that, for a few weeks in fact, at Orcon's
> insistance. Yes, I've tried a different Router/modem. Yada yada yada.
>
> Ok, he says time to ring Telecom, he'll call me back. 15 minutes or so
later
> he calls back. Says the guy he spoke to at Telecom was "a reasonable one
for
> a change" who thinks that the problem probably isn't at my end. He says
> swapping me to another port would be the next step but wanted to know why
I
> hadn't done any hard re-sets of my router. (Obviously it shows up that my
> DSL hasn't been disconnected in a while, only the PPP is dropping out). I
> say it's because I have a quality router and I don't need to go turning it
> off and on for a dropped PPP, I only need to re-set it if the DSL drops.
>
> So Bob says cool, he'll tell the Telecom guy and he'll swap me to another
> port. Bob says "Cross your fingers that I get the same guy".
>
> Bob calls back 25 minutes later. He tells me he didn't get the same guy,
> couldn't get them to transfer him and he ended up with another guy. This
guy
> maintains that the problem is at my end and won't entertain the idea of
> swapping ports until a Telecom serviceman has been into my house and
swapped
> out my router with one of theirs and tested the line. (How do they expect
to
> find an intermittant fault like that?).
>
> I had to agree that, if a fault is found with my router or wiring, I will
> have to pay $80. (What does the Wiring Maintainance Contract of $2.24 a
> month that I pay cover?) I ask for a time-frame on the Telecom guy coming
> out (Bob has the Telecom rep on another line) and am told that they can't
> give me one, they're busy at the moment.
>
> So now I wait for a visit from Bastards Inc.
>
> So far, I'm very impressed with Actrix's helpdesk. I less than an hour
they
> did what I thought needed doing, i.e. contacting Telecom. I spent over
three
> weeks with Orcon, calling their helldesk, being in phone queues, trying to
> decode heavilly accented English and generally being pushed from pillar to
> post, trying to get them to do the same thing, until I terminated my
> contract with them.
>
> To be continued....
> --
> ~misfit~
>
>

Would you get better service on a business plan ? I suspect you would.

Oh the weight of the world.................

Dave Taylor wrote:
> "~misfit~" <> wrote in news:44061508
> @news2.actrix.gen.nz:
>
>> I then have to give it a week and if there are still problems to
>> ring an 0800 number he gave me and quote a job number which he also
>> gave me.
>>
>>
>
> At least you got the job number, we all know how important that is .

Heh! Too true. Without it you may as well forget ever talking to anyone who
knows what actually happened. Even though you give them your phone number,
address, DOB, date of job, tech's name...... It seems they can't search by
anything other than job number.

BTW, looking good so far.
--
~misfit~

On Thu, 2 Mar 2006 10:40:43 +1300, "~misfit~" <>
wrote:

>~misfit~ wrote:
>> Crash wrote:
>>> Don't worry about the threat of costs. The techies who come
>>> visiting, I found, are not interested in finding a reason to charge
>>> you. I was charged for one visit but this was credited when I
>>> queried it. Other than that there were no costs involved.
>>>
>>> Go for it and don't let up until the problem is resolved.
>>
>> Thanks Crash, will do. Must admit that the thought of an unexpected
>> bill of $80 is a bit worrying. Hopefully I won't be charged and it
>> was just a threat to try to get me to say I'll live with the problem.
>>
>
>Well, I had a South African guy knocking on my door while I was in bed this
>morning (Telecom always used to ring ahead). I asked "Who is it?" in a loud
>voice and he said "I'm from Telecom". I asked him to wait a minute. Turned
>out to be more like 10 minutes as I'm having a particularly bad day today,
>the radiculopathy from my back injury causes nocturnal leg cramps to varying
>degrees and last night was bad. I have torn muscles in my left calf this
>morning and it took me ages to get dressed and hobble to the door.
>
>He said he'd come to test my line, I told him to walk that way to the other
>end of the house and I'd catch him up. I showed him my one and only jack
>point (Double adapter and cordless phone share the point). He plugged in his
>laptop and after a moment told me my line was excellent and asked again what
>the problem I was having was. I told him, PPP drop-outs, 50+ a month, (11
>yesterday) increasing month-by-month from around 4 drop-outs / month six
>months ago.
>
>He said Ok, I need to have my port changed. he'll go arrange it and ring me
>back when it's in progress. He said it's a software process that can take up
>to 4 hours to run so I'll be without a connection for that long. (Eeeek!!
>And on a day when I can't do much else!).
>
>I then have to give it a week and if there are still problems to ring an
>0800 number he gave me and quote a job number which he also gave me.
>
>Wish me luck......

Aha! You may now be in possession of the magic 0800 number that gets
straight through to the ADSL Helpdesk at Telecom. If so, the people
you get to talk to there actually know what they are doing. DO NOT
LOSE THAT NUMBER!

When I last had my port changed, all they needed to do was go away to
the exchange and do it. I was offline for less than a minute about 20
minutes after the tech left my place. However, that was back when I
was on the old Jetstream Starter 128 Kibit/s connection via Actrix. It
sounds like handling UBS connections is less well supported by Telecom
(guess why), and they have to wait for an automatic script to update
the setup every few hours to match the physical port change.