Broadband problem SK4 Area

rtj70 · 24-08-2006, 17:19

Yesterday there were bad storms (including lightning) in the Stockport area. Some bad lightning outside house and step-son reports broadband stopped at that point.

I called NTL Support and got through to Indian support centre. They confirmed major outage for SK4 area - I think they a UBR problem but I don't know if they knew what that was. Estimate time to fix 4pm today.

Get home and still no broadband. Reboot STB and then via handset (page-up page-down blue button) I find it says QOS as UNKNOWN and so are the power levels. If you don't have broadband they will say no-bia.cm.

Phoned NTL and get India again. Tell them of QOS issue and they ask if I can go to the start menu. Tell them it's the STB to blame and can they check it. They say all settings okay on STB and can I open up start menu. Will not change his record. Get passed to supervisor at my insistence.

Supervisor asks same question but I say the QOS is UNKNOWN and not even a no-bia.cm. They don't even case that the uplink light on the STB is flashing meaning it cannot contact the head-end.

Then get passed to proper broadband support. They get told the same thing by me and they immediately ask is the light flashing. Because it was they then checked power levels of STB and they were all over the place. They check their logs and STB last contacted between 14:15 and 15:15 yesterday and confirm the modem fried. Oddly TV still working though.

They say they will report my unhappines with knowledge of Indian call centre (using their scripts) and arrange new STB for tomorrow. Then I ask can they swap broadband to the other STB...

So customer services queue later... they say no because it takes 48 hrs. I say broadband support said it was possible and they said "I'll try". 5 minutes later broadband on the other STB working.

So if anyone with problems in SK4 area who reads this (dial-up anyone) and they have an STB saying QOS UNKNOWN it's fried. Don't let Indian call centre tell you otherwise.

Note when the engineer visited booked there were lots of others in the area too. So the "UBR Fault" obviously affected the cable modems in STBs.

Hope this helps people.

rtj70 · 29-08-2006, 16:20

Well I waited in all afternoon on Friday for the STB to be swapped... and got the feeling nobody was coming. I phoned Customer Service (and got bounced around India, Customer Service etc.) to finally find at 7pm that the appointment had been rebooked to Monday 28th August. Without letting me know. They thought there was a broadband fault in the area so cancelled all appointments and dispatch called "most people". The fact that you had to wait in for the appointment meant they could have contacted me if they tried.

Anyway a nice helpful girl/lady in Swansea rebooked the appointment for today, Tuesday PM. But I thought I'd check they were coming when it got to 3:30pm. And guess what nothing on the system for today. So that's two days of staying at home!

Still waiting for the person to call me back today... she's trying to contact Amy who I spoke to on Friday.

So what's the most effective way of complaining, apart from cancelling the service. I'm just waiting for Sky's LLU in my area now I think.

Thanks, Rob