Telecom 2 days to change plans.

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Tel69

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#75902 25-Jan-2011 18:46

OK, we all know the story,
You get the standard "It can take up to two days" confirmation e-mail.
In todays day and age can I ask WHY it would take up to two days to change the broadband plan from 1 standard offering to another standard offering with the same ISP?

A VERY basic (and possibly unfair) comparision is online banking.
I have a balance, I transfer money from one account to another to update that balance.
I can then go down to the money machines and see updated balances and limits on the credit card if I added money to it.
If I get a temporary overdraft, I see it the next morning.
Why does it take up to 2 days to make that happen with a broadband account?
It is just a limit change (And possibly a charging change depending the plan).

IMOHO 24 hours should be more than enough time to make the changes needed for what seems like such a simple thing and have them filter through.

johnr

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#431130 25-Jan-2011 18:49

A bank account does not have a bill cycle date

Your bank Balance is not prorated either and this is why plans should only change on a bill cycle date cause then many customers find the invoice confusing and do not understand the part months charges

John

Tel69

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#431135 25-Jan-2011 19:01

johnr: A bank account does not have a bill cycle date

Your bank Balance is not prorated either and this is why plans should only change on a bill cycle date cause then many customers find the invoice confusing and do not understand the part months charges

John

OK, but Credit cards do have a bill cycle date and a limit.
All be it an interesting/simplistic comparision it does have some very similiar attributes.
However if it is a bill cycle date causing this surely it would be a lot longer than up to 2 days.

NonprayingMantis

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#431141 25-Jan-2011 19:07

dunno about your credit card,but mine takes longer than 2 days for purchases to show up.

And as for the plan change, with billing systems often these things need to be done in batches. Since a batch can only be so big,and only so many can be run per day, you might get lucky and get straight onto the first batch if not many other people request plan changes, or if a lot of people are requesting them then you might have to wait for tomorrow's batch, which would show up the day after.

Tel69

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#431144 25-Jan-2011 19:16

NonprayingMantis: dunno about your credit card,but mine takes longer than 2 days for purchases to show up.

And as for the plan change, with billing systems often these things need to be done in batches. Since a batch can only be so big,and only so many can be run per day, you might get lucky and get straight onto the first batch if not many other people request plan changes, or if a lot of people are requesting them then you might have to wait for tomorrow's batch, which would show up the day after.

Well for my phone, unlimited national calling means I don't see it.
Credit card shows up next day.
I'm sure just like any international thing (Phone call/CC transaction), even though the "amount" is known both sides have to make sure it was correct before putting it on your bill.
For international CC transaction, yes generally 2 days before it shows up online, but it does have to go though the CC company before getting back to the bank as confirmation.
I would say telcos do much the same, "put it down as a debit on the account, but wait for confirmation".

This is slightly different though.
It's confirmed, all internal for the same company.
I'm just trying to understand why it could take up to 2 days as I can't.

old3eyes

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#431146 25-Jan-2011 19:27

Tel69: OK, we all know the story,
You get the standard "It can take up to two days" confirmation e-mail.
In todays day and age can I ask WHY it would take up to two days to change the broadband plan from 1 standard offering to another standard offering with the same ISP?

I assume you did this online?? I changed my mother-in-laws BB plan over new year and expected it would take 4 working days as it says on their website and as it was a public and Telecom holiday. Was quite surprised to see it had changed next day..

Regards,

Old3eyes

NonprayingMantis

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#431151 25-Jan-2011 19:45

Tel69:
NonprayingMantis: dunno about your credit card,but mine takes longer than 2 days for purchases to show up.

And as for the plan change, with billing systems often these things need to be done in batches. Since a batch can only be so big,and only so many can be run per day, you might get lucky and get straight onto the first batch if not many other people request plan changes, or if a lot of people are requesting them then you might have to wait for tomorrow's batch, which would show up the day after.

Well for my phone, unlimited national calling means I don't see it.
Credit card shows up next day.
I'm sure just like any international thing (Phone call/CC transaction), even though the "amount" is known both sides have to make sure it was correct before putting it on your bill.
For international CC transaction, yes generally 2 days before it shows up online, but it does have to go though the CC company before getting back to the bank as confirmation.
I would say telcos do much the same, "put it down as a debit on the account, but wait for confirmation".

This is slightly different though.
It's confirmed, all internal for the same company.
I'm just trying to understand why it could take up to 2 days as I can't.

with billing systems often these things need to be done in batches. Since a batch can only be so big,and only so many can be run per day, you might get lucky and get straight onto the first batch if not many other people request plan changes, or if a lot of people are requesting them then you might have to wait for tomorrow's batch, which would show up the day after.

hamistheman

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#431153 25-Jan-2011 19:55

Cheques take three days to clear within the same bank ....

Credit card transactions take up to four days to show up.....

Assuming that they update once a day what plans people are on ..... then depending on when you make the change ... it seem like two days ....

my 2 c

H

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Tel69

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#431184 25-Jan-2011 21:03

NonprayingMantis:

with billing systems often these things need to be done in batches. Since a batch can only be so big,and only so many can be run per day, you might get lucky and get straight onto the first batch if not many other people request plan changes, or if a lot of people are requesting them then you might have to wait for tomorrow's batch, which would show up the day after.

Sorry mate, I work with a lot of financial transactions (hence using that as my comparision).
If a batch can only be so big you make 2 or 3 or 10 batches, but IMOHO you get the transactions through ASAP, but clients should not be made to wait because of some system limitation.
Being a tech for 30 odd years, I still shake my head and ask WHY, (Even with my own employer), something can't be done, as I know it can be. (You would not believe the hastle I give my bank)

Unless you read the confirmation carefully I received and read the 1 sentence in the please note section with a GST increasing message as well you would think you have already moved over to the new plan, I spose it's what made my start this topic.

Just when I thought about it, I thought how hard can it be compared to .......
Not a fair comparision as I don't know what goes on in the background doing it as opposed to my work, but I still think the comparision to a credit card is sort of close.

nate

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#431197 25-Jan-2011 21:34

Is the delay to stop you changing plans too regularly maybe?

Talkiet

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#431235 25-Jan-2011 23:49

nate: Is the delay to stop you changing plans too regularly maybe?

Nope, it's due to systems and the fact that these things happen in batches. There's a business rule preventing frequent plan changes.

I understand that many people expect these things should happen in realtime - unfortunately there are numerous systems involved, and they aren't all realtime systems. If we had unlimited $$$ and no government regulation and everyone wanted to pay more for a better service, then this is one of the things that would change.

Unfortunately, none of those things are true :-(

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

wreck90

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#431249 26-Jan-2011 01:50

It is not so comparable to banking.

I'm sure telecom could categorise requests into simple/complex. Simple plan change requests could be actioned immediately.

Maybe their systems need some coordination to ensure the bill cycle/current data threshold/new data threshold/existing threshold limits/existing contract status are handled in a sensible manner.

eg, if the customer is currently throttled, but they increase the cap so they would no longer be throttled - what to do?

Or, if the customer has exceeded cap and incurred excess data charges then the cap increases to nullify those charges, what then?

Or, maybe their different systems aren't timed to work in real-time ?

who knows. Not I.:)

farcus

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#431252 26-Jan-2011 07:09

isn't the change "up to two days"?
I think you'd find it usually happens much quicker but they advise a longer time to allow for systems that might fall over from time to time.

trig42

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#431253 26-Jan-2011 07:22

Yes, I have changed plans online and seen the 'Up to 2 days' thing, but both times I changed, it was there the next morning (from the request being placed in the evening the night before).

Ragnor

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#431388 26-Jan-2011 13:36

Talkiet:
nate: Is the delay to stop you changing plans too regularly maybe?

Nope, it's due to systems and the fact that these things happen in batches. There's a business rule preventing frequent plan changes.

I understand that many people expect these things should happen in realtime - unfortunately there are numerous systems involved, and they aren't all realtime systems. If we had unlimited $$$ and no government regulation and everyone wanted to pay more for a better service, then this is one of the things that would change.

Unfortunately, none of those things are true :-(

Cheers - N

I imagine it's like trying to turn the titanic getting anything done quickly with a huge amount of legacy systems.

Just looking at the last year... the number of errors, mistakes, over counting, under counting and outages with the Telecom usage meter.. is kind of embarrassing.

You only have to look at the Tivo zero rating fiasco, first it wasn't zero rated then all traffic for people who had Tivo was zero rated (instead of just the cspca) for months and months and months

In the mean time plenty of other ISP's have got quite a bit of innovation done with their billing and data usage systems.

Free off peak, unmetered content, adding data blocks in realtime, data banking/rollover.

Tel69

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#431529 26-Jan-2011 18:42

Ragnor:I imagine it's like trying to turn the titanic getting anything done quickly with a huge amount of legacy systems.

Just looking at the last year... the number of errors, mistakes,?over counting,?under counting?and outages with the Telecom usage meter.. is kind of?embarrassing.

You only have to look at the Tivo zero rating fiasco, first it wasn't zero rated then all traffic for people who had Tivo was zero rated (instead of just the cspca) for months and months and months

In the mean time plenty of other ISP's have got quite a bit of innovation done with their billing and data usage systems.

Free off peak, unmetered content, adding data blocks in realtime, data banking/rollover.

My thoughts exactly.
My change however was not done the next day, but it has been done.
Banks batch things, and yes I can understand if I was coming from another ISP to Telecom.
But just a purely internal change to their own systems I cannot understand it taking that long.
BUT Talkiet, although I am talking about Telecom I have heard of others from other ISP's with the same frustrations.

I suppose I was more trying to say WHY can it not be as I know it can be. (BUT I don't know the rules and regs companies have to work under for the telecommunications sector).
Surely we are able to work smarter and better than this.