/Rant - The case of the missing DSL

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CYaBro

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#139352 5-Feb-2014 19:53

I thought I would post about an interesting problem that affected one of my clients.

Their house is fairly rural I guess being on the road between Waipu and Waipu Cove.
They have two phone lines into the house with Telecom, one for the family and one for work.
They had a DSL broadband connection on the work line, that their business paid for, via Vodafone.
This had been the setup for a long time, at least 3-4 years I think, and they have had no issues with the service in that time.

Until now....

They went away on holiday for a week during January and when they returned they found that the broadband was not working.
After doing the usual checks and reboots still could not get it going.
They called me and I got them to try a few other things and also gave them another router to try but still nothing.

So they called Vodafone and gave their details, account number, username etc, and Vodafone could find no record of there ever being a broadband connection at their home address.

All Vodafone's records showed was that the username they were using was linked to the customers business account for their office in Auckland and they could do nothing more.
Vodafone suggested the customer call Telecom and get them to check the lines so they did this and Telecom could find no issues.
So customer called Vodafone back and told them that but again Vodafone could not help as their records showed no connection at the house and there ever being one at all.

So I suggested that they call and just get a new broadband connection setup.
They did this and have now been told that there are no free ports and they are on the waiting list which could be up to 18 months or more!!!

How does something like this happen??

My next suggestion to them was to call a local wireless internet provider, Uber Group, who are going to do a site visit and hopefully they will be able to get a good signal and get onto that instead.

/rant

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

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6614 posts

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#980971 5-Feb-2014 20:03

Hi,

PM me all your details for the account, Ill do my best to find anything of that nature. Might have been telstra clear??

Cheers

CYaBro

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#981000 5-Feb-2014 20:40

Hey, thanks for the reply.
It is one of my clients, I have no access to the account details, but I can ask them to provide them to me.
I'll PM you if I can get them.

Pretty sure they've been with Vodafone only, never Telstra Clear, but could possibly have been iHug.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

coffeebaron

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#981016 5-Feb-2014 21:45

If they do end up stuck as a port waiter and you have no luck with Uber Group, let me know and I'll see if we can do RBI or similar.

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hio77

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Lizard Networks

#981025 5-Feb-2014 22:11

in the case of things like this happening, clearly by mistake, is there not a process to restore what went wrong?

atlest if it happened to me, i would be utterly unimpressed considering RBI (or a wireless solution) simply isnt built for my patterns and usage..

an interesting case to follow...

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Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

Coil

6614 posts

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#981037 5-Feb-2014 22:31

Who knows what happens, Ill check it out if i get the info. It might never had broadband and they were confused with RBI or a Vodem etc.. Who knows..

CYaBro

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#981076 6-Feb-2014 02:38

TimA: Who knows what happens, Ill check it out if i get the info. It might never had broadband and they were confused with RBI or a Vodem etc.. Who knows..

Wait what are you saying?
That they thought they had DSL but in actual fact have been using a vodem or something?
If that's what you are trying to say then I can put you straight on that as I've been to the house.
I replaced an old single port DSL router a year or so ago with a four port wireless DSL router and that's what they've been using since.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

lucky015

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#981080 6-Feb-2014 04:54

Just speculation, But...

Sounds like the issue may lie with the broadband connection being paid for by the business, This may have been disconnected due to day to day changes on the business account which leads to it vanishing with no evidence showing to the account of the person living in the property as the service was never there's in the first place, Merely a service at their property they where entitled to use but not invoiced for or privy to any information regarding due general privacy restrictions which would apply to the account on which it was held.

TLDR;

If the service never belonged to the customer (Aka. Was not on an account and invoice with their name on it) then it will need to be found on the business account to find what actually happened and only the business is entitled to make any changes to the service or go into anything further.

Send Tim the details to look into, More work for Tim is always a good thing!

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hio77

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Lizard Networks

#981081 6-Feb-2014 05:05

Tim doing work? Whoa maybe he won't have time to bring his vdsl up :3

Defiantly get him the info and see what he can dig up.

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

CYaBro

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#981092 6-Feb-2014 08:15

Yup will pass on the details if/when I get them.
I've sent the client an email requesting it but they can't get their emails at home at the moment. :)

This client owns the business that has been paying for the broadband connection and they have all the invoices from Vodafone with the connections username on it that they've been using.
This is the info they gave on the phone to Vodafone.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

johnr

19282 posts

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#981094 6-Feb-2014 08:24

I am sure there is more to this story, Account numbers just don't drop out of systems

CYaBro

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#981102 6-Feb-2014 09:01

No the account number is still there, and so is the connection details for the username that the client has set in their router at home, but all other details Vodafone say point to the connection being at the office in Auckland.
No details about a connection on their phone line at home.
Perhaps the client had been using the wrong username at home the whole time ??

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

clinty

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#981104 6-Feb-2014 09:10

CYaBro: No the account number is still there, and so is the connection details for the username that the client has set in their router at home, but all other details Vodafone say point to the connection being at the office in Auckland.
No details about a connection on their phone line at home.
Perhaps the client had been using the wrong username at home the whole time ??

I've had that. Client used an old modem "from the office" when the office was upgraded, never changed the user details, and wondered why they got random disconnects at both locations

You said in the original post both lines coming in where with Telecom - but one was billed to Vodafone. Did u mean one incoming was with Telecom the othe with Vodafone - or is it possible they have one line with a master filter install that looks like two lines, and that is billed to Telecom?

I assume Chorus has a record of what service was at the address and what ISP is responsible for the service. I guess the cant give out details except to the relevant ISP but surely they can let other ISPs know who is supplying that address

Clint

Jaxar

383 posts

Ultimate Geek

#981124 6-Feb-2014 11:07

hio77: in the case of things like this happening, clearly by mistake, is there not a process to restore what went wrong?

atlest if it happened to me, i would be utterly unimpressed considering RBI (or a wireless solution) simply isnt built for my patterns and usage..

an interesting case to follow...

Meet hypothetical John Smith. John is an avid gamer and has been impatiently waiting for a port to be available for 18 months now. His ISP finally gives him the good news! His internet is due to be connected on Friday. John orders in a really good modem from his favored PC supplier and has his buddy who is an electrician come and install a splitter and make sure all his wiring up to spec.

On Friday he takes the day off work, good thing he has saved up some annual leave. The install goes smoothly he is getting fairly decent sync speeds given his rural location and he can finally be truly competitive in his online gaming. He has a big weekend ahead of him. Perhaps he will check out the elder scrolls beta if he can score a beta key off curse.com after the premium users have picked over them.

Saturday morning after sleeping in due to staying up late the night before he gets up to play some games but his internet isn't working and he has a missed call from his ISP. On calling provider a sympathetic but ultimately powerless CSR explains that there has been a mess up with another provider and that they had to give port back to another customer. John naturally becomes rather upset but despite eventually working his way through to the head of complaints the answer still remains that he is back on the waiter list and again will be waiting an indefinite amount of time for an internet connection. His ISP have tried to make it right reversing all the charges even going so far to provide a credit for the modem he purchased independently of them. John doesn't really care though his provider has let him down. He realizes it probably isn't really in their control and that they did want hsi business but he needs to lash out and changes provider.

It doesn't matter which provider has made a mistake all providers do the point of my flowery story above is that although it would be cool to have an undo button in some cases there can be good reason as to why. The above isn't in any way intended to take away from the VF customer who is in a truly terrible situation. I simply wanted to address the other side of the coin in a situation like this.

Please note: I have a professional bias towards Vodafone.

raytaylor

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#981149 6-Feb-2014 12:02

I once had slingshot randomly decide to issue my 2talk business number to a random person in hastings who got a new landline connected.

Boy was I angry as it took two days for them to restore it. Meanwhile I was missing sales leads coming in and these people were dealing with their phone ringing every ten minutes.

Anyhow the process that chorus should have implemented is simply this
"When a port becomes free, they wait at least 2 weeks before issuing it to a new subscriber"

Simple. It gives the old ISP time to fix up a mistake, or submit a trouble ticket if its chorus' mistake, and means the new subscriber will have little chance of that port being taken away from them.

Ray Taylor

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Coil

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#981158 6-Feb-2014 12:15

Pass the details once you have them.
Probably as people suggested, Owned by the business account and has been closed or had something go wrong.

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