Frustrated with Vodafone new install

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bun1

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Topic # 150539 26-Jul-2014 00:35

My parents (in their 70's) have moved to a new address. I thought this is a good time to look at their telephone setup. They already subscribed to Sky so I decided to go with Vodafone so they can get the discount for mysky.

I contacted vodafone on Thursday 17 to arrange things. On Wednesday 23rd I contacted vodafone again to see where we were at as my parents moved into their new house on Tuesday 22. Brand new house so has not had a phone connection before but all the wiring had been done from the driveway to the house and just needed connecting. Was told it would be connected on Friday 25th. I asked if it could not be done earlier as my parents are elderly and need a phone.

Chorus arrived on Thursday 24 and connected it all up. Gave me a test modem to plug in to check if the broadband was working. He just looked at the lights on it. He did what he had to do and I told him the phone just had an engaged signal when I picked it up. He said it would take about an hour to be activated. I am still waiting. I am now worried that my parents wont have a phone for the weekend. The vodafone broadband modem arrived today and works fine.

I called vodafone again last night to say it was not working. A fault was logged. I had heard nothing today and I rung them again. After being shunted round to about 3 different people I was getting so frustrated. Was told I would have to ring back later in the day and get a status update. I said you ring me I haven't got time to be spending another hour talking to you. Guess what - no call and still no phone working.

When I spoke to them on Wednesday I asked about the Sky install. They said that they couldn't put it through to sky until after the phone had been activated so it wouldn't go through to them until Monday 28th. So not only would my parents have no phone they would have no TV as well. I rung Sky and sky came and put the dish up the next day. so at least they have TV.

My question is this - Why are big phone companies so hard to deal with? People move house all the time. Why does it take more than a week to get a phone put on? Why can't one simple 5 minute phone call do the job? I must have wasted 2 hours this week trying to sort it out and it is still not sorted. Why can they not ring me back and update me instead of me holding on to a phone for an hour? Surely things shouldn't be this hard. We are in Lower Hutt. Not in some rural area where I can understand things would take a bit longer.

Frustrated.

Hammerer

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Reply # 1095956 26-Jul-2014 01:57

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You have high expectations that are probably unrealistic. Did your parents decide to move the week before they moved or was there a much longer lead time?

If it were so important you could have increased the likelihood of success by giving them a longer lead time to work with:

As far as I know a new connection is more work than using an existing connection.
Joining Vodafone with Sky takes up to 5 days for phone before Sky can be setup which will be when they can do it: How long will it take to get Sky through Vodafone when I sign up?
A move for existing customers has two week minimum lead-time: What to do when moving house.

sbiddle

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Reply # 1095970 26-Jul-2014 09:05

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5 days in an unrealistic timeframe for any ISP to meet for a change of address or new connection. You're actually very lucky you got an install in the timeframe for you did.

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freitasm

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Reply # 1096203 26-Jul-2014 15:56

sbiddle: 5 days in an unrealistic timeframe for any ISP to meet for a change of address or new connection. You're actually very lucky you got an install in the timeframe for you did.

It sounds as though they have broadband working, so why wouldn't POTS be working?

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antoniosk

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Reply # 1096207 26-Jul-2014 16:04

freitasm:
sbiddle: 5 days in an unrealistic timeframe for any ISP to meet for a change of address or new connection. You're actually very lucky you got an install in the timeframe for you did.

It sounds as though they have broadband working, so why wouldn't POTS be working?

classic pots (from the 70's) is a different piece of infrastructure, different teams activate numbers, and is coordinated via Telecom still. VOIP based pots (for UCLL) would activate straight away with the internet connection.

It used to be the other way round, but as landline voice continues to be abandoned i expect the same is hapening for service levels

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johnr

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Reply # 1096210 26-Jul-2014 16:08

Moving house INFO on the Vodafone NZ site has the INFO you require, Big ISP or small ISP they all go into the que at the end of the day on the Chorus side

** Place your request 10 working days prior to your move **

http://www.vodafone.co.nz/broadband/moving-home/

* You can tell us up to 4 weeks before you move if you like.

mattwnz

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Reply # 1096214 26-Jul-2014 16:12

I know of an elderly couple with major health problems who had this same type of problem, which I posted at http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=40&topicid=145312 . They needed the phone line for a life and death situation only a few weeks after they got connected. They were without a connection for over 15 days after moving into a new house which previously had no connection,and they even had the health board involved trying to get it connected. It ended up being connected the day after I posted on here.
So it would appear you need to contact the phone provider well in excess of 10 days prior to the move. Perhaps even a full month. Not sure if there are any minimum standards they are required to meet. Many elderly do rely on their phone line as their life line.

sbiddle

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Reply # 1096218 26-Jul-2014 16:14

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freitasm:
sbiddle: 5 days in an unrealistic timeframe for any ISP to meet for a change of address or new connection. You're actually very lucky you got an install in the timeframe for you did.

It sounds as though they have broadband working, so why wouldn't POTS be working?

Totally different product that requires Telecom co-ordination if it's delivered from a NEAX (which is owned by Telecom).

We also don't know whether there was a port required (ie if they were on the Red network before or are moving to Red from wholesale) which adds to the timeframe and/or whether a customerlink was requested. This job also requires a lot more work as it's a brand new install with no existing intact so more work is required.

It's not uncommon for a new landline connection to have a 10 day timeframe for an install. New broadband connections can be similar, but both can often be quicker or slower depending entirely on the schedule. In Wellington in February for example it was 3+ weeks just to get ADSL2+ or a new phoneline.

All these of these reasons are why statements like the one above from the Vodafone website saying to give two weeks notice exist. There is no excuse for bad communication, but expecting any ISP to lodge and have a new build done with a 5 day timeframe is being very unrealistic. Yes it could happen, but it's highly unlikely.