Had one of my friends come over for dinner last night, and she bought along her laptop for me to fix - got it running and we started talking about internet providers etc...
Shes currently using some form of naked copper (I assume VDSL but could be ADSL), but got a letter from her ISP advising that she could now get UFB and save money as the UFB plan is $10 cheaper.
Not being technically minded, she asked someone why she should goto UFB, got told the usual "faster" etc. So she went back to the ISP and registered her interest..... she is now wishing she hadn't bothered.
She is in a body corp situation, the ISP reached out to the body corp to get their permission etc, which was approved (apparently they replied to the ISP same day, which is amazing considering I've heard horror stories of body corps taking months).
A date was scheduled for Chorus to come out and do their scope visit - two guys turned up, but only one actually got out of the car.
He wandered around the property and started tapping on a wall looking at my friend.... she was looking at him waiting for him to ask something, but all she got out of him was a grunt and more wall tapping. He then wandered around again and went back to the same wall and started "grunting" again - she asked him if thats where he was suggesting where the fiber would come in, but just got more grunts and wall tapping.
She got fed up at this point and said not to worry about it, and he gave her something to sign - she asked what it was and he couldn't say. So she wrote on the bottom of the form "Put on hold" and signed it.
Few days later she gets a call to say Chorus will be out to do the install on xx date - she advised that no, it should be on hold until she knows exactly what the heck is going on and can have someone actually talk to her about where the install is going. The ISP came back to her and said "well, it is on hold until early July" and left it at that..... no offer of getting someone else out to do the scope visit.
And thats where it is....... I'm going to go round later this week and sit on hold to her ISP and see if we can get to the bottom of it all but at this point shes really frustrated about the whole thing which is understandable.
I thought the ability to be able to talk would have been a requirement of a Chorus tech, but obviously not, and then the ISP should be chasing up things with Chorus, but again, obviously not.
I know Chorus are busy trying to get everything done in a timely manner etc, but how can this be achieved when some staff they hire are unable to complete a simple task, dragging out the time.