PostOffice

Just changing over to Post Office (from A+A) and it looks like this will be the last day I have internet at home of r a few weeks.

They seem to quickly lean back on things like cancellation fees and minimum contracts even when all the problems have been of their creation. Clearly in it only for the money and shafting people as much as possible during the minimum contract period, expecting them to flee as soon as they are able.

In an odd way it reminds me of what dealing with the GPO was like in the 1970s. If you remember that and think it was an enjoyable experience, Post Office Broadband is for you.

Been with the Post Office for over 5 years with BB and homephone and mainly been good till beginning of this year.
Problems started with slower speeds then regular dropouts and occasionally no internet for hours/days.
Customer service ok if you get past the inexperienced phone answering staff and talk to proper admins.
Had allsorts of "suggestions" to improve service from them including a rewire from a BT engineer which ultimately solved nothing.
Was sent a new (but rubbish) Zyxel router as replacement for the old (good) Netgear which had "died".
Stuck with them even bought my own modem router so we could get the XBox 360 to work, but speeds have mainly been atrocious.
This time last year I was regularly achieving over 2mbs ( we live in a rural community about 3 miles from the exchange ) but at the moment I'm lucky if I get 0.5 mbs.
Fed up of excuses and porential fixes, so I am now uprooting and going to try Sky who offer LLU as well as a cheaper all round deal as well as Anytime+ on the telly. Will know this time next week (hopefully)if things have improved.
Hope so!

Before deciding to go with Post Office I did read reviews which suggested their customer service left a lot to be desired but I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt as I am limited in choice for providers in my area.

My internet was due to go live on Monday 27th Sept but I was unable to get any connection on my pc. My daughter's laptop picked it up no problem so I knew there was no problem with their equipment. I called their customer service and was very impressed when they said someone would call me back. Two hours later I was still waiting so called again and was told it can take up to 48 hours for a callback. Not too happy. Wednesday came and went without anyone contacting me so I called again. Told someone would call me back.

Saturday 7.00am I called again thinking I would get through to someone at that time but once again was told I would be put in a queue due to high call volumes. 11.00 called again, told someone would call me back, asked if it would be today and was told "hopefully". Decided to send email to tech support.

Monday 4th received reply to my email asking for further details, replied with details at 9.00am. Tuesday 5th received another email saying they could not help and I would need to speak to tech support. AAARRRGGGHHHH.

Tuesday 5th phoned again and to my huge surprise after 10 minutes on hold the phone was answered not by someone asking me to leave my number but by someone from tech support.

He then told me my problem was my computer (less than 6 months old with Windows 7 and was working perfectly well with previous ISP provider). Said there was nothing he could do and I would have to contact my computer manufacturer.

Sent an email to HP tech support explaining everything and in less than 24 hours received a very long and comprehensive response listing lots of things to try. After trying the first suggestion everything was working fine. It was simply a setting on the computer which needed adjusting and as far as I can see it should have been something Post Office should have told me to check.

Now that I am up and running I can say that connection seems to be good and at least my daughter's laptop works all over the house unlike with Sky when it would only work if she was within 6 ft of their router. I do find some pages are slower to load than they were before though when I checked my download speed it was roughy the same as before.

For someone who is not in an area that can get all the cheap internet offers due to BT's refusal to upgrade the lines Post Office does offer phone and broadband at a reasonable cost. I just hope that I never need to contact tech support again for any reason.

I switched a non DSL landline to the Post Office's most expensive Homephone and Broadband package in January.

Broadband performance is great, but there are other problems.

1) They don't answer emails

2) It is uncertain if you will get ADSL2 when your BT exchange has it

3) They ship a router with their own locked firmware onboard (useless for other ISP's)

4) Facilities like Caller ID cost extra!

The biggest (ongoing) problem I've got is that from being connected on 16th February 2010, they've yet to take a premium from my bank account - and it's now April, and I have just discovered they've yet to take over voice functions of my line!

BT have just billed me for £100 in calls which the Post Office should have been responsible for - and which would have almost all have proven to be inclusive within their current £25.50 a month! They've had from January til' April to sort it out, but failed!

I'm about to call them for the umpteenth time, but have yet so speak to anyone there who knows their ar$e from their elbow!

A letter to the Chairmans Office could well be prepared and sent shortly, asking them to get their act in order and demanding they settle my BT bill!

Either that or I shut up and enjoy free DSL and use 18185 for my calls...

For anybody considering moving to postoffice for broadband? Don't. The service and reliability is very good don't get me wrong but their customer support is absolutely abysmal. Delayed activation for a week.....2 routers sent to me which both weren't working (had to wait at least a good 2 weeks for the replacement for the 1st broken down router) customer services when I had to phne them about issues regulary not interested and hung up on during calls when I was needing information. If you want a fast/reliable connection then go to the P.O. But don't expect very much support when things go wrong and don't use their own supplied router's.