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Tech support getting ropey

I have had no internet connection for two days, and despite contacting Vispa support several times, I have yet to receive any info about when I am likely to get a working connection; either by phone or by email.

To add insult to injury, the guy who dealt with my phone report twice managed to cut me off running line tests, making me believe the phone line was faulty as well.

I am currently online by "borrowing" an open router at a neighbours house.

What is particularly irritating is that I have had this exact same fault several times over the last few years; I have even had an OpenReach engineer confirm it is a randomly unreliable equipment issue at the exchange; but each time I get the same set of excuses and a 5+ day delay in getting it sorted.

I manage to live with the random 1-5 minute hiatus's I get throughout the day, but I miss the days of Kevin the tech guy who would push BT to do a proper job.

I am getting closer and closer to going for fibre, which will almost certainly NOT be with Vispa.
 
I think given your experiences with Vispa, which seems to be falling by the wayside of other ISPs in the competitive sense, then you'd probably be better off switching to somebody like Zen for FTTC or one of the big providers if you'd rather save money but lose quality.
 
I am giving it serious thought, but we are in the middle of applying for Jasmins' "Unlimited Leave To Stay" visa, and the bloody government insists everything is done on line, so I need a working SECURE internet connect RIGHT NOW.
Currently I am leaching off of an insecure wifi router somewhere within 1Km of my house using an antenna stuck up near the roof. No way am I going to risk doing any payments through it, especially the £2,000 the various parts of the visa process requires.

Once the visa is out of the way I am going to look seriously at the alternatives - which will probably mean a FTTC/Phone package from one of the "quality" suppliers (like Vispa used to be).
 
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If you really need something ASAP thats secure drop me a PM or a email and I will see if I can help sort something out for you.
 
Thanks Lee, I really dont want to do anything via this open router that might get compromised, so I will go over and use my parents internet connection on Sunday.
I will have to take my netbook though, as I dont trust THEIR Win7 PC after a nasty infection that I cleaned out last week!! Damned thing took control of the UAC, blocked safe mode and was directing all print traffic through a remote server!!!

I want to run another week of malware and rootkit scans and not find anything before I trust it!!!
 
I dont think "Norman" is running a honeypot, I managed to log into "his" router this morning - still set to the default password!!

I am still not going to risk it though, a cable connection to mums router on Sunday if I get the time - we are off to Bristol for SWMBOs' LIUK test Saturday; if she fails we are buggered - her visa runs out in a week!!
 
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I will keep my fingers crossed that everything goes well, good luck and I wish you all the best.
 
I have an issue with my phone number, I dont know if it has something to do with Vispa or not, but putting it into Zens' checker (and a couple of others), it says number not recognised.

Now I HAVE had this issue before, sometimes BT seems to "lose" the entire "01684" area code from its data banks, but it hasnt happened in at least 5-6 years; I used to have regular issues with a Russian GF getting a "wrong number" message when trying to call me, even when the number was correctly stored in her phone.

I do wonder if BT dont care about ADSL any more and are deliberately ignoring faults in the hope people will migrate to fibre; which is both cheaper and more reliable for them to maintain (and has no scrap value for thieves).
 
If you want to PM me your details I will pass them on to one of our provision specialists who will be able to get you the info?

Lee
 
Just an update;

One week into the fault and despite pointing out at the very beginning that I have had the same fault three times, and that it needs an engineer visit to reset the exchange equipment; Vispa tech support STILL HAVEN'T REQUESTED AN ENGINEER VISIT.

I have also noticed that caller ID is no longer working on my phone line.

Zen is getting a new customer
 
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Day 8 and apparently a network issue has been detected that may be affecting my internet access!!!

OH LORDY LORD!!!!! Would that be the problem I told them about on day 1, and last year, and the year before that??
 
Sadly, Zen's sales team have shot them,selves in the foot - I have been unable to make contact despite repeated attempts, so my new ISP from the end of the month will be Aquiss!

It seems I will need a new phone line though, at some point it appears Vispa have transferred mine from BT to Talk Talk!!!!

I dont have time to check now, but does anyone here have knowledge on the legality of doing this without consent of the person using the line??

Vispa have still not answered my termination/MAC request; I have just sent it a third time - to complaints@vispa this time; at least I got an automated reply this time!!
 
A change of platform doesn't strictly require a new contract, unless you can demonstrate a material loss of service/quality or the package/price has changed. Let me know if you haven't had a reply from them by next week though and I'll see if I can help.
 
Digging around has shown a change of T&Cs dated 1/3/2014 - I have had to submit a termination request in form of a dead tree (posted yesterday).

As I sent it first class, they should receive it today. If the line isnt restored (day 11 and still nothing) they can swing in the wind for another months service fees, I will pay them line rental and any call charges, as the phone still works (sort of - CLID has stopped working).
 
Day 13,

According to the last email I received from "support" on Friday afternoon, my line is working perfectly; however I suspect this is still only from tests carried out remotely. I keep reminding them that the fault NEVER shows up remotely, but they wont listen.

According to my own equipment (several different routers), including using the iPlate's test socket, one says it is now passing OAM tests, but still failing PPP server tests, the others still say it fails OAM segment tests.

Data rate is reported as being 512/1024 Kbps, it flips between the two, but I mostly see 512k, on a sync of between 7 and 9,000 Kbps, reported SNRs and other line data are also all over the place.

Roll on next Friday.
 
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Day 15,

I have NOW been told it cannot be an equipment fault because I was swapped onto new equipment on Tuesday 4th March.

Tuesday 4th........ isnt that the day I LOST all internet access and CLID stopped working on the phone???

Apparently it is all a coincidence.:hrmph:
 
A BT engineer turned up unexpectedly yesterday (after sending a message saying they couldnt attend!!) and blamed everything on my router being faulty.
Because my wifes English isnt that good, she wasnt able to refute him and point out I had tried multiple routers and couldnt get a connection.

Anyway, since he managed, I started playing with the new routers advance settings (since none of mine could get a connection still); it seems the new exchange equipment needs different configuration settings and/or is sending out duff auto config info to the router.
I found that if I left my router in "Auto config", on reboot it would try to make a PPOE connection; switching to manual and forcing a PPOA on its own didnt help though, I had to dig deeper; I found that no IP, gateway or DNS info was being received, so I manually entered them and managed to get the router to pass "PPP server test", but still no internet connection.

Finally, I found a pull down list of generic settings that included BT's and tried that - BINGO !!! I have internet!!!

Hang on though!! I am only getting 0.5Mbps, I still have no CLID and I now cannot access certain "sharing" sites that on BT's own block list, but have never been blocked by Vispa.

I may have internet access, and I am certain BTOR are going to try and screw £150 out of me because their engineer blamed it on my equipment, but my connection is still seriously screwed.

I wonder if it will get sorted out before my new fibre line goes in next Friday???
 
After contacting "Support", a miracle occurred and my line sprang into action at 5.5Mbps, but hang on, all of a sudden the modulation type is different and it is suddenly receiving the correct ISP info, I no longer have to connect via BTs gateway!!!

So the original problem was a cock-up when switching equipment, the new equipment has been giving out totally incorrect auto-config data to my equipment.

BUT THAT IS NOT THE END OF THE MATTER

After a few glorious days of internet access, my internet AND phone line went dead.

"Support" claims someone has made a transfer order with BT, and my line has been transferred to a mysterious new provider, identity unknown; it will take several weeks to get it back, by which time my termination notice will be nearly up.

I asked my new ISP AQUISS if they had made a mistake and taken over the line, after giving them the line number (as they hadnt had a record of it before),THEY checked with BT and say the line no longer registers on BTs system, so either the line has been taken by Talk Talk, or (more likely), that Vispa (are petty arseholes and) had the line cut 3 weeks early.

Be warned.

PS. BT OR turned up a day early and I am now enjoying a 70+ Mbps fibre connection, I would like to publicly thank the OR guy for hanging around until I could confirm I had the right settings for my router.
 
PS. BT OR turned up a day early and I am now enjoying a 70+ Mbps fibre connection, I would like to publicly thank the OR guy for hanging around until I could confirm I had the right settings for my router.

Unlimited fibre will change the way you use the Internet, my own usage vastly increased(not through P2P use) from the 100GB/month I used to do with uncapped ADSL.
 
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