God Damn Eircom

20-10-2009

I had a different rant in my head for today, but luckily Eircom decided they wanted to be featured on The Bauble twice in the same month.

Ergo, this rant.

See, I booked a half day off work to accommodate the Eircom technician person that would be coming out to the apartment between nine and one of the afternoon. Sure you could argue that he was accommodating me by setting up the Internet for me, but the fact of the matter is I don't see it that way.

Mainly because he didn't provide the Internets at the end of the day.

Anyhow the guy shows up, early enough as well, and was friendly and chatty and will be one of the two people that I spare when I massacre Eircom.

Terry, for that was his name, tested the port in the wall and told me that there was no dial tone but he would have it all set up in about an hour.

I asked for the broadband router then and he looked at me a little confused.

Apparently Eircom don't do things in any logical format. First they come out and setup the line, then they test the line, then they send out a dude to check if you have broadband availability, then you get the router sent out in the post.

Despite me ordering this online just under a month ago.

Terry then gave me the phone number for the apartment and also a number to call later today.

Most of today was spent working, with five minute breaks on the Eircom website using yet another of their poorly created website tools to check if the line could provide broadband. The tool kept telling me the number didn't exist.

I then found Smart Telecom. A phone company that also gives broadband at a higher speed for less cost. Using their online tool I not only found out that I could get broadband from them, but that it would be shit hot fast and even what bloody phone exchange it would be coming from.

This tool was one that worked as well, because I entered in an invalid number on purpose and a number that doesn't exist and both times it told me that the number was not correct. So it wasn't just a "Tell them what they want, they screw them later" tool like the Eircom one. This one knew that my phone number was in place.

So how in God's name can Eircom not know this information about their own infrastructure if another company can tell me all that.

At around half four this afternoon I got bored looking at the Eircom website and rang the number Terry gave me. Finally getting through to a human whose second language was English.

After explaining things to her she was able to check and found that the line could take broadband. I then asked if she could tell me when it will be active on the line.

This seemed to confuse the poor girl. See I had provided my details and then the phone details, but these details were missing something. Some sort of bridge detail to help her join the dots.

She knew I had ordered broadband. She knew that the apartment now had a phoneline that could take broadband. She did not know how to connect that number to my broadband request, despite both sets of info (the phoneline and my order) having the same address.

Basically Eircom wouldn't know how to do jack shit if most of it wasn't spoon fed to them. Aside from two people that is.

Their online tools are shit.

Their customer support people don't know how to think beyond the menu they read from.

Their broadband services seemingly work by magic and good will.

In summary: I have no Internet. Which is annoying, because I have some pictures I want to upload. Plus I was going to change the gallery section a little, but without the Internet at home I can't upload and test the code.

Ah well, there is always tomorrow. When there will be Internet.

Possibly.

Sometime.

I'm going to be living in a technologically backward place forever.

Blue_jester


Tags: rant


Mac | Tue, 20 Oct 09 18:47:13 +0100

http://www.irishbroadband.ie - what I used when I was last down... they weren't terrible :)

blue_jester | Wed, 21 Oct 09 09:52:32 +0100

Eircom get one more call today and then it's off to irishbroadband I reckon :)



Although "they weren't terrible" instills some fear :D

Mac | Wed, 21 Oct 09 17:23:18 +0100

Ha, they were pretty decent to be honest... had maybe 2 bits of down time though out the year... advantage is, you don't need a telephone line, therefore no Eircom or line rental :) And in Blanch, the had a 20:1 contention, which was really me, cause not too many people use them that far out.

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