Thursday, April 14, 2005

Wana-Poo Broadband

Monday and Tuesday night - I have been convinced - to go to the pub, then club, then casino. Okay, my student loan kicked in, and I never actually spent that much in those nights anyway. In any rate, last night I flat out decided not to drink, and go out past 11 o'clock. At which point I thought "bit of light internet surfing, before an early night.".

Which, for those of you who have deduced that the fact that I'm telling you this ensures nothing went smoothly, you'll know this isn't the case.

At around 11pm last night, we tripped our fuse box out. It's a fairly common occurance in our house, with a house with the most electric devices seen since The Lawnmower man. It's an easy fix, but our Wanadoo hub didn't restart.

Now, before I launch into the tirade against Wanadoo, I've been with them for a huge amount of time, and had no real problems with them.

Here goes....

Un-fucking-fortunately, Wanadoo had - for whatever reason - neglected to mention that, at regular times, they update the firmware on our hub (which also has this rhytmic, pulsating light on the front which drives the hell out of me, and you can't switch off). It was during one of these updates that the power went off, forcing the house into darkness.

Also, Wanadoo do not tell you that should the "Livebox" (the name for the hub) switch off during an update, then it will no longer work.

After ringing the 24 helpline last night, we found out it was not 24 hours, as instead between 5pm and 9am, they have a recorded message informing you of this. Of course, charging you 50p a minute for the priveledge.

The next morning, we ring the now-available 24 hour helpline. We found out that due to what I've already mentioned about the software update, the system is royally fucked, and we need to do a software reset on it.

Where do you get the software? Simple, Wanadoo send it, in 3-4 days.

As such, I am now without internet, and it's driving me nuts. Should a member of Wanadoo technical support be watching this, may I reccommend the following steps, so this person can will not call them arses.

• Let everybody know when you are updating your software. Okay, we couldn't be helped, but some people perform hard resets of their entire system often. Would be nice if their system didn't go down, wouldn't it?
• Admit if you don't have a 24 hour support line. That's like saying a 24 hour Tesco closes at 2 in the morning. When I'm coming home pissed from a pub, and want some Ben & Jerrys, and the 24 hour Tesco's wasn't open, I'd be angry. Just as I was last night.
• Wouldn't it be sensible to include the driver fixing software somewhere else? Most of us have net access in more than one place, plus if not we could use a friends. Couldn't you put it online, and let us download it? Surely that will save money in cd burning and postage fees, wouldn't it?
• And why does it take 3-4 days for the CD to deliver? A stamp costs 40p. It almost guarentees next day delivery. Are you really so obsessed with profit margins that you are too pikey to buy one?

Be sure this isn't hot air, as I have emailled Wanadoo support with this post (with the removal of all the bad words, and these last few paragraphs). Hopefully, somebody with half a brain cell can sort it out.

Anyway, after that rant, I guess I can say that I won't be around posting until sometime next week. I will be back with a blinder, as it's nearly the Liverpool bowling tournament, and we've got a few teams in it. See you soon!

EDIT: Due to the large amount of mail I recieve based on this post. I've created a reply, here