Pipex/Tiscali are the biggest wasters ever. [rant]

[Oobie-]

So last night, around 3 am, my connection gets dropped. I try to come back, but I cant seem to connect to anything but I still have an IP. Ok weird, I deducted that my DNS is dead so I cant do anything till they sort it out their end.

Wake up this morning, still no internet. I call them up, and they ask for details, go through the standard checks about my configuration etc. I then get on to tell them that I don't have a working DNS and something has changed. They give me an IP to ping I can ping it - so I have a connection but cant resolve hostnames - oK I already knew that.

I spend about 25 mins going through their time wasting tests and they say that they can give me a different account (username and password) to connect differently. They need confirmation of the username and current password; I don't have the password as I'm not the account owner, so they say to get a hold of it and call back and they will be able to give me a new login set to connect...I was slightly skeptical but I asked what I need to do when I call back so this can be fast tracked. I was told the tests and everything gathered are all listed on their system so you I just needed to tell them where I left from.

AS IF .

I call back once I got the password and they start going through doing tests again...I told them Ive done all this, and ask to speak to a supervisor - they make up an excuse.
Moving on.

I then get told that I need to reset my router to the factory defaults as something must have been changed, right... Why would I need to do that if everything has been working fine since the beginning? I told her nothing has been changed, no settings, no software has been installed, no viruses are on my pc, no adware.

Anyway other things were said which didn't work.
I then proceeded to tell her to just sort my DNS out on their end, and she tells me again to go to the network TCP/IP config to enter a DNS, I stopped her there and told her that I had already been given a DNS IP (quoted it) and that this is what I originally had in there (and what has been there for the past 2 years) and she goes you need to put it to automatic as the DNS you have on your router and the one at your exchange are different (or something to that effect) and something clicked and I realised what might be wrong. She gave me a different account name to establish a connection but that didnt work, and I just hung up.


I went into my router and when I checked the DNS that was assigned to the router - it was different to what was set up in my network connections... I've never noticed it before and always assumed they were the same. I change IP to that and boom the net comes back. I'm on an interleaved line and back on 1mb...joy.

Probably an error on my behalf yes, but why couldnt they just tell me that my DNS had changed...now I need to call them back and tell them to sort it out and give me my non-interleaved line back along with 2mb...

Live and learn I guess

/rant

[LWA]

Interesting story!

Have you looked into OpenDNS? http://www.opendns.com/ I always use that rather than the ISPs one (I do use the ISPs as a backup).

Also, if you set the DNS settings in the router can you just not set your PC network connections to get their DNS from the router rather than duplicating the DNS settings? This would mean less changes if the above happened again.

[ionicle]

tiscali/pipex are the most pointless waste of time ever...
i couldnt agree more there

[matty-hodgson]

my internet dropped at around 2:45am last night..
i was mid-way through watching Have I Got News For You on the BBC iPlayer.
and then the twisty dots came up and the light went off on my router, so i just through 'nevermind, i'll just get to sleep and fix it afterschool' so i got home before at around 3:30 to find that my connection had only been up for 12 minutes.

maybe all ISPs had a problem?

i'm on o2 broadband btw

[Barry]

Pipex used to be great until tiscali purchased them

[strike-down]

Second only to talktalk. I spent a whole afternoon (6 hours) on the phone trying to resolve a simple question:
"Are belkin routers compatible with your network?" as when I set the router up, it didnt work.
Even went to the high level support after 2 hours, but instead of the indian call centre, it was one in poland. They had maybe 10 hours training. No more than that. Still couldnt speak english properly.
Why cant they have people on the phone who can actually speak english and know what they are talking about?? Is it too much to ask??
Yet another reason why ISPs are greedy pigs. Cheap networks, Cheap help and support. Scumbags.
/rant

Edit: And they make us pay top dollar for a supposedly unlimited connection. HA!

[Oobie-]

Interesting story!

Have you looked into OpenDNS? http://www.opendns.com/ I always use that rather than the ISPs one (I do use the ISPs as a backup).

Also, if you set the DNS settings in the router can you just not set your PC network connections to get their DNS from the router rather than duplicating the DNS settings? This would mean less changes if the above happened again.

I dont have control over the DNS's set up in the router.
If I set the network card to pick up DNS's automatically I have to remove my IP and gateway, and that means I cant log into the router - as the router is set to a specific IP which is what I enter into firefox to log into it.

And no Ive never used openDNS, I'll give this a look! Thank you.

[strike-down]

I might give that a go aswell actually. Looks good might get my belkin piece of **** working

[MSIC]

Around a year ago roughly, there was an internal memo leaked saying something along the lines of Tiscali management were willing and prepared to lose 5% of their customer base as a result of frustrations, so long as overall they could become profitable (ie spend less on tech support, keeping networks up & running, etc).
Obviously, they bought Pipex too, so i guess the same applies.

I've just moved house, gotten rid of Pipex, and signed up with Be today. Only downside is i might have to wait now for broadband.. (Currently using wife's 3g)

[Madafwo]

my internet dropped at around 2:45am last night..
i was mid-way through watching Have I Got News For You on the BBC iPlayer.
and then the twisty dots came up and the light went off on my router, so i just through 'nevermind, i'll just get to sleep and fix it afterschool' so i got home before at around 3:30 to find that my connection had only been up for 12 minutes.

maybe all ISPs had a problem?

i'm on o2 broadband btw

Snap...

O2 died on me yesterday, switched to OpenDNS and it works fine now.

[peterb]

Second only to talktalk. I spent a whole afternoon (6 hours) on the phone trying to resolve a simple question:
"Are belkin routers compatible with your network?" as when I set the router up, it didnt work.
Even went to the high level support after 2 hours, but instead of the indian call centre, it was one in poland. They had maybe 10 hours training. No more than that. Still couldnt speak english properly.
Why cant they have people on the phone who can actually speak english and know what they are talking about?? Is it too much to ask??
Yet another reason why ISPs are greedy pigs. Cheap networks, Cheap help and support. Scumbags.
/rant

Edit: And they make us pay top dollar for a supposedly unlimited connection. HA!

You can have it good, or you can have it cheap, but if you go for a cheap service, expect them to cut corners somwhere, either on customer support and/or network capacity. If you want a top quality ISP with UK based ciustomer support that is technically competent - go to Zen - but be prepared to pay at least double what you pay for talk-talk.

[mycarsavw]

Snap...

O2 died on me yesterday, switched to OpenDNS and it works fine now.

Snap snap!

I used to use OpenDNS until I noticed the traffic to sites such as Google gets diverted to OpenDNS's version of Google.

Now I use the DNS servers provided by the Don't Be There forums

http://www.dontbethere.co.uk/showthread.php?t=9145

[ionicle]

Pipex used to be great until tiscali purchased them

definatly
i am running on my BT test socket 24/7 now because they cant be bothered to fix my line and its the only way to get a stable connection....

[Zadock]

So last night, around 3 am, my connection gets dropped. I try to come back, but I cant seem to connect to anything but I still have an IP. Ok weird, I deducted that my DNS is dead so I cant do anything till they sort it out their end.

Wake up this morning, still no internet. I call them up, and they ask for details, go through the standard checks about my configuration etc. I then get on to tell them that I don't have a working DNS and something has changed. They give me an IP to ping I can ping it - so I have a connection but cant resolve hostnames - oK I already knew that.

I spend about 25 mins going through their time wasting tests and they say that they can give me a different account (username and password) to connect differently. They need confirmation of the username and current password; I don't have the password as I'm not the account owner, so they say to get a hold of it and call back and they will be able to give me a new login set to connect...I was slightly skeptical but I asked what I need to do when I call back so this can be fast tracked. I was told the tests and everything gathered are all listed on their system so you I just needed to tell them where I left from.

AS IF .

I call back once I got the password and they start going through doing tests again...I told them Ive done all this, and ask to speak to a supervisor - they make up an excuse.
Moving on.

I then get told that I need to reset my router to the factory defaults as something must have been changed, right... Why would I need to do that if everything has been working fine since the beginning? I told her nothing has been changed, no settings, no software has been installed, no viruses are on my pc, no adware.

Anyway other things were said which didn't work.
I then proceeded to tell her to just sort my DNS out on their end, and she tells me again to go to the network TCP/IP config to enter a DNS, I stopped her there and told her that I had already been given a DNS IP (quoted it) and that this is what I originally had in there (and what has been there for the past 2 years) and she goes you need to put it to automatic as the DNS you have on your router and the one at your exchange are different (or something to that effect) and something clicked and I realised what might be wrong. She gave me a different account name to establish a connection but that didnt work, and I just hung up.


I went into my router and when I checked the DNS that was assigned to the router - it was different to what was set up in my network connections... I've never noticed it before and always assumed they were the same. I change IP to that and boom the net comes back. I'm on an interleaved line and back on 1mb...joy.

Probably an error on my behalf yes, but why couldnt they just tell me that my DNS had changed...now I need to call them back and tell them to sort it out and give me my non-interleaved line back along with 2mb...

Live and learn I guess

/rant

I had to setup open dns for some friends of mine who were with tiscali, they could download files and such FTP no problems but web surfing was impossible. Needless to say they left tiscali, as I did. Happily with O2 never a problem and if there is its an *0800* number free!

[Will404]

Lol, at least they got back to you within a week (or mounth). We are in a year contract with them (doh) and it took them 1.5 mounths to fix our brocken line!!!!!!!!We were told several times it was fine (with non existant internet, and a cracky phone), and sent several letters saying they had repeared it . Took about 6 weeks for a bt person to be sent to fix it - suppose they ddnt have the expertiese and had to use BT.
I hate them - we are 600mtrs or so from the exchange (probs less), and our 7mb connection is running at 0.7mb, getting a 78Kb download speed. Should be getting 700 They are "unlimited" too - I wonder just how much our internet is being capped right now??

[Ypnos]

Snap snap!

I used to use OpenDNS until I noticed the traffic to sites such as Google gets diverted to OpenDNS's version of Google.

Now I use the DNS servers provided by the Don't Be There forums

http://www.dontbethere.co.uk/showthread.php?t=9145

that

is

awesome

!

O2 have been driving me bananas with their utterly poo service recently. This looks like it has done the trick!