Madasafish Questions/answers (merged threads)

idavey

I signed up for maaf 8mb a week ago, was activated 4 days ago (friday) - but didn't realise the 5gb monthly cap included uploads too - is this normal for braodband?
I also couldn't find anything on the website about a cooling-off period (7, 10 days? none?) as I foudn myself using a lot of BW over the weekend updating my computers etc. Now I've found Tiscali offers, for a pound or 2 extra overall a month, unlimited downloads.
My question - is there a maaf cooling-off period and would i be 'right' to cancel maaf if possible and switch to he Tiscali unlimited package?

Any help, comments or notes would be greatly appreciated.

(ps. my speed, said i would get 5.5mb, is pretty good. sometimes 2.5-3mb, off-peak times up to 5mb )

Madasafish_Customer_Care

Hi iDavey,

Most broadband providers include upload as well as download in their figures (BT charges us for any bandwidth regardless).

Be careful about broadband providers who advertise as unlimited. Tiscali in particular are pretty well known for their stringent Fair Usage Policy. When an ISP advertises as Unlimited but has a Fair Usage Policy it means that they're not really Unlimited. Here is a really good article which explains more: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/08/unlimited_broadband_ads_dishonest/. If you do go over the unpublished usage thresholds on these 'Unlimited' products you could find your speeds restricted or ports that allow you to do peer to peer or online games blocked. The thing with Tiscali because they don't publish their limits, how do you know their unlimited is more or less than what you currently have?

I'm afraid that once the service goes live if you do wish to leave us prior to completing a 12 month contract we will ask for you to cover the costs of getting you connected. Thus for a new provision or LLU migration it's £55 + the cost of any free hardware taken. For a regular migration it's £25 + the cost of any free hardware taken.

If you would like I can upgrade you to the 20GB a month package at the new customer pricing. Please keep in touch via the thread or feel free to PM me should you have any further queries, I'm here to help!

Kind regards,
Samara

teddyco

Samara,

I have a question about router security?

A few days ago I was reading an article about "drive by pharming" which discussed how thieves can drive by a home, pick up one's Wi-Fi wavelength and then steal information by plugging in the details of one's Wi-Fi router and then entering the password which is set to "admin" in many models.

It suggested that this could be remedied by going into the router and changing the generic password.

I do NOT have a Wi-Fi router but I am wondering if there is still a way that online websites can steal information somehow? Just for security, I went into my Voyager 210 ADSL Router via my web browser and changed my password from 'admin' to my own password.

Also is it possible for anyone to steal broadband wavelength from my type of router?

I hope that's not a stupid question?

Thanks

ck2

Madasafish Customer Care,

I signed up to Madasafish broadband and talk free yesterday. and got email saying that broadband will be available from 14 March and Talk free will be activated from 17 March.

But today, I got an email billing for both services: Broadband (invoice covers first month after your broadband is enabled) and Talk Service Line Rental (March 5 2007 - April 4 2007).

My question is: since my Talk service will only be activated on 17 March, why am I started to pay for your line rental from March 5?

Thanks.

oldagetraveller

Exactly the same as you ck2, I queried this with MAAF and received this reply.

Dear xxxxx

Thank you for contacting Madasafish Customer Services.

We do not charge you for the days that you do not have a Talk Service. We bill you up front so that
your Broadband service and Talk service will be invoiced on the same day in the future.

A credit will be allocated to your account and will come of your invoice once the Talk service has been activated.

Should you have further queries, please do not hesitate to email back or call us on 0844 395 0830 (4p/min at any time of day).

Our opening hours are 9am to 6pm, 7 days a week, except bank holidays.

Your reference number for future correspondence is xxxxxxxx.

Kind regards,


Priya
Madasafish Customer Services

Madasafish_Customer_Care

Hi Teddyco,

If you haven't got a wireless router you don't need to worry about this type of identity theft.

All of our wireless routers are password protected when they arrive with the customer. The password is printed on a little pink sticker on the bottom of the router, the passwords are greater than 10 digits long and are a mix of alphanumeric characters.

For a wired connection in terms of security from identity theft I would strongly recommend that you ensure you've got an up to date firewall and antispyware solution installed. All the hardware that we supply has a firewall built in and we also recommend that you install firewall and antispyware software on every computer you use to connect to the Internet.

Kind regards,
Samara

teddyco

Samara,

Thanks for your quick response!

emma_jayne_2

Hiya

I am thinking about changing my ISP to madasafish. I have just bought a D-Link wireless router Model number: G624T.

Can you tell me if this will work with madasafish?

Thanks,

Emma

edwintheelf

I started with Madasafish in September 05 when I moved house and could no longer get cable (ntl). My initial service was a paltry 1Mbs, as I am right on the distance limit for my BT exchange despite living in the middle of a city.

When the 8Mbs service became available on my exchange in February 2006 I went through a month of absolute hell with MAAF technical support in India. :mad: They had extremely limited technical knowledge and couldn't/wouldn't get BT to sort out what was clearly a local loop issue that was giving me speeds that were less than could be obtained on a dial-up service!!! Eventually, after I lost the will to live, MAAF reverted me to the old service @ 1Mbs.

Despite my issues with the abortive ADSL 2 upgrade and the sour feeling towards MAAF technical support, when I reached the end of my first year's contract I decided to stay with MAAF for the following reasons

1. The service prior to and after the abortive upgrade was stable and reliable, i.e. no need to talk to tech support!!!
2. MAAF provides sound ISP services beyond the local loop, i.e. within their own network (I can only recall one short outage in a year due to their infrastructure)
3. I negotiated my price from the £17.99 continuation rate to a more sensible nett £14.99 (£11.99 for six months followed by £17.99 for the next six months) in exchange for a comittment to a 12 months contract; and
4. None of the other services available to me at the time were any better and BT's broadband checker was only reporting "1.5Mbs or better" for my line, so there was little material gain to be made.

So, that's me sorted until September 2007 but as a frugal sole I am by no means loyal to MAAF (or any other service provider for that matter) without cause and I'm already considering whether I need to switch on expiry of my current comittment.

I have been receiving lots of emails from MAAF lately inticing me to purchase their 'Talk' phone service. As a very low user of my BT "Option1" land line, there is not much to gain from free 'anytime' calls, therefore I am only concerning myself with the standard MAAF offering, currently at £9.99 per month. In reality, to match my BT service including free (and very useful) CLI (Call line Indentifier) I would have to pay a further £1.50 for MAAF's "Caller Display", which makes it £11.49 but at least I would get free evening and weekend calls for that. It's a marginal decision at present.

In my constant search for better service I took a look at Virgin's offering today and was somewhat surprised to find that they offer a BT based (non-cable) service for £14.99, which seems to include:

1. Up to 8 Mbps (Same as MAAF)
2. Unlimited downloads (MAAF = 5Gb for £11.99/£17.99)
3. Evening and weekend calls to UK landlines (As MAAF for £9.99)
4. PCguard with anti-virus, firewall, pop-up blocker and privacy manager (MAAF only offer email anti-virus and a trial of Bullguard)
5. Free Modem (As MAAF)

So on the face of it Virgin could save me £11.49 against my currrent MAAF/BT setup or even against MAAF only. Does MAAF (Samara), or anyone else for that matter, have a view on this?

As ana aside, I think that the current plethora of deals on broadband, phones, etc., makes it exceptionally hard for us consumers to see timber for the branches and the use of comparison sites bordering on pointless.

Regards,
Edwin The Elf

Quentin

You are forgetting that with Virgin's non cable broadband you still have to pay BT monthly line rental.

The free calls from Virgin are provided as part of their CPS service.

You can get free evening and weekend calls now by signing up for the Primus CPS scheme (and retaining your BT line).

See this post for details:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=1598074&postcount=4

In your first year with MAAF you could leave during the year on payment of their exit fees which were to cover the costs of any free equipment provided and the connection fee.

If you fancied moving to the Virgin deal because of its better download limits are you now tied in for a full further 12 months without any way out?