Fast4/V21/Biscit (merged threads)

Nix

Tried changing both Firefox and IE to proxy and it made no difference.

Obviously more hogwash from Bis*it!

Was lucky posting this...

spud17

They really are spreading around the !!!!!! connections so everyone gets a share!!!

All you guys'n gals seem to be having your share at the moment .

Tonight for the first time in about 4 weeks I was connected straight away @46.6, been here about an hour browsing and sending some pictures ,without a single hiccup .

oap thanks for the tip about Virgin I'll have to to have a good look at the small print although I'm still not sure I can justify BB.
I have my skinflint image to maintain at work!

Nix -I actually have an O level in Russian -you may have hit on something here ,I could stay home and wait ages for a decent connection to Bis*it while she takes my job on the constuction site especially in the weather of the last few days.

My payment is due any day ,those that have not had payments taken so far this month, did you pay last month?
I got away with it last month -But 2 months -mind the flying pigs.

quoia

Nix wrote:

Tried changing both Firefox and IE to proxy and it made no difference.

But what settings did you use ?

JoanneJ

With acid inconguity Biscit have been nominated for FOUR awards!!!

"Biscit, the business and consumer communications services provider, has today been advised by the highly-respected Internet Services Providers Association (ISPA) that it has been nominated as a finalist for four of ISPA's 2007 awards.

For the first time, Biscit has been nominated for the Best Consumer ISP, Best Business Email and Best Consumer Email Awards. The 4th Award is a repeat of 2006 when Biscit was nominated and then won ISPA's Best Dial-Up Award"

As for "highly respected ISPA" this is what they emailed me:

"I understand that Biscit has failed to honour ISPA's code of practice by not
contacting you. I have contacted them today urging them to issue you with a
CISAS reference number immediately if they are unable to resolve your
complaint."

...but we will give them an award anyway.

ISPA is a vanity project for dubious companies to sign up to.

And whilst we struggle to even get even a page to load (over last two days) the Hugh Paterson smugly boasts:

"Clearly, we're honoured by this recognition from our peers in the Internet industry. We look forward to developing our recent V21 acquisition into an equally customer-centric business as Biscit in 2007."

"customer-centric" = ignoring emails, voicemails, recorded delivery letters and having an unmanned rundown estate agents as HQ.

Another shining beacon for UK Industry ethics.

oap

I suggest you forward it to offcom regards oap

Nix

spud17 wrote:

I could stay home and wait ages for a decent connection to Bis*it while she takes my job on the constuction site

spud17 - spot on mate! I am totally GREEN with envy! What a woman that would be! :drool:
er,no, didn't pay last month either...

quoia - proxy settings I used (if you get better results, let us know):

• IE 'tools'/'internet options'/'advanced'/'HTTP 1.1 settings'/use thro proxy (tick)

• Firefox 'tools'/'options'/'general'/'connection settings'/proxy settings manual/auto (tick)

joannej - you are joking, right? I think you've confused this with the NOT Awards! :rotfl:

Actually, when you think about it, this is a very clever ploy by bis*it. They get awards for providing such a superb service (back-handers spring to mind...) and we, at home, sh*t ourselves thinking, "if this is what the award winners are like, what about the others?"

Very clever. :rolleyes:

spud17 & oap - "tip about Virgin". What's this? I might be going there, you see...

alared

Crap connections again this am.
Redialed about 25 times to get any site to load.

My normal payment is the 19th

---

nothing so far but last month they took it on the 4th.

JoanneJ
Are you taking them to small claims?

Quoia
Don`t think it`s anything to do with proxys

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it`s their crap service.
We had the same thing happen over the Christmas period and Biscit blamed BT for it.

spud17

Nix -see post 1037 by oap pointing out 25p/min support, I think the other bit about 1899 was referring to dialup .

Have Biscit missed a PR chance?

IF they really are reimbursing people why not announce something along the lines of,
"We've made a gigantic c*ckup over the last few months, but because we are a caring company and kind to fluffy animals and children, we would like to give our wonderful customers some of our own money as compensation".

Sorry I've been siphoning petrol this afternoon and am still a bit light headed!

ps v21status page has something about BT engineers trying to resolve a problem
with dialup.
Ho hum.Sounds familiar.

quoia

Nix wrote:

quoia - proxy settings I used (if you get better results, let us know):

• IE 'tools'/'internet options'/'advanced'/'HTTP 1.1 settings'/use thro proxy (tick)

I didn't think that was the Proxy setting they were refering to.

V21 recommends that if you are connecting through your V21 connection you always turn your proxy settings on.
Using our webcache will give you both faster and more reliable web browsing.

It was because of the CACHE reference

Under IE/'tools'/internet options'/'connections'/'DialUp settings'/'settings'

you can tick a box for "Use a proxy server for this connection"

You can then enter an ADDRESS and a PORT number

there is also an ADVANCED button that then allows different server types to be individually configured - the TYPES being HTTP, Secure, FTP, Gopher & Socks - you can select a Tickbox for "Use the same proxy server for all protocols"

I used to have Freeserve Anytime (still have their PAYG - 0845 access) and occasionally I came across some sites that I couldn't access at all (when I know I should have been able to - one was the company I worked for) or they appeared to run very very slowly, even though hundreds of others worked OK and at very acceptable speeds. At some point I found that I should have configured the above setting and afterwards I never ever experienced the same thing again.

For Freeserve the "Use a proxy server for this connection" is ticked
Under "Advanced" the "Use the same proxy server for all protocols" is also ticked. (this "greys out" all but the top HTTP entry)
"Socks" is blank and the greyed out Secure, FTP, Gopher show what is in the HTTP boxes.

The details to enter for Freeserve are:

PROXY Address to use: http://www-cache.freeserve
Port: 8080

This DEFINITELY made a difference. It allowed access to certain sites that were just not available beforehand and I'm sure that performance improved as well.

SO I presumed Fast4 (V21/Biscit) had something similar.

Anyone ?

Nix

spud17 - cheers for that, sometimes with my dodgy connections I rush and miss things...

quoia - interesting this. I assumed that if there was a manual proxy setting, it would have been given by V21/Bis*it. As I didn't see one, I again assumed the browsers could automatically pick up the setting through said configurations.

My understanding of a proxy is eg what AOL apparently does, ie it acts as a filter/censor and is not the direct internet connection it should be! In other words they have some control over what you view and access on the internet. This may tie up with the concept of a cache which is previously stored internet data ready to be more easily and quickly accessed. Port 8080 is the popular alternative to the default, port 80, for HTTP access, so it's how/where you access the internet which is different here. Please correct me if I'm way off course here! I'll endeavor to find out more...

I'm starting to get the impression that part of V21/Bisc*it's problem (apart from the very minor customer relations thing :rolleyes: ) when we can dial up but are unable to access the internet properly, is DNS related. What d'ya reckon?