Pipex/Toucan Broadband - godawful and time is running out

Fulham_Mark

i don't rant much but I'm about to cancel my broadband as it's unfit for purpose.

There are two aspects to this, if you're a current subscriber it may be worth reading the last part of this post which describes the future of broadband

Part 1 - Load of rubbish.
1. I get endless, duplicate letters promising a go-live date which isn't met. Call centre have no idea when the new go-live date will be, IVR system gives me a system error when I check on the status.
2. New modem arrives, installation fails with a hardware error. Pipex/Toucan do not allow me to report a hardware fault through their call centre and tell me to call a 30p a minute technical help-desk. I think it's very poor service to charge customers if the hardware you have supplied is faulty!
3. I perform some diagnostics on the modem which seems fine so I carry on and get an apparently common "no dial tone" error. I use the help pages provided by Pipex/Toucan
3a. the help is incomplete - "click here" for help on no dial-tone does not go anywhere
3b. the help has only been written for Windows2000. Anyone using this anymore?
3c. the help contains numbers to call that been disconnected.
4. Call centre refuse to help with these error messages and tell me to call a 30p a minute phone-line to get this problem sorted. Now i have no problem calling 30p a minute if i've messed something up or want to know how to do something unusual but to sort out errors on simple installation of the service does not seem right especially since the help pages provided and utterly useless!

Part 2 - the future
Ironically since i ordered broadband i've been doing some marketing for a large broadband provider. They all found it very entertaining and twee that I had chosen a Pipex company. Anyway this is what I learned...

Around 30% of new installations right now are for BSkyB who like virgin media are using broadband to lock customers into their TV. Carphone warehouse are using it lock customers into their phone service and have bought AOL to do the broadband bit whilst they concentrate on marketing and selling.
BT are the other big player and generally charge slightly more for a better service. Supermarkets, mobiles etc. can sell you broadband but this is really just BT sold under a different name.

BSkyB and Virgin are desperate for marketshare and will keep prices for broadband coming down. BT will keep offering new and more exciting services and target less technical customers. That leaves all the other providers such as Pipex losing customers, becoming less profitable and having no particular selling point as they aren't better at service, content or platform. Carphone !!!!!house could carry on as they do cheap and cheerful very well.

There's not much future left for Pipex and others especially when so many existing customers will switch to BSkyB or Virgin to get a cheap TV-Phone-Broadband deal. If you're on freeview you'll most likely buy carphone warehouse or BT.

So if i were you i wouldn't sign-up to a company who will have will have administrators flogging it's customer base for £1 in a few years time and seem incompetant at the best of times!

oh can you tell i'm miffed right now??