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NTHell

We've had an on and off problem with our broadband connection for a few weeks, I thought it was the router and replaced it.

Well this afternoon I got back from work and it Sucked royally, so I disconnected everything and connected my work laptop to the Cable modem. Last time I did that it all seemed fine and speedy, but this time it was dropping packets left and right, over 20%

at 13:17 I phone Customer Sevice and very quickly got through to a person. That's important because I don't have an NTL phone so it costs me money to phone them.

I explained the problem and the young lady took me through a few things which I expect, 1st line is there to weed out the stupid stuff.

She then stated that it was a problem with my firewall because she couldn't ping my laptop, I reluctantly turned the XP firewall off and she tried again.

YL "I can't get a ping on your laptop, you must have another firewall switched on."

Me "Nope"

YL "Yes you must have, is your router a firewall"

Me "Er, nope. Every single piece of software on this laptop was installed or approved by myself, and Yes my router is a firewall also, however it's not currently connected, the Laptop is connected directly to the cable modem with an Ethernet cable as I've previously stated"

YL "It must be your wireless"

Me (While banging my head on a brick wall) "I am not currently using wireless, my Laptop is connected directly to the cable modem with an Ethernet cable"

YL "well there's nothing wrong with the connection here."

and she wouldn't budge. I asked several times for the next level of Tech Support.

YL "They'll tell you the same as me"

Fine then put me through to them, but she still wouldn't.

I've now been on the phone for half an hour.

In the end I reluctantly played the 'I do this for a living' trump card. I hate doing this because it makes you sound both arrogant and a prick, but I apologised before I played it and then demanded to be put through to the next level of tech support.

The Guy there made me turn off the laptop and confirmed that there was a problem. They booked an engineer for Next Friday and that's where I am.

40 minutes on the phone and the service was abysmal. I can phone head office to try and speed up the appointment, but they don't think it will.

Urgh
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