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"When will you have your 8mb service available in my area?"
All of them say it will be available "in the future" on their websites. I want to know roughly when. That's all. At that point I can make an informed decision on who I choose to buy my service from.
The annoying thing is, every single one that I've phoned (4 in total) has refused to talk to me unless I hand over my full name and full contact details including telephone number.
None of them got my business, I hung up at that point.
I appreciate that these companies want to build a database of people that they mailshot, but my doorstep is beginning to resemble my Inbox in terms of the junk mail that I get. I get recorded messages trying to sell me stuff on my telephone.
Is this how it's going to be and how it's going to stay? Is the ultimate spam blocker tool of the future going to include phone call and postal mail blocking?
TJ
They would need your phone number in order to locate you in relation to the nearest dslam and thus to know if the pipe they can offer currently is what you want or if the particular dslam is scheduled to be upgraded .
BTW here it's worse ..the first time I used wanadoo for dsl they asked me for credit card details over the phone ..didn't ask me for the validation number ..as, it was a trial offer of the first 30 days for free to see if I was happy with the service ..
I wasnt and cancelled via recorded delivery letter within just 4 days ..
They then proceeded to debit my bank account for the next six months for varing amounts even tho I wasnt using their service ..they ignored phone calls ( to their hotline at great expense to me )and repeated recorded delivery letters . again these aren't just the cost of a stamp )..telling them to get out of my bank account ..
( the killer here is that under French law ..unless I had signed and authorisation of a direct debit they shouldn't have even been allowed to debit me by my bank ..banks are required to have sight of signed debit agreements before they authorise ..the bank didn't have such as I had never signed one ..but the bank did say "well it's easier to deal with big outfits such as wanadoo without asking for all that paperwork ..after all we can trust them to get it right ..if they say you signed this ..then for us you signed it! ) ..most french banks have such informal arrangemnets with large organistations ..!
all dsl providers and telephone companies here want details of credit cards ..wonder why ..
BTW we cant do chargebacks under french law the principle doesn't exist ..it's civil court or sit on it .
They finally backed down when I made a criminal complaint for fraud ..and they refunded "the monies taken due to amissunderstanding" .."which the customer could have avoided had he written to us or phoned our hotline "..
My compensation claim for lost time and stress and phone calls etc is still ongoing ..they admit guilt ..they are arguing about is it their fault or the banks ..and that I shouldn't be paid for lost time dealing with it as I'm self employed ..
Kafka ..
They would need your phone number in order to locate you
Actually they don't - they can do that by postcode and I had already done that part on the providers websites. I'm more than happy to give them my postcode (without my house number).
Having said that, even just the phone number wouldn't worry me - I could give a fake one based on my local telephone exchanges prefix. It's all the information that they want, which is completely unnecessary to my question, that concerns me. And each time I say "I just want to ask a question" they refuse to even hear it until I've given them that personal data.
They don't even want to know what I want to ask.
TJ
We have ones ( codes postal )that are so accurate they can locate you to your commune ( eg.village or town or city )..where I live we are 3000 people in the village ..I'm actually 1.5 klicks outside ..but my postcode is the same as everyone elses ..
If I lived in a city of 3000000 inhabitants ..my postcode would be the same as all of theirs ..so you can see how functional it is :)
Growing up with a supremely rationalist system as ours ..explains why the guy at the bank said "we have informal arrangements etc " ..
Due to the above ..here they do need your phone number to know how close you are to the dslam ..i am 1047 metres away ..8 megs on offer ..actual gets through no more than 2.4 ..the phone company have a box 6 meters up a pole just outside my place that serves 12 subscribers in this part of the country ..the cover has not been closed by the last of their techs to have worked on it ..since over one year ..! I am forbidden by law to touch it ..when it rains hard ..i have no phone ..nor dsl ..they have been told countless times by me and the other suubscribers ..by letter and phone ..they promise someone will come and climb up and close it ..they are the same folks ..France telecom ..who own wanadoo ..
we are not allowed to withhold our subscriptions ..by law ..
to prove that the cover is not closed wemust get a public notary ( huissier ) to come ..cost to us around 400$ to state that the cover is open ..
all other evidence than his word is inadmissable ..
oi!
I did this about three months ago and consequently helped save the rainforests and stopped constant interruptions by phone.
On the subject of the thread, I imagine that for technical reasons (proximity to exchanges) most people will not be able to get true 8Mbit connections without a cable connection - at least in the short term. I guess the companies are trying to guage interest in the service to see what level of investment they can justify.
If you want/need an 8 Mbit connection and NTL are in your road, technically, they could probably do it right now. The only stumbling blocks would be that someone would have to take a decision as to cost and someone else would have to look at the effect it would have on others in your area. Having said that, NTL may have a business service already that can accomodate you.
Kaled.
