Broadband deals:- There are lots of things to love about Broadband – the speed and access not least of all, however for all the good things about Broadband service there are a couple of things that definitely still need to improve with the companies that provide the service to us and the service that they provide.
1. Support
Technical Support is a difficult job, I will give the companies that, however when they do not staff the lines with enough people or do not provide their teams with the right training or tools then they are just being negligent. It is bad enough having to wait on a phone line to get a response when your Internet service is not working, but getting asked simple and silly questions by someone that does not know their job is a crime.
2. Connection Speeds
The wording on Internet service contracts where you are “guaranteed” speeds “up to” a certain maximum. This is pretty much a joke as their calculations are always based on laboratory conditions and never take into account real world factors. You would almost have to live IN your local exchange to actually get the speed that you are paying for!
3. Broadband Deals
Can anyone keep track of the broadband deals that are out there now? Each of the six major telecommunications companies offer different bundles where you can mix and match Broadband service with one or more of their other services (phone, television, mobile) but added to them are the dozens of other companies reselling the networks of the big six. Choosing the right package gets extremely confusing to say the least.
4. Landline Costs
Unless you are a customer with Virgin Media and receiving your Broadband service through cable you are going to be paying for a phone line. This is regardless of whether or not you actually use the phone line for phone service which is just ridiculous and is on top of your monthly Broadband fees too.
5. Bandwidth Throttling
The worst thing about some of those “unlimited” deals is that they really aren’t. When ISPs throttle back your connection based on how much you download based on “fair usage” it’s really not that fair is it?
6. Moving Homes
Moving homes is difficult enough – being without Broadband service for weeks at a time due to the move just adds insult to injury. When you go to the effort of providing the company with all the details that they need including your new address, you would think that they could ensure that when you moved in it would be a simple matter of plugging your router in and having your connection work. Utility providers can do it – why can’t the ISPs?
7. Dead Zones
Having Mobile Broadband service is great; you can roam around and are not tied to your home or office Wi-Fi connection. But considering how much money companies have put into their networks, the fact that you can still only receive a fraction of your expected speeds in some areas and in others no connection at all – this just does not make sense! I’ve used Broadband Genie here to help me find the right companies that while they can’t guarantee a connection everywhere, they at least do have a strong signal in the area’s that I am most likely to be using the service.
8. MAC Codes
Have you ever tried switching providers? One of the key requirements that your new company needs is the MAC code from your previous provider so that they can transfer your service … this simple little code can for some reason take weeks to receive and while it should be an easy matter for your old provider to send it directly to your new provider it seems like this is just one more bottleneck that they throw in to make the move more difficult.
9. Contract Lengths
Being tied into a two year contract when you join with a new company unfortunately means that the “special” 3 month discount on their price for joining is really not worth as much as you would think. The savings are minuscule and that really gets me to the thing I hate most about Broadband.
10. The Price
For a service that is now so ubiquitous how can it cost so much? Countries like Finland are offering Broadband service for free (currently at 1MB/s but soon going up to almost 100MB/s) and there are other countries that offer this service for a fraction of the cost we are being charged. Considering we are in a first world country, why is our Broadband service so third class?
