FT/Orange TV via Astra 28e - Au Revoir Teleconnect (spit)

[AnOther]

Whoopee, reconnected - finally - only 12 friggin days [:'(]

Still nothing from FT in the post today so got onto them again and finally somebody saw sense and gave me my ID & PW over the phone. So much for them being sent from elsewhere.

The FT ar*eho*e who took my order (Claude if anybody encounters him in the future) told me all he needed was my IBAN number to create the A/C which was BS so basically, despite being told by I don't know how many different people that my credentials were in the post they weren't because they hadn't verified the payment details. Funny how it didn't prevent them sending me the router etc. though [blink]

To sum up then.

FT LIE #1 - No we won't cut your line over until you have the new router etc. and are ready to plug it in and go.

TRUTH - FT hijacked my line the next afternoon.

FT LIE #2 - All we need is your IBAN number to set up your account.

TRUTH - RIB required.

FT LIE #3 - TV is from Astra 28deg, the same as our English clients use to receive Sky (adamant about this)

TRUTH - No it isn't, it's from Hotbird @13 deg.

FT LIE #4 - Your user ID/PW is in the post.

TRUTH - No it isn't.

FT LIE #5 - Your user ID & PW are send separately form somewhere else. Nothing we can do.

TRUTH - If that is so how come I was given them today over the phone by customer tech support ?

Final joke is that my VoIP phone will take up to 48 hours to 'activate' from the time I actually got connected so until then still paying standard land line rates. They claim that they will reimburse the charges but I'm not sure my sanity could cope with chasing that nebulous promise much beyond a couple of phone calls.

And you thought BT were an incompetent shower [:-))]

Oh, one final point, if you phone the English service 0800 364 775 you get two options, 1 = Commercial enquiries - 2 = Domestic - except it's wrong. Option 1 is actually customer support and 2 is tech support, seems that FT can't even fix it's own phone service then.

There are upsides though.

#1 - Rid of Telespit although braced for arguments about cancellation fees.

#2 - Have got 1mb out of FT which everyone else says is impossible.

#3 - Having been forced to rely on friends and neighbours during this period of forced incommunicado I have discovered that there is an underlying basic problem with at least 4 out of the eight nearby properties and their connections. Similar but worse than my own case my nearest neighbour's line for instance allegedly has 73dB attenuation and a maximum possible speed of 400kb yet his router says 52dB and he gets a solid 512kb on a test download so I've started to compile a dossier on the lines to try and get someone at FT to take notice and fix whatever it is that is wrong.

Usefully I've also discovered that FT have built a completely new exchange in the village and are due to start moving into it in the new year so there will be lots of engineers sculling about one of whom I'm sure will respond to a torn in half €50 note, half the note now and the other half when it's fixed !

[Jay]

Perhaps you should rename this thread Au Revoir Teleconnect (spit) Bonjour FT/Orange (spit).

[AnOther]

I'll reserve final judgement until the phone is working but assuming it does that alone will be a good enough reason to be shot of Telespit.

I had over 2 years of excellent service from them which all came to an ignominious end following the change to Budget and attendant router update after which it turned to a bag o's*ite which they simply proved incapable of fixing.

[pachapapa]

I pull my info on your ISP+TV from the the unofficial site for the discontented rather than the bare faced lying official site.

Any idea what the FT/ORANGE new offer for November is about.

Qouted in post yesterday Tuesday on the forum:

Re: et Hotbird dans tous cela??

de jacquou le Mar 3 Nov 2009 19:08

C' est clair que si ça continue comme ça, je pointerai sur Astra. J' attend le changement d' offre de novembre. Sinon, merci pour l' installation mais j' ai fait la mienne et celles des voisins.. De plus il parait que le signal est meilleur sur Astra??? J' ai vu aussi une astuce d' un internaute sur un forum qui a remplaçé sa tête par une bi-tete en positionnant la deuxieme (destinée à hot bird) à la place de l' existente. Je n' ai pas creusé mais à voir...

Je n' ai pas d' info non plus sur le multi ecran sur le sat.

jacquou

http://www.orange-tv.info/forum/

[Danny]

PPP

Be fair, there is nothing deceitful on the Orange site. In fact, as pointed out before, it flatly contradicts the English speaking sales people who told Ernie porkies.

I don't know what the offer may be in November but all the Orange offers run for about two months after which they are normally relaunched with some slight changes.

Danny

***EDIT*** the current Orange offers are valid up to 18 nov, so there will be some changes then. They may just be minor though.

[AnOther]

Talk about prolonging the agony.

Orange told me yesterday that my VoIP would take up to 24 hours to kick in after I'd got connected (or 48 depending on who I was talking to) but when it still hadn't come to life this afternoon on the phone agailn.

After about 30 minutes of pfaffing about it finally transpired that my Livebox didn't have the current firmware (I only got it last week for Gawds sake). It's supposed to update itself automatically but obviously hadn't and when we attempted to manually update it it crashed.

A duff Livebox was pronounced but whilst in the process of giving me an authorisation code to get a new one from the Orange shop the accursed thing must have decided that it didn't want to go to Cahors and would update itself after all - twice - after which, voila........VoIP !

Last hurdle now is the paperwork which still hasn't arrived and although the Orange tech said he'd organise it to be resent I'm starting to have visions of getting cut off in a month's time because they haven't received payment or a signature or some other beureacratic hiccup.

I think I'm becoming paranoid [:'(]

[pachapapa]

[quote user="Jane and Danny"]

PPP

Be fair, there is nothing deceitful on the Orange site. In fact, as pointed out before, it flatly contradicts the English speaking sales people who told Ernie porkies.

I don't know what the offer may be in November but all the Orange offers run for about two months after which they are normally relaunched with some slight changes.

Danny

***EDIT*** the current Orange offers are valid up to 18 nov, so there will be some changes then. They may just be minor though.

[/quote]

I thought maybe they were going to close down on Astra1 and AB3 and concentrate on HotBird.

Just leaving the Orange Polska alone on Astra1.[:)]

 

[AnOther]

The final chapter.

FT's 'telephone expert' phoned me on Friday, tweaked something, had me do a factory reset on the Livebox, then told me to reboot over the weekend and all should be OK - and it is.

I now have 2 way capability on both the Livephone and my other cordless phone connected to the Livebox and the actual phone line itself now no longer works so everything is as it should be.

Only taken 24 days to sort this out.

Good side is that the my Internet connection has been completely stable and the only time I've rebooted the Livebox has been in response to an instruction to do so, a far cry from Telespit when rebooting was a 3 times between meals daily ritual.

Fingers crossed for the future.

Now FT, what about the 2mb that I know I can get.....................................[geek]