AliceADSL Technical Helpline

[UlsterRugby1999]

Been having a problem with my Alice router for a while. I had called them a few weeks back but my French wasnt good enough and we ended the call with a nil/nil result. Then I tried again today. I got passed to a technician who had virtually no English. Basically, he explained that I could call back when there was an English speaking technician available or we could stick at it and see how we got on. I chose to stick at it, apologising a few times for not quite understanding what he was trying to say, and after 45 minutes BINGO he got it.

I've heard loads of negative feedback relating to these types of calls, but I've got to say this guy had the patience of a saint and wouldnt give in.

Fair play to Alice. Just thought I'd mention it.

[Jay]

Two weeks ago I lost both my ALICE internet and telephone

connection for a couple of days. I phoned them on their free 1033 number and

explained the problem. To my utter amazement the very next morning both my

Internet and telephone were working again and almost immediately afterwards

received a mail from them asking me to fill in a satisfaction questionnaire.

Being lazy and having lots of other stuff to do on the net I promptly forgot

about it, which is fortunate.

That night at about 10pm the whole thing went down again and

has done so every night since. It cuts off at about 10pm and doesn’t come on

again until next morning. My wife recons they have put a curfew on me for

downloading too much during the night. After several calls to the helpline plus

emails to the support staff I am no further forward. One of their very “helpful”

suggestions was that my modem was tired. That night I gave it a sleeping pill

and a drink of coke and left it off all night. Still no joy. I then filled in

the questionnaire, guess what I said?

I am now writing to their head office in Marseille to see if

I can get a fix before changing ISP’s. I would be most interested in anyone

else who has had similar problems with Alice or any other ISP for that matter,

and whether you managed to get a result.

[Danny]

Jay, perhaps you could put a question on the on this site to help with getting your problems resolved.

Danny

[Martin963]

Having changed from Club Internet to Alice a month ago,  all went well except that I could NOT get the Wifi to work with my laptop.   Danny kindly helped out off-list but even so I didin't get a satisfactory result.

Today I finally decided to investigate properly,   and took the laptop round to a friend who also has Alice and the same model of modem.   Chez lui it all worked perfectly,  laptop finding and joining his reseau sans fil correctly,  showing that the problem lay with my Alice box.

Rang 1033 and - after a ten minute delay - spoke to a MOST helpful chap,  who kept the speed of his French down for my benefit,   took me through various tests,   listened to my own views on the subject,  and agreed after exhaustive investigation that the box is indeed faulty and arranged to dispatch a new one to arrive within the week.   The call to 1033 was of course free.

Ten out of ten to Alice,  a similar call to Club Internet would have cost about 20 quid.

As to the evening drop outs,   we and the other Alice subscriber have short outages several evenings a week,  but I had exactly the same thing (worse if anything) when I was with CLub Internet.   I think it's just something that happens at peak times,   although it shouldn't be off all night.    What happens if you depower and repower?

[Jay]

[quote user="Martinwatkins"]

As to the evening drop outs,   we and the other Alice subscriber have short outages several evenings a week,  but I had exactly the same thing (worse if anything) when I was with CLub Internet.   I think it's just something that happens at peak times,   although it shouldn't be off all night.    What happens if you depower and repower?

[/quote]

Glad you had a good response from Alice.

Resetting the modem by powering down or using the Alice software has no effect whatsoever. What I cannot understand is that I have had Tiscali/Alice for 5 years and ADSL + telephone for 11 months without any problems at all. Now, suddenly, the thing cuts off at about 10pm and doesn't come on again until early morning (typically between 7 and 8.30). When it goes down the line light comes on, the ADSL light flashes slowly and the telephone lights flash. If we lived in a town then I might agree there could be drop out at peak times but we live in the middle of nowhere and I cannot imagine anyone downloading huge amounts at 5am, anyway surely it would be more likely to cut off between 4pm and 8pm. During the day I get a full 2 Meg with average download speeds of 240Kb/s which I think is exceptional for this area.

I am not a computer novice and know there is nothing wrong with my equipment the problem must therefore be with the line or Alice. Convincing them of that is another matter.

[Helen]

We also have Alice dropping out in the late evening. It actually sporadic, it connects to the internet, disconnects, on off, on off. I don't know if it lasts all night because I usually give up and go to bed.

[Martin963]

Does anyone nearby have ADSL and suffer the same periods of outage?    Certainly in our village we started to compare notes and it became pretty obvious that the problems were pretty much simultaneous.   Our friends wrote a formal letter to Alice (we were still with CI then) to which they got no reply,  other than miraculously ADSL for the whole village suddenly suffered fewer and shorter outages. 

My immediate thought for you was AM (MW) interference but you'd expect that to start about an hour earlier than your problem at this time of year,   and indeed disappear by -  say - 6.00 am. (It would be longer in the winter)  And anyway it wouldn't have started so suddenly.

Baffling,  and very frustrating.

[Jay]

The latest.

Contacted Alice from a (French) neighbours telephone to inform them my ADSL

connection and telephone was down again and explained all the problems I have had

in the last month (see above). Their response - "please telephone us back

from the telephone connected to the computer/modem which has the problem".

Thinking I was having serious difficulties with my interpretation I handed the phone to my

neighbour who confirmed what the idiot was saying.

[Martin963]

Pretty feeble response from Alice.

I'm now going to put my own brickbat into Alice - although mostly I'm pleased with them.   I migrated from Club Internet to Alice in May,  and explained many times to Alice that I didn't need the service until after 28th May when the CI service was due to terminate.    They in their turn told me several times not to send in the bank authorisation until 14th May,   that way their service couldn't start until 28th May.

However,   Alice's website showed that the service was activated on 14th May (even though I'd not sent in the authorisation) so I rang them to check they weren't treading (legally or technically) on CI's toes.   No problems they said,  plug your Alice box in and enjoy.   I said I didn't want the service until the agreed date,  and they said  "no probs,  you won't be charged until the day you actually plug in the Alice box".   I was told this several times.

So I waited several days,  although in order to have some leeway if there were problems I plugged in Alice on 22nd May.

And guess what,  I've been charged from 14th May,  AND the helpline says that I cannot claim back the period before the Alice box was plugged in.

Well they may think that's OK - and maybe with the "young" they get away with that sort of thing,   but I'm already sharpening my quill as this attitude is quite unacceptable.

Shame because up until now I've been praising Alice to the heavens to those who care to listen.....