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Today when I got home from work, I had a letter from Telecom in the box. To be perfectly honest, I was expecting it to be a confirmation of a direct debit I had set up, but on opening it didn’t look like a direct debit letter, it looked like another kind of letter. I thought, oh how fantastic, more nonsense about being upgraded to ADSL2+, but alas no, IT WAS AN APOLOGY AND CONTAINED THE WORD SORRY IN THE TITLE. Sorry for yelling, but I am that surprised.

There’s a few sentences in this letter that I find pleasing.

In recent weeks in some parts of the country, we haven’t been able to fix telephone and broadband faults as quickly as we’d like. This is not good enough.

As you read on, you basically get the feeling that they’re trying to blame Visionstream and the recent industrial action as the cause for the delay. If I was a contractor, I would be feeling pretty pissed off about some of the things, but I’m not. I’m a customer, ya know, the customer is always right.

Then further down there’s another part I really like:

We’d like to make it up to you

As you’ve had a fault recently, I apologise on behalf of Telecom New Zealand that you were affected by this situation.

The rest of the letter details criteria for restitution from Telecom, if you remember all I was asking for was one month of broadband charges, well, I have received a credit for my home phone line and my monthly broadband charges. All up, That leaves me with $22 to pay.

Thanks Telecom for coming to the party. It is better late than never I guess and I think congratulations are in order for stepping up and sending out these letters, admitting that things could be better and putting it right with the consumers. Don’t forget us consumers. We pay your salary. I leave the last word of this post to Telecom:

Thank you for bearing with us. We are doing out best to put a bad situatino right, and we never forget who keeps us in business – you, the customer.

Yesterday when I got home from work, I found my Internet not working. The last time I had seen my PC online from logmein.com was earlier that morning. I rang your 0800GETXTRA number at 5.30pm and selected the appropriate selections to get your help desk. After eliminating my modem & computers as the cause of the outage, it was determined that there was a technical fault at your end. I was informed that they would call me back, which may have happened. But I had to call back at 7pm to find out if it was indeed a technical fault. I was patched through to Peter (not his real name) in Auckland, who was excellent and very helpful. He explained that I was most likely mis-jumpered at the exchange. This had happened to me before back in February. But he would get a technician to look into it. But this could take until Thursday afternoon but they would be in touch.

Today I rang at 12.30pm to check on the status of my connection mishap and was told that I would have to wait until 3pm tomorrow for reconnection. I found this wait unacceptable and expressed my concerns about this delay. As far as I’m concerned, I’m paying you top dollar for an Internet service, a service which I am not receiving through no fault of my own.

Tonight when I got home at 5pm, I reset my router and checked the connection as a matter of course, hoping for a miracle and yes, I had my miracle, it was working, and the ADSL2+ had been turned on as well. For this I thank you. As per the advice of the help desk worker earlier in the afternoon, I called The 0800 GET XTRA help desk again to arrange a credit for my inconvenience. What I didn’t realise is that this phone call would take up another 60 minutes of my time and counting.

Tonight the person I spoke to (T######) tried telling me that I pay $59.95 a month for my Internet, which I don’t, and decided to argue with me about it. I was then offered an insulting $1.59 credit for being without Internet for over 24 hours and spending over 3 hours on the phone, plus the inconvenience of having to take unpaid leave from my job to meet a technician due tomorrow. When I had this problem back in February, I received a $79.95 credit for one months broadband as the fault was Telecoms, and then back in February, that issue was only resolved once I involved an acquaintance who works for Telecom Broadband. When it became obvious that the person I was trying to converse with didn’t listen to what I was saying, or read the case notes, I asked to be transferred to a NZ based tech. I was told they cannot do this, yet the person I spoke to on my 2nd call last night was able to do this. I’m confused as to why some people can and some people can’t transfer me to NZ based customer services representatives.

When I found that this avenue was going nowhere, I asked to speak to a supervisor. I have knowledge that there are 3 supervisors per floor and I should not be on hold for more than 5 minutes to speak to one. After 10 minutes on hold waiting to speak to a supervisor, I got told I was not speaking to a supervisor, but a senior technician, still based in the Philippines (T######). I reiterated that I wanted to speak with a supervisor. After laying down that I asked to speak to a supervisor, I am entitled to speak to a supervisor and she was going to put me through to a supervisor, did she put me on hold again. I again was on hold for over 5 minutes waiting for a supervisor. I finally got one. (T######). He told me that I still had to meet the technician, which I am quite happy to do, regardless of the fact I am going to lose income to do so, but would like to get to the bottom of this problem. He did not agree to increase the credit. I informed him that I was insulted by the paltry amount being offered given that I have spent over 3 hours on the phone and to his credit is going to follow up my complaint that T9###### argued with me regarding my broadband plan.

I would love to know how is it that telecom can cause the fault, make me do the running around on the phone and meeting technicians, yet not offer anything close to decent compensation for the trouble this has caused. I was earlier planning on moving my familys mobile calling to telecom (added business of $120 a month, minimum) however, given this recent experience, I am reconsidering that decision and also looking at moving my broadband and calling to another ISP. To say I am disillusioned with your company is an understatement.

I look forward to hearing Telecom’s response to this appalling customer service I have received.

Telecom have two options on the table for me as an iPhone lover. I can either sign up for their special offer OneRate180 on 24 month contract and pay $80 a month, getting 180 minutes, no text message bundle and 240mb free data included, and get a $600 account credit.

Third option and my preferred option, port my number to Telecom. Have an open contract, paying just $53 or thereabouts a month, I can have 60 minutes, 150 txt msgs and 240mb of data on a faster network.

At a saving of $120 per annum, why stick around with Vodafone when I can save time (in the form of network speed) and money with Telecom XT.

So there you have it. Once my Vodafone credit is gone, I will port to XT. Thanks for sticking through this series of blog posts regarding my perspective on a potential change in carriers. Call it my seven year telco itch.

Test One – Speed

A direct side by side speed test using the speedtest.net application on my iPhone. I did this test from my desk at work in Mt. Wellington. The building can best be described as a 1962 vintage, concrete slab, concrete block exterior and tin roof. My office is located above a graphic design suite and we back onto a large hill formerly known as Hamlins Hill. I get full coverage on both networks at my desk. Below are the screenshots:

Below is my speedtest.net screenshot from XT

And now, my screenshot from Vodafone

Test Two – Coverage

I ran this particular comparison from my desk in Papakura. My house is a 3 year old brick and tile. My desk is located in the north-west corner of the house, which is in a slight dip, but not the lowest lying part of the town. On my desk, I have my laptop, two monitors, corded phone, printer, Sky HDi Box, Speakers and the usual geek assortment of odds and sods, and my desktop is running away somewhere there too. I’ve never had great Vodafone reception at this desk. In fact, I’ve been known to get NO SERVICE at times too. So I decided to take a couple of iPhone screenshots to compare coverage in this tricky little corner of my world.

Wow. Full coverage sitting at my desk on Telecom XT. ZOMG!

And the questionable quality I shouldn’t have to get used to from Vodafone 3G

Initial Conclusions

While I have not yet tested call quality, coverage or speed tests in other parts of town. I am impressed with the results I am receiving from the XT network. Honestly, the results I am getting make me more disillusioned with Vodafone with each and every test that I run. Customer loyalty aside and despite my feelings that Telecom are an evil, faceless corporation who screwed me over for six weeks when we moved in here, I am warming to the idea that I might just port to them.

As the iPhone has revolutionised my life, its revolutionising my debtors as well.

unlockit.co.nz offers a way to update the XT carrier settings into your iPhone without having to jailbreak it. You can download the carrier settings file here.

(As I did this in windows, my instructions are microsoftised, but there are instructions for both)

With iTunes closed, I opened the command prompt and put in the following text in its entirety.

“%ProgramFiles%\iTunes\iTunes.exe” /setPrefInt carrier-testing 1

I then opened up iTunes, plugged in my iPhone and went to the sync page. I held down shift and clicked update. Up sprang a window and I selected my XT carrier settings file downloaded earlier and away I went. Just to check, I put in my XT prepaid sim card and hello, this is my screen.

See the pretty XT logo in the top left hand corner. Totally awesome! This method isn’t guaranteed to allow you to roam. That’s an experiment that is too expensive for me to try! But now all I need is some credit on my XT sim card to do a few call tests and a mobile broadband speed comparison before I decide to stay with Vodafone or move to the eternally evil corporate formerly known as Telecom.

I emailed Vodafone and let them know that I am disappointed in their 3G and this is what they had to say:-

Dear Alison,

Thank you for your website enquiry.

I am sorry to hear that you are not satisfied with the 3G Broadband Speeds provided by Vodafone.

What has attracted me to Telecom’s new XT network is the speed. I use mobile internet more than I do calling and text messaging these days. In the space of 6 months my mobile useage have been revolutionised by mobile broadband with the likes of Gravity on the Nokia and now this blessed iPhone.

This week Telecom and Vodafone have exchanged blows in an effort to drag iPhone customers one way or another. And one person on twitter even had a spreadsheetpalooza comparing the costs involved in either telco.

Telecom offered up a $600 account credit if you sign up to their OneRate180 plan for 24 months, and they would give you free data upto 240mb per month. You would have to pay for a text messaging bundle on top of that and purchase an iPhone outright.

Vodafone offered up 1000 free MMS messages and 3gig of data free to all users on an iPhone plan for 3 months starting from your next billing date. Your text bundle remains untouched, ditto voice minutes.

But there are more difficulties involved. I still have $1100 odd of credit on my Vodafone account which I won through the 3G Guy promotion. If I move networks, I will forfeit this credit and have to pay an additional $360 + GST early termination charge.

So will I move to XT? I’m seriously contemplating it. But before I ink an agreement with anyone, I will put, to quote Richard Hammond, put them both to the test in my iPhone and decide from there.

]]> http://blog.alikatnz.com/2009/07/to-xt-or-not-to-xt-that-is-my-question/feed/ 3 http://blog.alikatnz.com/2009/04/rain-clouds/ http://blog.alikatnz.com/2009/04/rain-clouds/#comments Wed, 08 Apr 2009 00:00:35 +0000 alikatnz http://whiskeygeek.wordpress.com/?p=167 So since I purchased a legitimate copy of Microsoft Office Home & Student 2007, I stumbled on this Office Live Workspace concept Microsoft currently have in Beta. To be honest, I haven’t heard much about it and thought this would be an opportune time to investigate further. You can read the press release here.

Like most people, I carry around a USB flash drive which has my personal files I take between the office and home, a few pictures etc. It’s the convenience of it all really. Lately I had thoughts of using Windows Home Server just to access my files from wherever I might be, but this looks like the next logical step in my data portability wrangle. I’ve had panic attacks when I can’t find my flash drive. It has my household budgets for the next two months at least on it, the same kind of panic attack when you have to go a day without a cellphone. You know what I mean.

But as I delve deeper into this, it’s part of the phenomenon called Cloud Computing – which has industry leaders like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo on its bandwagon. Basically, it’s a virtualisation of services, most well known being Facebook, Flickr and Chrome.

With Microsoft Office Live Workspace, you have 5GB of personal storage space. That’s slightly larger than your average flash drive size. They tout that you don’t need Office installed on your PC and you can access your files from the poolside (Effects of Chlorine on Laptops?) It’s your virtual file cabinet, create workspaces and store and collaborate on school work or personal files. To share files, all you need is an email address and Workspace ensures that you are all collaborating on the most current document, so you don’t risk jeopardizing your project with out of date files or missed emails.

Office Live Workspace

If using a web browser isn’t your thing, and you have Office installed on your PC, I recommend getting the Live Update so that you can access your Workspace from your native Office applications without having to launch a browser. Installing this update can be a small drama. Last night on my Acer Laptop running Vista Home Premium and over a wireless lan connection, it took me about 30 minutes to get there as Vista requires an additional update before it can install the Live Update for Workspace.

How do I rate Office Live Workspace? I think the concept is fantastic, but overall, I haven’t gone head first into this service yet, but I don’t think it will be long before the other average internet users will catch on to this either. Personally, it will take me a while to get everything on my Workspace that I like, but don’t feel limited. You can put PDF files and images on there too. Sayonara Flash Drive.

But in this day and age of computing, we are not limited to Microsoft Products and as I mentioned earlier, the other major player in the dark skies of Cloud Computing is Google. I would hazard a guess and say that everyone knows Google, has considered having a Gmail address at some stage. But Google offers other services too. They have Blogger, Google Apps, Latitude, Docs, Sites, Calendar and Picasa. Of course, whichever cloud you choose to follow to, there is plenty written comparing Microsoft’s Cloud to the Google Cloud. Maybe I will look at Google over the Easter Weekend when I don’t have much planned.

That said – Going without internet for more than 24 hours helped me realise the extent of my internet addiction. I do not know what is the more desperate sign – going to my parents to bludge their connection, or connecting up my mobile phone to my laptop to use as a Modem.

Either way, I have to face facts that I am hooked and live my life online. A sign of the times perhaps? Maybe not these times. Seems like only yesterday I was in IRC channels talking to people in Mississippi. And thanks to them, I can spell the name of that state.

Without internet, I wouldn’t have ordered the organic parrot food, the HP printer cartridge, shopped around for the best deal, so that I got a free 100 pack of 6×4 photo paper. I wouldn’t have purchased two SD cards an a camera battery from the online retailer who makes some bricks and mortar stores look like rip off merchants.

Given that I have grown up on PCs and can chart my childhood, teenage years and the first decade of adult life through the generations of dial up, x86 series intel chips, I can remember when there were three chip manufacturers – AMD, Intel and Cyrix. When RAM cost more than a tyre for a car and still does, depending on the tyre.

Because this generation is wired and going wireless. Ask me two years ago if I would have had a laptop and a wireless router in my house and I would have said no. Today, I have a laptop, wireless router and other devices that all access the wireless access point. Somethings that never crossed my mind two years ago.

So maybe I shouldn’t turn a blind eye to this new technology. I am reading computer magazines and forums again, because when it comes time to embrase the next big thing in IT, I want to know what it is and how to get the most value from it.

Phone telecom. 15 minutes on hold at midnight. Get hold of call centre in Manilla/Vanilla/Ice Ice Baby and explain whats happening. Reset modem (#4, #5 & #6) check settings. Man promises my a 12 hour pro-rata credit on phone bill. He says will get the pvc server reset in the morning.

Get up at 9.30am (sleep in!) and look at internet. Still not going. Reset modem (#7). Check, still no IP address issued from Telecom. Call Telecom. Manilla Ice much faster to answer this time. Explain it all again. Reset modem countless times, including factory reset.

Factory resets are where the modem is retored to well, its factory default. Doing this erases all Telecom settings. Later on in the afternoon it will dawn on me that the settings have changed and that the Manilla Ice has assumed I have a telecom standard modem (I dont). He says that he will get a technician to call me ater 3pm. Its now 10am. hmm… 3pm is a long way to go if you’ve got no broadband.

I tell him my credit better be worth it because as I’m on the top level residential plan, I expect better than this for my $$$ (40gb per month for $80 with free static IP address, unlimited speeds in both directions… currently pulling 6.8mbps and not even on ADSL2+ yet – another story for another day) He told me I would get one months credit on my broadband bill. Yay!

3pm and the technician calls. Go through with him all the same stuff I had been through with the Manilla and Vanilla Ice Ice Baby. He establishes I’m making a DSL sync (I could have told him that, I did, he didnt listen) and so the fault must be in the grey pillar beside the road, in the cabinet or at the exchange. Hes escalated the issue and will send a technician tomorrow. Tomorrow is Monday. This is a day of work, where one earns wages to pay the broadband bill. I point this out to him.

Right now, I am wanting to cry. Break down in tears in my computer room and sob because I cannot cope without internet for 12 hours, how can I cope without internet for two nights? Its unheard of!

Anyway, after some #geekzone intervention, we’re back online, although the connection is difficult and misbehaving like a kid in a toy store, but oh gosh its nice to be back online. Just not sure how long for. I will make sure I get that credit on my phone bill too. I will hold them to it by gosh.

On another note, Windows 7 is still impressing me. I have not yet installed any software (been playing games) but have made the decision that when it comes up for sale as a finished OS, I will upgrade my desktop and most likely my laptop. I was going to switch my laptop to Linux, but seeing how fantastic W7 is with its power settings, It would be worth it. Again, I haven’t had W7 and Vista running on the same machine, so I cannot make direct comparisons, but may for fun, do a dual installation on my laptop so that I can.