Hello,
It’s me, I was wondering if after all these weeks you’d like to meet…. Okay, it’s not quite how Adele wrote it, but as my internet still isn’t fixed, I’m cordially inviting you both round to my house to come and witness it first-hand. I’ll provide the Cakes and the Coffee, you guys provide the poor connection and we can struggle to stream cat videos from Youtube together.
Tristia, Clive, you might have noticed I’ve been quiet the last few weeks. The reason is, quite frankly I’ve had other priorities in my life than doing the unpaid work of your combined teams. I’ve been running diagnostics, chasing engineers, trying to find a solution… I shouldn’t be doing any of it. Tristia, your Fault management team & CEOs team have been as useful as filling up a Fire Engine with Petrol instead of water.
Clive, you’re on a slightly better footing – you’ve sent us the lovely Mark. Mark has gone above and beyond to try and make sure our copper cabling isn’t at fault. But we knew it wasn’t. We were told that in January. I can’t help but feel you’re just fobbing us off until June when the new cabinet goes live? Do me a favour, send me the fibre equivalent of Mark… Maybe as the fibre side is owned by Talktalk, it’s you Tristia that needs to be doing the sending.
The thing is, the facts here are fairly simple; I’ve run a series of tests where I ping a server on the internet. All over night, with no real load on our line. While most of the time I got a reply within 8-10 milliseconds, a number of times it took up to 3 seconds to get a reply. Something is STILL not right. Those three second (and on some tests I ran nearly 5 second) responses are the reason our internet just “Stops” randomly while we use it. We could be streaming Youtube, FireStick, checking Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and things just stop. Not ‘in the name of love’, but more ‘Right now, thank you very much’…. Except I’m not thanking anyone as there is no reason it should stop.
Getting technical, I imagine it’s because the sites we are using are using the TCP protocol. It’s like handshake –
*Connection open*
> “Hello are you there?”
< “Yes, I’m here”
>”Data Please”
<”Okay! DATA….”
>”Thanks, bye!”
*Connection Closed*
When our internet drops out, I imagine it goes a bit more like this:
*Connection Open*
> ”Hello, are you there?”
< ”Yes, I’m here”
> “Data Please”
> “Data Please
> “HELLO?! ARE YOU STILL THERE
< *Mumbles to himself* Oh, they’ve gone, shut down the connection.
*Connection closed*
> “Data Please!!!!!”
< The person you are calling is currently unavailable, and their mailbox is full. Please try again.
Seriously now, slightly dumbed down technicalities over, Please, come and visit… see for yourselves, it’s infuriating and makes using the internet often impossible – Things stop downloading or streaming, messages don’t send and photos in webpages download like its 1998 dialup again! (Line by line!)
Strangely, this all sounds very similar to the fault I reported to TalkTalk back in January. Temperamental internet. Great work all teams, over 4 months and you’ve made no difference.
Now, Tristia, one of your well trained apologisers was supposed to be refunding some of our Direct Debits while circus show was ongoing. That never happened. So, hear it here first…. You broke your SLA, I’m going to break ours – I’ll be instructing Dad to cancel the Direct Debit he pays you. Simple as that. We’ll also be compiling a bill over the next few days. Not only of the mobile data have we had to buy and the 4G WiFi equipment for home, but also, of the time we’ve spent doing the job of your teams. Chasing OpenReach, Pretending to be TalkTalk, running tests, and writing these letters in order to get stuff done.
I’ll end with some good news – while this charade has been going on, Vodafone have been digging closer and closer to my house. Yes, Clive that’s right, in the time you’ve been fobbing us off, Vodafone and Cityfibre have been busy at work, laying fibre to the premises. Looks like they’ve nearly met your 70 day lead time for our whole area! Following the sensational service you two have provided, I think I’d be a damn fool not to already be in contact with Vodafone about getting their service fitted. (For the record, it’s been all the WRONG sensations.)
Anyway, enough of this tomfoolery – I must get back to work… (I’m sure you’ll love my newly self-appointed title in my signature!)
I look forward to hearing from you – Let me know when to put the kettle on.
Kind regards,
Steven
Newly appointed Senior Case Manager, Barnet Area, TalkTalk PLC & BT OpenReach PLC.