Ofcom: Making a switch between ISPs will soon be much easier Ofcom is bringing in new measures to finally make it much easier for broadband and landline customers in the UK to drop one telco in favour of another provider. In the past, subscribers were required to do loads of legwork to make the switch, which often meant they were much more reluctant to ditch their existing ISP – even if …
there's certainly one message: the annoyingness of an ISPs adverts do not necessarily correlate with their service. Plusnet, hugely annoying, but you seem to have had good experience. BT, hugely annoying, and I'm still waiting to find out whether they've got any better recently since hearing this some years ago:
How wonderful BT Broadband is, by Marcus
Thank $DEITY there are no meerkat ISPs out there yet.
I've never had too much problem getting a MAC from an ISP, except for a few years back, when we were getting ADSL through Bulldog.
Everything was going swimmingly, until one day, no more internet. So, I ring up Bulldog, only to find no answer on any of their phonelines. Hopping onto nextdoors un-passworded wireless we found that Bulldog had been bought by Cable and Wireless, who managed to screw up migrating a bunch of customers to their own network. We were left hanging, with no internet, and no way of migrating to another supplier.
The trouble was, our connection was still showing as belonging to Bulldog, who didn't exist any more, and C&W were basically useless, so we needed a MAC in order to switch, but no-one could give us that MAC. In the end it took OFCOM getting involved to get us a MAC so we could move to Be (who were great back then.)
It took many phone calls for me to escape the clutches of Pipex (remember them?) and a week of no broadband. But that's ancient history.
Oh! "In the past". Have they just got round to fixing an historical problem which no longer exists because all the rubbish ISPs were bought by the majors?
Not a lot of work?
Balls....
IT took me THREE frigging months to get a MAC code out of my last ISP. They kepy saying, pay us £50 because you are breaking your contract. I never signed a contract with them. They took over the one that I did.
Eventually OFCOM stepped in and I got my MAC. I was then cut off instantly.
I guess they didn't want to let me go.
Thankfully they went bust a few months later.
Don't you mean:
"Can I have my MAC?"
"Nice weather for the time of year, sir"
"Can I have my MAC?"
"I see Arsenal won last Saturday"
"Can I have my MAC?"
"Sorry, the line's really bad, can you say that again?"
"Can I have my MAC?"
"Ooloolooloo-can't hear you-oolollolloll"
etc.
Why would you need to call a Service Number to get charged a per-minute fee. Only to be told to....
Goto "Start" ->"Run" -> Enter "cmd" -> Press "OK"
From the DOSBox Promp... Enter: "ipconfig -all"
Phisical Address . . . . . . . . . : 'xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx' <- Is your MAC Address!!
"Can I have my MAC?"
"Yes sir we'll email it over to you within 48 hours"
"You said you would send it over by yesterday"
"We will have to request a new code and send you a new email".
"But they last 30 days"
"We don't send over duplicate codes. Call back in 48 hours."
I must be in the minority. Never had any issue (home and work) with claranet, demon (twice, one a business line), bt, sky, plusnet,BE and easynet.
Phoned up, asked for mac, moved. All companies wanted to do a deal to stay but ive always moved for features (or a change in circumstance)
My experience of obtaining a MAC involved being on hold for over an hour on an 0845 number to be disconnected.
Not once, but several times.
If it was as easy as you make out, then Ofcom wouldn't have to get involved.
On top of that in this era of LLUs, MACs aren't relevant if the line's not a BT one. That's an added complication which needs to be sorted out.
FTA:
The regulator explained that telcos would need to keep records of any consent given confirming a switch to another provider.
Yeah, I don't think "keeping records" will really mean much. People, especially in telesales or door-to-door begging, will try and con people into saying "yes" any way they can. IMHO the best way to improve the current situation is to make ISPs give you your MAC code online and cut out the "valuable customer retention department" crap at your current ISP. Not perfect (since we all know website security is sometimes lacking), but a hell of a lot better than just trusting peoples record keeping to keep companies from slamming people.
"Ofcom is bringing in new measures to finally make it much easier for broadband and landline customers in the UK to drop one telco in favour of another provider."
Is there much of a difference, you get the same cables and the same switches at the local exchange, the only difference is who you pay your bill to.
In the Kingston-upon Hull region, there is an unregulated monopoly called kingston communications
Sorry time for a bit of payback.
As all the townies and city goers keep telling us Country dwellers (in regards to fibre / broadband speeds) you do have an option. Move elsewhere, there it is in black and white.
Sorry if you are not one of these people but I just want to point out that
Why do you have to move all that?
And you call me a retard? That to me shows your level of intelligence, name calling on an anonymous forum, really sticks it to them.
Wherever you move to I am sure there will be other schools, buses, hospitals, shops, businesses you know we all have access to these wherever we live. Country, town, tin can.
the decision applies only to switching providers on BT's Openreach copper network
As I'm not a communications engineer, can somebody explain to me what is the relevance of the element that the conductors are made from? Why shouldn't people who are unfortunate enough to be connected via inferior aluminium wiring benefit from this change?
BT's official line is that there is no aluminium cabling left in their network.
Ofcom believed them. People have attempted to dispute this. Ofcom have repeatedly blown those people off.
It eventually comes out from someone deep within that process that the unsaid part of "in the BT network" is that that definition stops at the local distribution cabinets, not at your household demarcation point.
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