You might not know this, but I have had no broadband internet connection at home since February. With a little luck the situation is about to change (5 months later) - I thought others might be interested in the story.
When Broadband was first introduced to the UK a few years ago, we signed up with Pipex - an independent supplier that had very good reviews at the time. We were happy with the service they provided, it was reasonably priced, and we didn’t really think about it.
Roll forward to the last year, and we became more and more aware that our internet connection was becoming slower, more variable, and even dropping from time to time. After a little investigation, it turned out Pipex had been sold to Tiscali, a company famous in the UK for terrible support, awful customer service, and shockingly bad broadband supply.
We finally decided enough was enough in February, and called Pipex to cancel our contract with them - and requested a MAC code to move our broadband supply to somebody else. Almost unbelievably they offered to double the speed, and half the price of our connection. I told them in no uncertain terms that if they could offer that now, then they had obviously been ripping me off for months - and that there was no way I would continue the contract for that reason alone.
A MAC code arrived in the mail, and we rang our chosen Broadband supplier, who informed us that the MAC code was invalid, and we already had a supply of broadband on our line anyway - from a company called Power Internet.
Hmmm…
I called Pipex, and they claimed no knowledge of Power Internet, or how we could have received an invalid MAC code. After spending over an hour talking to their various support departments one day, some conversation happened off the phone and they did appear to understand. At the time, I began to sense that Power Internet had been subcontracted in to do engineering work - perhaps when Pipex was bought by Tiscalil.
We never received another MAC code from Pipex, despite numerous requests. It would appear we were no longer even a customer.
So who were Power Internet? We called them, and they had no knowledge of us. We tried to sign up with other broadband providers, and they repeated what we had already been told - that Power Internet were providing our broadband service.
We finally got in touch with OfCOM - the regulatory body that oversees the operation of communications companies in the UK, and they began investigating. We got in touch with British Telecom - who owns the entire damn network - and they could do nothing either.
Finally, OfCOM requested that Power Internet write to BT - even if they claimed they were not supplying our broadband - requesting that BT remove their service from our line. Nothing happened. OfCOM chased Power Internet. BT chased Power Internet. We chased everybody. OfCOM threatened to report Power Internet to Otelo (the communications ombudsman).
Finally, today, my other half received a phone call from Power Internet, and a complete cock and bull story about having maybe found out what the problem was, and that our line was now cleared of a service.
We immediately signed up with British Telecom themselves for a supply of broadband to our house. We fully expect them to call back tomorrow and tell us that Power Internet are tagged on our telephone line (meaning nobody else can supply it). If it does go through, we will have unlimited 8 megabit broadband some time next week, free IP telephony, and a 3G dongle thrown in.
If you ask me what I think has been going on, I’ll hazard a guess that a group of people in several companies have figured out a way to commit massive fraud in the british Broadband infrastructure, and we managed to fall through a crack and expose some of it. Of course I cannot claim that I know that, because I’ll probably get taken to court.
In summary, thanks very much to Pipex, Tiscali and Power Internet for collectively ensuring we had no internet connection at home for 5 months. I have no words to express my gratitude.