Digital Region in Dinnington Area

[upnorthal 10]

Small Update.

 

I placed the order last week (Tuesday or Wednesday I think). Ask4 took £75 payment. £50 install fee and £25 for first month in advance.

 

They wrote to me with a copy of terms and conditions, stating application was on hold until I signed terms and returned them. A bit cheeky if you ask me, given they hit my card straight away for the money.

 

Anyway, I signed the contract and emailed a scanned copy last Thursday as well as posting it back.

 

Phoned up today and I understand Thales / DR are currently checking whether I can have the service. Once this gets confirmed, then engineers get allocated.

I assume DR are doing a bit more than just using the avalability checker on their website!

 

 

This whole process is like pulling teeth. I can't knock the customer service / friendliness of ASk4 staff, I guess it is the system they have to work with (but do you really have to have a signature on the contract, then posting back snail mail? - I feel like I've just gone back 20 years in time)

 

I hope its going to be worth it.

Edited September 6, 2011 by upnorthal

[AlexAtkin 10]

Origin requires a signature too but I'm pretty sure they did not wait for it to place the order, they placed it the instant I phoned them.

 

Also, they do not take any money up front at all. In fact they told me they do not bill you until they confirm the service is up and working properly.

 

I have also discovered that you can opt for splitting the install fee over the first three months.

 

What Ask4 did is not unusual though, asking for the first payment up front is pretty much standard practice.

[upnorthal 10]

I didn't have a problem paying the money up front. I just thought it strange asking for a paper signed contract and implying they would hold off any provisioning until they had this (despite holding my money).

[walkerx 10]

I'm just waiting for further feedback before possibly moving away from ripwore

Edited September 6, 2011 by walkerx

[bkcin 10]

I had to post back a signed copy of my contract when I joined Virgin Media a while back.

 

I presume the reason for putting provisioning on hold is so that the customer is given chance to read through and agree to the terms of use before the ISP then enters into a contract with Thales/Digital Region.

 

If you decide that you don't agree to the terms then you can just cancel, have your inital payment refunded and thats that. If an order is put straight through to Digital Region from the ISP and then you decide you dont agree to the terms of use or change your mind etc. The ISP may not be able to back out of whatever contract they have with Digital Region?

 

Seems logical to me, albeit adding an extra hurdle for those that would like to sign up.

Edited September 6, 2011 by bkcin

[upnorthal 10]

I think the last time I had to sign a paper contract for Broadband was in the 1990s.

 

*fondly remembers days of Demon Internet, POP access points and slow connection speeds - oh and having to sign a paper contract*

 

Its nothing to do with the fact I am waiting impatiently like a kid for a new toy.

Edited September 6, 2011 by upnorthal

[pobrown 10]

I'm in North Anston and have had Digital Region from the Dinnington Exchange since Jan 31st. Getting about 30Mb/sec down and 7Mb/sec up.

[BigP 10]

I was connected to Digital Region with Ask4 this week. I agree that the sign up process is very long-winded and slightly frustrating. I think that it would be greatly improved if the whole process, including agreeing to Terms and Conditions could be completed on the web site. This is the area that Ask4 are lacking in - all the questions that I had about the process and about VDSL could have been answered there and would have avoided several phone calls.

 

Having said that, the support that I have received from Ask4 has been by far the best that I have received from an ISP and I've had dealings with quite a few, both at home and at work over the years, including Andrews & Arnold and Be.

 

The switch over (carried out at the cabinet by Openreach) was completely "messed up" - the words used by a second engineer who corrected the problem two days later! During this time Ask4 kept me informed all the way without me having to contact them once - if anything I would have been happy with slightly less phone calls!

 

I know it's the very early stages of our relationship but at the moment I can't recommend Ask4 highly enough.

[upnorthal 10]

That is reassuring to hear. Apparently DR have confirmed I can be connected now, so I'm just waiting for them to provision the service (I presume they now have to book an Open Reach engineer, to patch me in at the cabinet).

 

I assume ASk4 will post me out a router and wireless router?

[BigP 10]

You will receive the VDSL modem from Digital Region a couple of days before being connected. The wireless router will be posted to you by Ask4 by First Class Royal Mail recorded delivery.

If, like me, First Class (!)Royal Mail took 3 days to be delivered, you can still use the connection by connecting the VDSL modem directly into your PC and setting up a PPoE connection. For this you will need to contact ASK4 for your username and password as this information is sent out with the wireless router.

Edited September 9, 2011 by BigP
Typo

[AlexAtkin 10]

You will receive the VDSL modem from Digital Region a couple of days before you are supposed to be connected.

 

I fixed your post!

 

Just feeling annoyed as I was meant to be connected on Tuesday and Openreach did not show up. So they re-booked for Thursday and sent a trainee who promptly connected my line to someone else and left me with nothing.

 

I am now waiting on a fix that I do not have much faith will be done before Monday and my mum is p*ss*d as she is housebound and relies on the Internet to order food, communicate with people and sell things on eBay.

 

Presumably Openreach DO work weekends? Surely one persons line being dead and connected to the WRONG customer (also cutting that customer off THEIR broadband) is a priority out-of-hours issue? Origin are not having any luck getting Openreach to sort this out because it seems all the qualified engineers are swamped.

 

Its frustrating as I could fix the thing myself, I saw the PCP get rewired a few years back, I saw the engineer wire it up on Thursday, I know exactly how to locate my actual line (tone generator with someone listening on the phone at home) and I know which wire pair it is that is for my side of the connection (I saw him wire up correctly the E-side). Yet, they can't get anyone to do it in 28 and half hours and counting.

Edited September 9, 2011 by AlexAtkin

[ask42010 10]

We are looking through various posts on Sheffield forum and taking all the comments on board. It is nice to hear that whilst some people are frustrated with the time scales of getting things provisioned that they are impressed with our support team.

 

We continually look at ways to improve and develop and I will look into ways to streamline our provisioning process to see if we can make this any quicker. We do have to comply with various procedures set in place for Digital Region.

 

If anyone would like us to look into anything for them please feel free to contact our support team on our geographical number - 0114 303 3232, email - [email protected] or send us a text to - 07797 800545 and we'll call you back.