Faults system blamed for Wanadoo LLU woes
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Posted in Telecoms, 10th April 2006 13:12 GMT
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Wanadoo UK's faults system is being blamed for leaving some of its customers without broadband for weeks on end. The ISP is currently moving thousands of users to its local loop unbundling (LLU) network, but it admits some migrations are not going ahead as planned.
As a result, Wanadoo customers report being left without broadband for weeks on end with the ISP's customer support services failing to provide any meaningful help.
Now, sources have told El Reg that the problem is due to Wanadoo's fault diagnosis system, which is supposed to keep track of problems when cutomers are moved to the new LLU network. Insiders say software errors are causing customer reports to get "stuck" in the system.
The problem is made worse because these faults are piling up, making a massive backlog that Wanadoo is struggling to clear. Some customers have complained they have been without broadband for almost three months while still paying for the service.
When asked to comment, a spokeswoman for Wanadoo dodged questions about the ISP's faults system. Instead she told us: "As we have said before, LLU is a very complex technology and a number of things can go wrong - so if a very large number of customers are being migrated, a very few might experience problems. The fact remains that the very vast majority of Wanadoo LLU customers have not had any issues at all."
Despite Wanadoo's spin, this has failed to prevent punters from taking direct action to air their grievances. Last week, Kevin Ellis from London launched an online forum - Wanadoo Problems - to highlight the plight of broadband users left in the dark by the ISP. Kevin has been without broadband now for eight weeks and has spent around £35 on calls to Wanadoo's helpline trying and get his broadband reactivated.
"I despair with them," he told us. "I've been told one thing and then another. They're not helping customers in the slightest. It's cost me a fortune in calls to support." ®
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