But this time it's Hull-Offline

Must be localised to Hull itself. I'm on Karoo, but 8 miles outside Hull---just inside the border of the dreaded 'monopoly' (curses!), and there's been no outage here all day. Personally I've never had much to complain about Karoo's service (never used their email), but it's the principle of course. I guess the customer base is just too small scale now for anyone else to really bother with (sigh).

[Paris because of the 'poor me' angle]

What a load of twaddle.

Kcom being "open to competitors renting its infrastructure à la BT Wholesale and Openreach, but nobody's interested" is a complete fallacy and they know it.

Kcom simply don't play fair. They literally manage the telco monopoly by making it commercially unrealistic for competitors to provide services via the Kcom infrastructure, unlike BT who genuinely welcome competition.

It's amazing to think Hull once aimed to become the "world's first digital city", when the truth is that Kcom's infrastructure is about 10 years out of date.

Our only hope is that Virgin may come along and start digging.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HOHOHOHOHO oh my dear word. Why dont they just f@$k off. I hate them. They have the worst system ever. And they hack clients in there spare time. Hope the system never comes back again. Biggest pile of cow arse ever. They should not be allowed to have the monopoly.

However the comparitively cleaner interweb-over-sewerage would be welcome ;-)

http://lifestyle.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=11352

http://www.h2o-networks.uk.net/

In a later press release Karoo announced that they had started their own internet just for people in Hull.

This completes the cities plan for total isolation from the rest of the world.

Else where spontaneous street parties have broken out as people realise they will never have to see John (two jags) Prescote again.

KC users are so used to pathetic data rates and latency most probably are still thinking it's a case of SNAFU.

so Hull run by same people as eircom or just the same world view.

are you lot from the karoo forums by any chance??

theres nothing wrong with karoo and no i dont work for them. the speeds seem pretty decent, and yes it does slow down at peak time because everyone hops on the web and torrents all their favourite movies... THEN they complain that karoo have hacked them when they get a letter telling them theyve been kicked off for downloading movies...

if you get caught its your own dumb fault and its the movie companies that catch you, not karoo.

oh and as for the competition... there isnt any because nobody wants to come here. there is a charge to use the line which is a set charge so the other companies can pay the charge for BT and get most of the country or pay the charge and get hull, now which would you do?

theyve been investigated by ofcom and they have to keep prices high enough so as not to make it unfeasable for comptetition, so if you want to complain about anything complain about ofcom.

Sorry these whiny little S**tbags just wind me up with constant compaints day in day out. the service is in line with every other internet provider, and as far as technology they were the first to offer tv and broadband down one line, but nobody bought it!?!?

half the city is covered with fibre so they are ahead of most other places. fair point we aren't using much of this fibre, but it is there!

"are you lot from the karoo forums by any chance??"

Er I have and still have the pleasure of KC karoo and the rest of the world. Believe me they are sh!te. Ahead of the game? If its monopoly then maybe. The speed difference I get between my home 2mb and a mate karoo max 8 gazillion bits per nano second is huge. I can get more than him in an hour and no I'm not talking p2p bull either. And another thing about the p2p bit they do hack systems. I received "a letter" when I lived in hell and I can tell you now that the film they said I downloaded wasn't... It was on my VOD server which I might add has a number of films all of which have been purchased. They did the usal threaten me if I dont sign the letter and promise not to download again. SO I sent them a letter showing them the log files of when and how the data was received from my server along with a photo of the dvd in question and a letter from my solicitor. You could hear them panic from my house. After that I brought up the firewalls. And luckily moved out of dull a few months after. So yea Karoo are tw@s.

AC - I'm not from the karoo forums, but I am a user. The speeds & contention ARE on par with the rest of the country on the whole, which no-one can sensibly complain about.

I DO however object to the prices charged for said service when you compare it with others though.

On your downloading side-line, you are correct that it is the users fault for downloading warez ("don't do the crime if you won't do the time" comes to mind). But the question remains of how close to the line do KCom step (perhaps even over) between keeping order on their network, and breaching user privacy.

Until there is a clear-cut statement of what privacy a packet has in relation to origin, the content and terminus, there will always be the opinion of are the ISPs bastians of justice, or simply bastards.

Hull drops of Internet: nobody notices. Film at 11.

EH!

You clearly do not work for a company that tries to resell their services. BT's front is all smiles and co-operation, their working practice means that if you are enjoying an affordable wholesale agreement with them that's only part of the story. You try getting ghost loops taken off a circuit, they will simply say that they have no request for loops to be applied. They won't even look to see if the loops are on the circuit or try to remove them. Until you escalate the incident, by the you are out of SLA with your customer, but sneakily allways seem to be within SLA with BT, hence you have to shell out penalty payments, but they don't. This is one of millions of trip ropes they put in the way of the competition/partners....

It's complete garbage to say it's even worth dealing with them. We genuinly loose money for every ADSL circuit we resell for BT, that's why one of our newly merged companies dropped ADSL sales over a year ago...

gggrrrrrrr..... infidels...

I didnt know you had electric let alon tinternet.

There's a one-eyed yellow idol

To the north of K...

Oh, sorry. Wrong Karoo

Just my personal experience on the differences between KC and the rest of the country...

I've recently moved house to -just- outside the KC catchment area, and I signed up for the bog-standard basic BT package for broadband. 8mb just like my old KC broadband, however I get about 9 times the speed than with KC; that's what difference 10 minutes outside of KCs area provides.

It's not just the speed though, while I was with KC it's every other day that the connection mysteriously disappears for a few hours, sometimes more. The monopoly not only allows them to charge extortionate prices, but also provide piss-poor service, because what're you going to do, leave?

When I was in Hull, I got KCom ADSL. I had it stopped and got a refund and went back to AOL 56k (because the other 56k's needed a BT line) because AOL was *quicker*

I then transfered University from Hull to Salford for the next University year, which was a LOT LOT nicer.

Now then,

I am from the Unofficial Karoo Forum site and I am fed up!

I think most people who come from Hull will tell you that it just isn't good enough. We pay well above the odds for a service which is distinctly below par. Not only does the expense damage consumers, it prevents IT startups from emerging in Hull.

We need the investment more than many cities, but until KC become more reliable and a heck of a lot cheaper (or they bugger off and lets someone else have a crack of the whip), we will always suffer under this monopoly!

Dyls - KarooForums.net Admin

KC are the biggest heap of sh*t ever and ofcom are an absolute disgrace. Clearly the kc network needs massive investment that they just do not have the revenue streams to accomplish. All we will get is an apology and a promise that it will not happen again - bollocks.

Where is 'ull?

And does it matter?

I loved it when this happened last time and their spokeswoman popped up on Look North and said their prices were "competitive". Errm, they have no competition - that's the point you bimbo.

"Hull drops of Internet: nobody notices. Film at 11."

HAhahahahahahahahaHA, that made me laugh. I think thats how most people think of Hull.

As a student here I can happily say that the uni network is just fine :D. Doing 1.1MB/s constantly day/night.

My main complaint is that karoo are over charging us here!I could pay the same ammount i am now and have free sky tv!!What is going on!anyone that hasn't got more money than sense agrees with me.For people on a tight budget they are caning us!When broadband prices continue to fall around the country.

The deals are constantly on the tv etc-i personally have had enough im complaining to ofcom and kc anyone who agrees please follow this link and answer my question please.If enough of us complain something might be done.

I might as well move out of Hull so i can enjoy the benefits of normal services!

What a monopoly they have i'm sure bt would be happy to take over at reasonable prices.Anyone else with me?

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AivuxTXTO2Aap_NxO5kfMEYgBgx.;_ylv=3?qid=20080123132210AAsxVcV

Hull sent NASA to the moon... No it's true, check out the council's propaganda circa 2001-2. They invented the LED. That's what did it. Honest.

I think I've been here before 24/09/07-29/09/07 when KCOM forgot routers need memory to hold their routing tables and spent five days flapping, bravo! Maybe they forgot to leave the power on...

KCOM is a very poor service provider for the people of Hull, it has failed to invest it's profits in updating the creaking infrastructure in Hull and has opted to spend the money building networks in other parts of the country, shame on you KCOM! Their fair use policy enforcement is abhorrent, everyone gets slow speeds most of the time for all traffic. KCOM refuse to offer SDSL or ADSL2+ as it would compete with their more expensive products, these products would be the most interesting for small businesses in Hull as they are cheap and provide a good level of bandwidth.

Finally ofcom, how can a regulator actively seek to increase the number of ISP within areas of the country where are only two or three available but in the same report suggest everything in Hull is fine? ofcom you have FAILED in your remit!

I don't understand your Pommy (ie English ) ISP system.

Here in sunny New Zealand , you can get connected in any location to any of the fifty (50) ISPs , listed in my NetGuide magazine.

Change the Government, man the barricades etc.

Best of luck,

...that anyone still lives in Hull. To quote someone (probably Blackadder) it's always struck me as a boil on the arse of the world (yes, I have been there). If you like the internet and you absolutely *have* to work in Hull, why not live in York and commute? In fact, why not start looking for jobs in York - it's much nicer.

PH because of the arse reference.

Yep as well as having a crap servuce, cutting people off without warning, having us in Hull by the short and curlies, they also ate quite ready to hand over personal data of its users to the other crooks called DL.

Before reading this article, I never knew about Karoo/KCOM or that Hull was on a separate network.

After reading the negative comments about Karoo, Im just glad I don't live in Hull!

I feel sorry for you people that are subjected to Karoo's awful service.

To those KCom fanboys who think nothing's wrong, compare the following:

http://www.karoo.co.uk/broadband/broadband_packages.asp is KC's package price page.

http://www.eclipse.net.uk/index.cfm?id=fixedmain_res is Elipse's package price page.

Basic package on both is quoted as 14.99 / 8meg.

Except that eclipse will give you a free month to switch to them. Not possible on KC.

KC's price is a special for the first 6 months, then rises to 16.99.

And finally, KC requires direct debit, or you pay a pound extra. Eclipse will accept DD, Master card or Visa.

12 months on Eclipse, paid by Visa = 164.89 (11x14.99)

ditto on Karoo = 203.88 (6x14.99 + 6x16.99 + 12)

As a final kicker, the reason for choosing eclipse is...

That's KC's out-of-area ISP brand

Can't find an icon for "I rest my case"

... home of the shotgun shell.

Actually, not fair - Hull has some utterly gorgeous architecture (much of it destroyed by blanket bombings (shhhh - don't mention the War)), a prime location on the east coast to service the continually failing rail industry and some of the universe's most scary people.

Something about "Baskets" and "Eggs" would also be appropriate for this Karoo story but I'll just stick to Paris 'cause she's has the sense to spread her 'eggs far and wide.