That's not universally true across the market.

You could easily pay ?25+ to PlusNet for a package, which would be as reliable as a chocolate fireguard.

I have no specific knowledge of Nildram though, I'm sure they're fine.

Most of the small-to-medium ISP in the market hace suffered from being too successful. Take PlusNet as a case in point. They never predicted broadband uptake would be as sharp as it was (I know this, as I wrote thier very first ASDL subsciption engine in 2000), and they all of a sudden found themselve awash with customers, and awash with thier cash, which didn't go towards bulking up the customer support dept.

People start getting problems with ADSL, and they jsut can't cope with the volume of complaints. It's a common thing, the same thing has happened all over. Even some of the bigger players have had similarly sourced problems: FreeServe/Wanadoo for example.

Some have responded by outsourcing thier customer support with varied success.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was a correlation between reliable broadband ISPs and the more expensive end of the consumer market: slower take-up leading to a manageable customer support burden.

Posted By: Arizona Bay, Sep 13, 12:02:59