Change Internet connection

[andsome]

I use cable, so have little or no experience in dial up broadband. I set up a friends computer to Talk Talk some months ago, and all has worked well. She recently received a letter stating that they were now in with AOL, and that she would need to connect to aolmytalktalk, or something similar, I have not yet seen the letter. For the last few days she has been unable to get on line, and I am calling round to look at things tomorrow. Do I have to go to Contol Panel/Set up or change you internet connection/Settings, and simply change the address in there, or do I go to Setup, and create a new connection from there. If the latter, do I need to delete the old address first. I hope I have explained clearly.

[-pops-]

I can't answer the specific question but, didn't these cowboys provide explicit instructions as to what to do with this changeover?

I would check what the letter states before doing anything. They should provide THE way to do it properly. If they haven't done, they will have a lot of dissatisfied customers.

My experiences in the past with takeovers and other changes have been that the customer isn't required to do anything e.g. when Tiscali took over Lineone, as far as the customer was concerned, all their settings remained the same. The difference was that you got the billing from Tiscali and the ISP homepage was different. I have a friend who. even now, had a Lineone email address.

[andsome]

I have yet to see the letter.

[catgate]

What was a good operation a few years ago has gradually degenerated into nothing short of farce. Carphone Whorehouse started TalkTalk, then took over Onetel and then AOL. They do not seem to know which way is up. I was off line (Onetel) for a fortnight over Christmas and there has never been ant indication as to why. Yesterday I got a message from TalkTalkOnetel telling me my message box was over 80% full and it should be clearout, otherwise I would not be able to operate. When I logged into "My Account" it would not let me into my Mailzone. I sent them an email asking what was going on.

This morning I went straight into my Mailzone and I had four spams and an auto reply from Ontel saying they would reply to me within the next few days. I was using 0.45% of my space. I wonder what happened to customer service and the other 79.55% of my space???

Customer service??????

I imagine when you get to your friend's she will be back on line again with no clue as to what has happened. This seems to be becoming the norm for Carphone Whorehouse.

[andsome]

Before leaving home to come to our daughters, I had a word with a nearby neighbour. He too had received a letter. He said that it merely mentioned the merger and gave details of the new website. He had not had to change any settings. So it looks as though she has another problem. I will see when I get there tomorrow.

[andsome]

I sincerely hope that Doug never needs to contact customer services in Bombay.

First of all I checked all settings, then ran a diagnostic on the modem. Finally I phoned the help line. I was talked all through what I had done already, and then told to configure things by hand as instructed. I did all that I was asked to, but still could not get on line. I was told that I would be passed to an engineer. After waiting fifteen minutes I gave up and called again. Yet again I followed all the instructions, still no luck. I went through the same procedure for a third time all to no avail, so was told to reinstall the CD. I followed all instructions on the install, including clicking to uninstall the old drivers. Everything was OK, until checking connection came up, and this failed. Yet another telephone call and the same instructions. On the sixth call I was told to configure by hand yet again. I insisted that the so called technician stayed on the phone while I tried to connect. The result was failure yet again. I was then told to close the computer down for ten minutes and boot up again. When this did no good I called yet again. This time the person said that she would consult with an engineer. She came back and told me that my friends account had been increased from 2MB to 8MB, and that the drivers were not capable of running this increase, and that a new installation CD would be sent, with new drivers. Maybe I'm wrong, and someone correct me if this is so, but this sounds like a load of cods wallop.

[doug]

Well so far today for me I've had no problems, in fact that person - a chap this time - who's been on my case for the last few days has rung me a couple of times to make sure all is well. I said I was having a problem finding my new website and he e-mailed me back to give me the details. I then said I was having a problem configuring my AceFTP to access it and he e-mailed back further details. Haven't check that yet. Hope you get sorted soon.

[catgate]

I sincerely hope that Doug never needs to contact customer services in Bombay.

First of all I checked all settings, then ran a diagnostic on the modem. Finally I phoned the help line. I was talked all through what I had done already, and then told to configure things by hand as instructed. I did all that I was asked to, but still could not get on line. I was told that I would be passed to an engineer. After waiting fifteen minutes I gave up and called again. Yet again I followed all the instructions, still no luck. I went through the same procedure for a third time all to no avail, so was told to reinstall the CD. I followed all instructions on the install, including clicking to uninstall the old drivers. Everything was OK, until checking connection came up, and this failed. Yet another telephone call and the same instructions. On the sixth call I was told to configure by hand yet again. I insisted that the so called technician stayed on the phone while I tried to connect. The result was failure yet again. I was then told to close the computer down for ten minutes and boot up again. When this did no good I called yet again. This time the person said that she would consult with an engineer. She came back and told me that my friends account had been increased from 2MB to 8MB, and that the drivers were not capable of running this increase, and that a new installation CD would be sent, with new drivers. Maybe I'm wrong, and someone correct me if this is so, but this sounds like a load of cods wallop.

It's typical Carphone Whorehouse nonsense.

I got an email from them today, in response to one I sent two days ago. Telling me that there was nothing wrong with my Mailzone, which I knew because I have been able to use it for the last 24 hours. What they did not acknowledge was that there had ever been a problem (let alone an "issue") nor did they explain why I got a message from them telling me my "mailbox" was 80% full.

It may well come right on its own in a couple of days.

[andsome]

I installed the new drivers supplied on the new CD. Needless to say this made no difference. After yet another protracted call to Bombay, they finally agreed that the fault was possibly with the modem, and agreed to send a new one. I installed the divers with the CD supplied for the new modem, and managed to get on line. Following the printed instructions supplied it proved impossible to set up a e mail account. Another call to Bombay yielded no result, and the operator passed me over to Tech support in South Africa. This person had far more idea, and took me yet again through the setup procedure. Finally he told me to enter a number which ended in 1.2. I pointed out that the instructions supplied stated that the number ended in 1.1 He said that this only applied to Ethernet setups, and NOT not to USB . Why on earth couldn't they have said this on the leaflet supplied? We now have VERY SLOW Internet access, and can download and send e mails. The connection is supposed to be up to MB, but I clocked it at nearer to 0.34 MB. I was told to leave it for a few days in case Talk Talk in the UK had problems.

DON'T GO THE TALK TALK route, unless you have endless patience.

[andsome]

She could only download 46 e mails then it stopped. Several more attempts resulted in the same 36 downloading several times. I tried to talk her through opening web mail over the phone, but the connection was too slow and it kept timing out. Today I reinstalled the modem drivers, and things had speeded up to about 1350kb. The same old e mails however kept coming down. I managed to access web mail on this occasion and deleted them all. The e mail setting now work perfectly, so apart from the INTERNET access being slow we are at last getting there. i will leave it a couple of weeks to see if things speed up. Let this be a lesson to anyone thinking of having Talk Talk. DON'T.