Re: a word of warning...

[T i m]

Yes well, I think one of the big mistakes today is getting rid of the people

>who know it all as they cost too much and doing tch support on the cheap >from learn as wrote script merchants working their nuts off in a foreign >country for next to no dosh. > it does not make for a very good service to the customer.

I think it says it all when companies 'sell' on the feature that their support is 'UK based'.

When I signed someone up with a 'Uk based ISP' with the thought that the 'UK based support would be a bonus', they were in the process of moving their support to Bulgaria!

That said, they do seem to answer the phone pretty quickly (emails slightly less so), are easy to understand and do seem to have the answers.

The only issue is when using (English?) idioms. ;-) [1]

Cheers, T i m

[1] At one point I was discussing the built-in Samsung S7 email app and referred to the app as the 'built in jobby' (because I wasn't sure exactly what it was called and I'd said 'email app' enough times) and the support guy suggested he would install 'Jobby' himself and give it a try. Not unreasonable I guess. ;-)

[Caecilius]

Perhaps I should write ad-supported apps called "jobby", "gadgey", "wotsit" and the like. Maybe I could make a bit of money off the foreign support staff installing them :-)

[Harry Bloomfield]

Besides which, they make money on the side, leaking your data to the highest bidder to make up for the low dosh.

[Bob Eager]

The only offshore ISP I ever used was in Shetland. They became unusable when they got too big and 'corporate'. Being charged over £100 annually for a domain name put me off a bit.

Current ISP is UK based and I can talk to a proper tech person immediately.

[charles]

Out Parish Council's ISP is based in Exeter, my own is based in Essex.

[T i m]

That's the badger!

You are welcome (cut me in for 10%). ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[Bob Eager]

They were great for the first few years.

I think this was before that; 2002 is when I left them. They were charging me over the odds for a domain name from the word go.

It went downhill once the original founder had health problems and wasn't on the scene much.

The final straw for me was that I had one of those BT tariffs that gave you unlimited minutes when dialling 'internet' numbers. Some people (not me) used to stay logged on 24/7, which tied up the modem bank. I used to use them in the evenings, but was religious about disconnecting when not using the line (I wrote SMTP and POP3 servers to handle the family's mail and queue it for the next time I connected).

BY early 2002, all of us using that tariff were labelled 'abusers' and given sanctions. ADSL was available so I jumped ship. Having just renewed the domain for me, they refused to refund any part of that, just to add insult to injury.

[www.GymRatZ.co.uk]

Pretty sure that when I was with Be*(there) their support was in Bulgaria and on the few occasions I had cause to contact them they were pretty good. That was a long while ago though.

[Brian Gaff]

Bulgaria? How can that be cheaper? I thought they were raising their standard of living fast these days. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

There is something like that name for a program that will uninstall stuff properly. I've forgotten its name though, which is not a great advert for it.

Brian

[tabbypurr]

Total Uninstall. I forget whether 2.35 or 3 is the last free version.

NT