UPC Broadband, wonderful service unless you want to work at the weekends.

I switched to UPC Broadband a few weeks ago and was at first thrilled with their service, 17 megs downstream out of a possible 20 megs, always on, no download limits but it has now become possibly the worst broadband service I have ever used.
I again have no connectivity for the last two hours and yesterday no connectivity for 3 hours (just back up 8hrs downtime)
I am now on almost first name terms with their customer service team who appear to have the knowledge of gnats regarding broadband.
3 weeks in a row I can now almost guarantee it will be down again next Sunday as the company appears to have no clue whatsoever what is going on with their service.
It’s been up and down four times today which beats the three times last Sunday and after 10 minutes of being on the phone with the lovely but brain dead Collette whose best suggestion was” could I call back in four hours” I am probably going to do a Hakka upon their Cisco router.
UPC please don’t sell what you can’t deliver
Please don’t tell me you are “sending a man out”
Please don’t give me stupid stats “there are 94 out of 130 routers in your area working fine”
Please don’t say that” you don’t know what a Traceroute is”
Please don’t put up an IVR informing us of a major fault in my location that was reported at 2.50pm when I reported it at 10.10am
Bring back Cork Multi Channel and Marty Morrissey, all is forgiven

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17 comments...What do you think?

  1. Posted by Philip Boyle 12th October, 2009 at 11:29 am

    I have to say while I don’t have a lot of good things to say about UPC customer service – 8 days to switch on my digital TV box after installation! – I’ve only ever had one downtime with their broadband, and that was when building work knocked out the whole network in the area. Still, it’s frustrating as hell when it happens. Have they offered any explanation?

  2. Posted by Joe Scanlon 12th October, 2009 at 2:55 pm

    Ah – the “Pretty much every where else is fine” line.
    Kick me in the nuts while I’m down please

  3. Posted by Adam McCarthy 12th October, 2009 at 2:57 pm

    That’s an awful dose, i can’t say i’ve ever had the same UPC experience though; i’d rate mine as first class, including the tech’s that came to the house for installation and signal problems but i live in dublin city centre, the network has been on its feet longer there so maybe they’ve grown out of a few issues.

  4. Posted by Jason Connery 12th October, 2009 at 3:03 pm

    At least you got that far. I spent weeks just trying to give them money. They weren’t having any of it. Just ignored me, despite many phone calls requesting service.

    Currently paying BT more for less. In fairness to BT though, there hasn’t been a problem, yet.

  5. Posted by John Handelaar 13th October, 2009 at 2:12 am

    Just went out for two hours here.

  6. Posted by Dave 13th October, 2009 at 2:46 pm

    Same problem here.
    All you get is “try restart your modem” etc.
    Jokers.
    Was great for last 10 months then just went crazy.
    Most nights from 1am – 4am it gets really really slow.
    Now I send them speedtest emails everyday.

    I think we need a post regarding a good alternative with similar features but who actually deliver.
    Was Reading about how UPC plan 100mb for Ireland in a years time. They can’t even deliver 20mb

  7. Posted by Eileen 14th October, 2009 at 10:44 am

    I had the same problem with UPC. I ended up making a log of every call I made to them and took a note of the response/lack of which I received. I then sent it into the MD and that’s the only way I got my issues fixed! (It was over 3 pages of call logs) I nearly lost my mind never mind my connection!

    Now with Eircom, and service is much better..but more pricey. Qualt-y.

  8. Posted by sheena faughnan 14th October, 2009 at 9:35 pm

    Thats a disgrace…if you cant provide the service dont set up the company . In this day an age one wuld think they would be equiped to deal with such a problem…once or twice id fine but that is ridiculous!
    I must say eircom are great…very helpful and I rarely have ever had any problems with my connection

  9. Posted by Andy 15th October, 2009 at 9:23 pm

    I have to say that UPC really sucks. Had to order thrice over the net to get it installed. I have 10 MB broadband express. Current speeds are 0.5MBps. I still don’t understand how on earth can these companies get away with things like this. This is so frustrating.

  10. Posted by Ciaran Phillips 29th October, 2009 at 11:55 am

    I don’t know how UPC still have customers if everyone gets that service. I have eircom myself and it works well, though I do still have trouble anytime I do actually have to call them, (ten minutes on hold to find out the person I needed wasn’t there).

  11. Posted by John 26th November, 2009 at 3:18 pm

    not only weekends. to be honest their pricing is quite good but even during the week at certain times like the evening, surfing the web can be daunting!

  12. Posted by Anonymous 27th February, 2010 at 3:23 pm

    I have had exactly the same issues with UPC broadband. First months from September the modem was down and rebooting daily and the whole connection was down over a few weekends.

    Now I opted in for the 10MB to 15MB upgrage and am getting speeds of 2 to 6MB …

    Customer care is useless and they have never helped in anything. Never saying sorry or suggesting to compensate the downtime anyway.

    I am looking for another solution for my broadband.

  13. Posted by P Finnegan 17th June, 2010 at 11:59 pm

    I have had similar problems i got TV phone and 15mb broadband but since it has been installed (Which i had to drill all holes in the floors and walls cause the installer said he was not insured to do it) But since then i have been let down with tech visits not showing up and the broadband and phone totally out non existing so I’m left frustrated as hell with UPC Crap service. Plus tech guys are paid on a per visit basis so it pays them not to fix your problems after all its more money in their pocket, My tech guy admitted he visits 15 people and at least 5 are problems with modems that he cant fix ??? And no idea what the problem is !!

  14. Posted by glenn 19th June, 2010 at 1:23 pm

    I rang up upc today and orderd the 15mb broadband , im currently paying 25 euro a month with eircom for 8mb , its always being disconected evry ten minutes of the day and when i ring up i very rarely get anyone who can help and they dont understand english , upc seem to have better offers and friendly helpfull staff unlike some companies !!!

  15. Posted by G Holmes 10th July, 2010 at 8:46 pm

    My issue is something similar. I recently ordered the 15mb Fibre Broadband. I have it connected directly to an xbox 360 and wirelessly to a laptop. Every one or two hours the service drops. But rather than getting a lower speed I just get nothing. When its working I’m getting 14 to 14.8mb down and 1.1 to 1.3mb upload but as I said thats when its working. Everytime I visit a website that requires a little bit more than the regular or half way through a war in Battlefield Bad Company the service drops to silch and I’m left with a screen saying the website can’t be found or a message telling me I’ve been disconnected from xbox live. Pain in the nether regions. I’ve rang twice now and am due a technician on Tuesday but I don’t hold much hope for that as the guy who installed it had poor English and took approximately 40mins to set it up. I’ll let you all know how it goes but that WiiMax tune is getting catchier with every minute I’m down.

  16. Posted by anthony mc donald 16th August, 2010 at 8:55 pm

    just have to say that my experience with UPC has been good except for not giving me the 5MB service they where giving new punters for the same price I was paying they switched it after a few complaints. Otherwise never had a dropped service

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