Death throes

When I was young I had a dog. He grew old and infirm, then one day he perked up and was his usual cheery self. The next day, he was dead. I've seen it happen with both sick animals and people. Just before they die, they seem to be getting better.

Today my internet connection works, the day after I requested a migration code to move to another ISP.

It doesn't affect my decision. The dreadful mess they made of their service was bad enough, but the patronising attitude of the company and the 'spin' and outright lies they came out with over that time have convinced me. This company is on its way out.

There was no way to find out what was going on. They posted messages on their website, which was cold comfort to those of us who could not connect and therefore could not read the site. I phoned their customer services line. A recorded voice told me they were experiencing an unusually high level of calls. It did not say why, although it did not take a great leap of the imagination to work out why.

I managed to get at my Email, while they were inactive, through a dial-up ISP. Slow, costly, but it works. There had been no response to my messages. There was a general announcement from them though.

The line 'We understand that some of our customers are experiencing service which is somewhat less than what they would expect from a broadband connection' was what finally made up my mind. (Paraphrased: this is how I remember it. I have the original on another computer.)

I had taken five hours to connect that day. I was online for some three hours before it threw me out again, and I had to repeatedly reboot for another hour to get back in.

Less than what I would expect from a broadband service? Considerably less. Communication by post isn't much slower.

That kind of attitude is typical of the messages this lot put out. As I said before, customers are an inconvenience to this company. Unless they realise, and quickly, that their customers are their income, then there will never be any point in my naming them.

They won't exist.