Broadband: Section 4

Those people who have a broadband connection immediately report the benefits of a swifter, "always on" connection. However, there does appear to be a major hurdle to gaining access to this state of satisfaction. And that is actually getting connected in the first place.

It is not possible to make general statements about the whole variety of technologies available. However, in a variety of different arenas, the one service that appears to get singled out as causing problems for customers is that of self-install ADSL.

The issue appears to be not so much that problems occur - there are occasional problems with all services. The real difficulty appears to be that telephone HelpDesks cannot cope with the amount of customers contacting them for assistance. Furthermore, it appears that only front-line staff are at work on a 24/7 basis. The real technical gurus, who may well be the people who you will need to talk to, only work normal office hours.

This, of course, is particularly frustrating if you have waited a long time in a telephone system queue on a Saturday morning wanting to speak with someone only to find that you will have to wait 48 hours before something can be done.

All of this may simply be the mis-management of customer expectations. No doubt, this aspect of the service will improve. However, there is a general and overriding feeling that, as the number of people using broadband has increased, so broadband service providers have not ramped up their support desks sufficiently or re-specified their products to offer supported usability to novice computer users.