A couple of months ago, I posted that our DSL went kablooie. And now, a couple of months later, it’s still down. Here’s the story of what happened.

Early February - Get home to discover that although our DSL modem is connecting and giving solid green lights all the way, when we try to actually log into UTV, we get a “remote host not responding”. Phoned UTV immediately, and they reckoned it was a modem problem, and that I should try out a few things and then report the modem as ‘broken’ to receive a replacement

next day - modem can’t even connect any more. Permanent state of flashing green lights. Phone UTV support and they tell me that it’s something more than that. I should ring back in a couple of days.

A couple of days later - I phone back and they say they’re going to get Eircom to test our line. This should take 5-8 working days.

two weeks later, around the end of February - I phone UTV back, and they say that the line check revealed that Eircom had disconnected our DSL line. Why? I don’t know. UTV support guy says that this sometimes happens by accident, and sometimes it’s an accounts issue. Our account was fine, so it wasn’t that. Advises me that I should ring Eircom to find out why we were disconnected.

Next day - Phone Eircom to find out why we were disconnected. Person on the other end was most unhelpful and wouldn’t tell me why. I asked if I could speak to someone else to find out why. They assure me that noone would be able to tell me why I was disconnected.

So I phone UTV and tell them that Eircom won’t tell me why. They say they won’t arrange a reconnection until they know why we were disconnected, so that they can be sure it won’t happen again. I explain that Eircom won’t tell me why. UTV’s response (paraphrasing here): “Not my problem.”

A couple of days later - Phone UTV again. No movement. Told that even if UTV were to reconnect me, it would take fully 10-14 working days to reconnect me.

A week later - I flip out at the lack of help from either side and email sales@u.tv to ask them to sort this mess out (if you’re wondering why I emailed sales@u.tv - I was informed that the UTV accounts department is the exact same as the support department. Since they were spectacularly unhelpful, I thought sales might be more interested).

5 days later - No response at all, so I have a minor panic attack and tell UTV that their lack of cooperation or understanding on this matter was completely unacceptable and that they should cancel my account immediately. I get a reply within the hour telling me my account was disconnected.

yesterday - Since Smart aren’t going to be launching their broadband in my area until early may, I’ve signed up for Esat’s three-month broadband trial. This is initially 1MB, but will be increased to 2MB come April 4th (with no increase in the cap - but we’re only going to be using this for a month or so). I botched my application and decided to try again some other time.

today - Got a phone call from Esat saying they saw that I’d been trying to apply for their broadband, and if I’d like to go through the application over the phone with them. After all the fucking around with UTV, I was genuinely taken aback by the friendly, helpful service from Esat.

Hopefully, we should have broadband in the next 8-10 working days.