ireckon blog

Almost Perfect

Posted by: Andrew on 7 Jul 2008 @ 9:35 am Category: Inside Ireckon

We recently signed up for a second internet connection for our Ireckon office in Brisbane.
For this connection we decided on ADSL2 from Internode for many reasons, mostly because of their reliability but also for the ADSL2-AnnexM service they'd be able to provide us.
Our office is very close to the Woolloongabba exchange, so I expected great performance from the connection. What wasn't expected was the excellence of their signup and provisioning process. Everything just happened very quickly and we were informed every step of the way.

• The online signup provided almost too much information but was very simple step by step.
  I imagine most ISPs offer similar signup, this is almost expected these days.
  As we needed an ADSL2 modem we took the opportunity to order one here.
• Minutes later we had email and SMS notifications confirming the order, and were provided a link to the signup-status page.
  The best feature of the signup-status page was the ETA for our signup. Knowing it will probably take 3 days instead of "up to 10 days".
  Plus it gave us the opportinuty to double-confirm all the details eg: The phone number and adsl service type. And one of my first questions, was I on an Internode DSLAM?
• A day later we received another SMS and Email combo confirming that the signup is going ahead. The email was almost identical to the previous. However one line of text in the email stood out.
    "Please note that your ADSL service may be online and available for use before we are notified by our carrier that it is ready. You are welcome to try to login before we notify you that our carrier has completed the provisioning work."
  I realised that this would be many customers' first call to the ISP - "Hey the light is on, can I use it?". In one line of text they kept the customer happy and saved both the customers' and the support staff's time.
• After 3 days we received SMS and Email confirmation that the account was provisioned and ready to use.
  But wait! Where's our modem? We haven't heard a thing about it.
  I plugged an old DSL modem to confirm the link worked, but was still waiting on the new modem.
• Two business days later ... still no modem, I had to call to find out where it was. I received the modem a day later.

With such a great system for customer signups they ruined it with the slow dispatch and zero customer feedback for the modem delivery.
Still, I'd rate my result as Almost Perfect simply because I was informed almost every step of the way. I'd hope for all online 'stuff' to work this well.

Our office is approx 500M (in a straight line) from the Woolloongabba exchange. Our profile is set to "ADSL2+ Annex M Standard" and sync's at 19413/2536 kbps. Pretty cool results, especially as 2.5mbit upstream is meant to be the maximum achieveable.

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