After the mess of the Yahoo!Xtra Bubble transition it’s nice to be able to compliment Telecom New Zealand Broadband – currently branded as “Yahoo!Xtra”.
I awoke on Saturday to find no broadband and a noisy phone line. After checking the hardware and connections I rang Xtra to see if there were any network problems. After a brief interaction with the automated system I got through to a real human operator with no waiting. They went through the routine of checking settings, connections then said a line test would be required and they’d call back in an hour or so. I had to go out so rang when I got home, again straight through to human, to find the line had checked out fine.
After talking to several people in the broadband and line divisions, four dealt with my call that day, the final solution was deemed to be a site visit to check the splitter. I have two lines with a splitter, dedicating one to broadband, rather than one line with filters. They said that call would happen within 24–48 hours which meant either Sunday and Christmas Eve.
To be honest I expected to have no broadband till after Christmas which presented a few problems. It only takes a day without broadband to work out how much you use it! Apart from the obvious, email, I couldn’t check weather for the Sunday bike ride, do net banking, look at the TV schedules or even read the news without wandering up the road to buy a dead tree smeared with ink. I suppose dialup was still an option but didn’t get that desperate!
I arrived home from work on Christmas Eve to find the broadband fixed, working fine. Thanks to Raj, Rashida, Liam and the others I spoke to, and whoever actually fixed it, at Telecom New Zealand Broadband Support!
