City Fibre

[Disco_P]

I understand it's not Yayzi who do the install but it is them who the contract is with and the only people you can contact.

If you bought something from OCUK and they said it would be delivered on a certain day via dpd, and you heard nothing from DPD, who would you contact?

That being said, coordination between ISP, cityfibre and customer seems to be consistently terrible. It was for me with vodafone when they got the dates, times and requirements wrong - twice!

 

[Avalon]

Was supposed to be connected with Yayzi today, nobody turned up.
Guess what people say about them is true

I understand it's not Yayzi who do the install but it is them who the contract is with and the only people you can contact.

If you bought something from OCUK and they said it would be delivered on a certain day via dpd, and you heard nothing from DPD, who would you contact?

That being said, coordination between ISP, cityfibre and customer seems to be consistently terrible. It was for me with vodafone when they got the dates, times and requirements wrong - twice!

It’s really simple. Either you don’t know and said something incorrect, or you know and chose to post something knowing it was incorrect.

Your legal contract is with the provider, nobody has suggested otherwise, however, as has now been explained multiple times, unless it’s the equipment not arriving, anything before activation is 100% beyond the ISP’s control and as such blaming any ISP for CF’s contractors is just silly. I had failed appointments, appointments where they turned up outside the slot and even appointments rescheduled from AM to PM and the only clue was CF sending a text the day before to confirm the booking. When I finally got connected, it was on a random Sunday afternoon unannounced as the network tech doing splices was in the area and fancied the overtime three days before the scheduled date. All of those issues were 100% CF and its sub contractor and nothing to do with my ISP. My ISP compensated me, but realistically they were at the mercy of CF too. This is how CF operate.

Even your analogy doesn't fit the situation accurately - its missing an outsourced tier - or work, if you have the tracking number, you go to the courier, like any normal person.

 

[Disco_P]

It’s really simple. Either you don’t know and said something incorrect, or you know and chose to post something knowing it was incorrect.

Your legal contract is with the provider, nobody has suggested otherwise, however, as has now been explained multiple times, unless it’s the equipment not arriving, anything before activation is 100% beyond the ISP’s control and as such blaming any ISP for CF’s contractors is just silly. I had failed appointments, appointments where they turned up outside the slot and even appointments rescheduled from AM to PM and the only clue was CF sending a text the day before to confirm the booking. When I finally got connected, it was on a random Sunday afternoon unannounced as the network tech doing splices was in the area and fancied the overtime three days before the scheduled date. All of those issues were 100% CF and its sub contractor and nothing to do with my ISP. My ISP compensated me, but realistically they were at the mercy of CF too. This is how CF operate.

Even your analogy doesn't fit the situation accurately - its missing an outsourced tier - or work, if you have the tracking number, you go to the courier, like any normal person.

In my analogy you don't have the tracking number, that's what I meant by heard nothing from DPD. I'm not really sure you understood my post but it's a tiny hill to die on.

It's a rubbish situation that cityfibre are able to be this bad at installs and get away with it cause you're not in contact with them.

 

[Caged]

Cityfibre are worse than Openreach for being able to talk to, it's ridiculous for a company that want to be seen as the biggest non-incumbent infrastructure provider

 

[Avalon]

In my analogy you don't have the tracking number, that's what I meant by heard nothing from DPD. I'm not really sure you understood my post but it's a tiny hill to die on.

It's a rubbish situation that cityfibre are able to be this bad at installs and get away with it cause you're not in contact with them.

Your initial post - like you analogy - wasn't great (OCUK’s order process doesn't work as you suggest and is much simpler). At least you seem to now accept that this is a CF/contractor issue rather than an ISP issue, and neither of those parties will speak to you if at all possible. The former simply is not customer facing, the latter is not customer contactable as a rule.

Having worked in the industry for a large ISP (not CF) and done reporting and eventually process development on exactly this issue (failed installs), its pretty obvious the existing system is unfit for purpose if the install fails for any reason. Typically it’s out of hours when CF update the job, and its only after that the ISP knows what happened and can rebook a follow up, by which point you have lost a day, the customer thinks the ISP is useless - they are till it’s installed - and depending on the area/contractor, everything takes 7 days with CF. Ideally you would want CF to own the customer until install is done/activated before handing over to the ISP. It makes perfect sense as they can get updates from the contractor ‘live’ and proactively deal with missed jobs. If its a construction or fault, or as in my case it needed a splice, they can route an actual CF tech to do it likely without a weeks wait or rebook a cons team with the customer at the point of failure so they know whats happening and the timescale. This isn't a new idea and it has been pitched internally afaik, but they have no appetite to change it.

 

[the wopster]

Your initial post - like you analogy - wasn't great (OCUK’s order process doesn't work as you suggest and is much simpler). At least you seem to now accept that this is a CF/contractor issue rather than an ISP issue, and neither of those parties will speak to you if at all possible. The former simply is not customer facing, the latter is not customer contactable as a rule.

Having worked in the industry for a large ISP (not CF) and done reporting and eventually process development on exactly this issue (failed installs), its pretty obvious the existing system is unfit for purpose if the install fails for any reason. Typically it’s out of hours when CF update the job, and its only after that the ISP knows what happened and can rebook a follow up, by which point you have lost a day, the customer thinks the ISP is useless - they are till it’s installed - and depending on the area/contractor, everything takes 7 days with CF. Ideally you would want CF to own the customer until install is done/activated before handing over to the ISP. It makes perfect sense as they can get updates from the contractor ‘live’ and proactively deal with missed jobs. If its a construction or fault, or as in my case it needed a splice, they can route an actual CF tech to do it likely without a weeks wait or rebook a cons team with the customer at the point of failure so they know whats happening and the timescale. This isn't a new idea and it has been pitched internally afaik, but they have no appetite to change it.

Some people just can’t get that it’s not the ISPs fault, when I had my No-One connection installed, the guys that did it travelled up from Birmingham the morning of the install(I live in Newcastle Upon Tyne, so I can see loads that could go wrong with installs like that and non of them are No-Ones fault.

 

[Caged]

It's not the ISPs *fault* if CityFibre fail to show up for an appointment, but they are responsible for the outcome of their decision to use CityFibre and they are in control of how they handle the communication and any efforts to make things right following the problem. In the same way some ISPs have a reputation for being tough on Openreach to get them to perform to an acceptable level, and others can't be bothered to push back on fault closures and prefer to just let you leave your contract.

CF are not some plucky upstart, they are a company backed with billions of pounds of private equity and an Abu Dhabi wealth fund, and their ISP customers should be holding them to account. If I was running Openreach I'd be asking why Ofcom seem so interested in regulating my business and enforcing service standards while certain other network builders can get away with murder.

 

[danlightbulb]

I signed up to yayzi a couple of weeks back now, and apart from a direct debit set up email I've had nothing else, no welcome email, no confirmation of install date (I picked 15th march).

So will be interesting to see if it all goes to plan. I'll probably phone them a few days before the install due date if I haven't heard anything.

 

[Disco_P]

I got a fiver off my bill this month, only possible reason why is that they had overnight maintenance which I was away for.

 

[Avalon]

I signed up to yayzi a couple of weeks back now, and apart from a direct debit set up email I've had nothing else, no welcome email, no confirmation of install date (I picked 15th march).

So will be interesting to see if it all goes to plan. I'll probably phone them a few days before the install due date if I haven't heard anything.

Log into your account and it will show install date etc. if not contact them via WhatsApp, for all the stated owning hours say they are shut, you will likely get a reply out of hours. You should also get a text the day before from CF confirming the slot, pay attention to it, it may not be the slot you actually booked!

 

[Avalon]

Some people just can’t get that it’s not the ISPs fault, when I had my No-One connection installed, the guys that did it travelled up from Birmingham the morning of the install(I live in Newcastle Upon Tyne, so I can see loads that could go wrong with installs like that and non of them are No-Ones fault.

I had an install in rural Northumberland, the guys doing it cover over to Liverpool and down to Yorkshire, but that’s via Factco, apparently they had employed local teams on a sub contract basis, but after a few months of failed installs and other issues, they made changes.

CF fired the local build contractor and brought down a Scottish outfit to finish up, the actual 3rd party installers were local, as were the CF employed techs who did the splice. The CF techs were competent, knew what they were talking about and did decent work, the sub contractors were a different story.

 

[no_1_dave]

Log into your account and it will show install date etc. if not contact them via WhatsApp, for all the stated owning hours say they are shut, you will likely get a reply out of hours. You should also get a text the day before from CF confirming the slot, pay attention to it, it may not be the slot you actually booked!

When I signed up for Yayzi it didn't open an account on their portal and to create one you need a service reference which hasn't been provided...

My install date was supposed to be Thursday but I've not had any text from CityFibre and they didn't show up.

A router did arrive in the post from them though, which I won't be using

 

[Avalon]

When I signed up for Yayzi it didn't open an account on their portal and to create one you need a service reference which hasn't been provided...

My install date was supposed to be Thursday but I've not had any text from CityFibre and they didn't show up.

A router did arrive in the post from them though, which I won't be using

If you got the router - the HX220 it’s actually pretty reasonable - then obviously an order went through, I am guessing you’ve done the obvious stuff like check junk/spam? What did Yayzi say when you contacted them?

 

[no_1_dave]

If you got the router - the HX220 it’s actually pretty reasonable - then obviously an order went through, I am guessing you’ve done the obvious stuff like check junk/spam? What did Yayzi say when you contacted them?

They said on WhatsApp they'll look into it and I've heard little else. They said they would update me but the only time they replied was when I said I'll cancel my direct debit.
I'll be using my ASUS ROG GT-AX6000. If using your own they supposedly waive the £99 installation fee (even though they've already taken that so I'll need it refunded)

 

[Avalon]

They said on WhatsApp they'll look into it and I've heard little else. They said they would update me but the only time they replied was when I said I'll cancel my direct debit.
I'll be using my ASUS ROG GT-AX6000. If using your own they supposedly waive the £99 installation fee (even though they've already taken that so I'll need it refunded)

I’d have asked for an update again by now for the 5 second's involved? No CF text means it was never routed to a tech, you need to know why before anything else can be done.

Also - and it’s less important - I’m confused, surely you told them immediately after the order that you didn’t need the supplied router and they refunded it and cancelled the dispatch, yet you said earlier you had received the router? My views on ASUS networking products are no secret, I can only hope this is the exception, but from memory isn’t it the TUF version that’s Mediatek and therefore gets Merlin/*WRT support meaning you only have to worry about the crappy solder joints and overheating issues that have plagued so many previous generations? Hopefully I am wrong - I try very hard not to have anything to do with the steaming piles of poo ASUS produce/market - or you are still in the return window.

 

[no_1_dave]

I’d have asked for an update again by now for the 5 second's involved? No CF text means it was never routed to a tech, you need to know why before anything else can be done.

Also - and it’s less important - I’m confused, surely you told them immediately after the order that you didn’t need the supplied router and they refunded it and cancelled the dispatch, yet you said earlier you had received the router? My views on ASUS networking products are no secret, I can only hope this is the exception, but from memory isn’t it the TUF version that’s Mediatek and therefore gets Merlin/*WRT support meaning you only have to worry about the crappy solder joints and overheating issues that have plagued so many previous generations? Hopefully I am wrong - I try very hard not to have anything to do with the steaming piles of poo ASUS produce/market - or you are still in the return window.

I've been asking them but getting no reply.
I messaged them on whatsapp that I don't need the router but it was sent anyway. They didn't even reply to the message

Edit - there is Merlin firmware available for this router, it's generally well reviewed

 

[Avalon]

I've been asking them but getting no reply.
I messaged them on whatsapp that I don't need the router but it was sent anyway. They didn't even reply to the message

Edit - there is Merlin firmware available for this router, it's generally well reviewed

The support whatsapp number has changed, got to admit the communication of the migration and whatsapp number change haven't been great, its only seemingly done last minute via the forums.

 

[superleeds27]

I’d have asked for an update again by now for the 5 second's involved? No CF text means it was never routed to a tech, you need to know why before anything else can be done.

Also - and it’s less important - I’m confused, surely you told them immediately after the order that you didn’t need the supplied router and they refunded it and cancelled the dispatch, yet you said earlier you had received the router? My views on ASUS networking products are no secret, I can only hope this is the exception, but from memory isn’t it the TUF version that’s Mediatek and therefore gets Merlin/*WRT support meaning you only have to worry about the crappy solder joints and overheating issues that have plagued so many previous generations? Hopefully I am wrong - I try very hard not to have anything to do with the steaming piles of poo ASUS produce/market - or you are still in the return window.

Are they really that bad?

Had a few of them now and never ran into any of these issues?

 

[Avalon]

Are they really that bad?

Had a few of them now and never ran into any of these issues?

You must be new to the Networking sub forum?

It comes down to a simple choice, do you want to buy a product from a company who knowingly chose to ignore CVE patching for years, knew it had shipped products that left users data shares exposed to the internet and kept shipping the same flawed firmware for years after being informed, and only begrudgingly did anything when the largest distributor/retailer in the US explained they either fixed the products or the brand would be pulled. Asus were then investigated in the US and forced to agree to fines and 25 years of external auditing which should make things better right? Oddly after that a competitor reviewed FCC test data and discovered they had literally re-used the same data to get FCC certification for multiple products. Obviously a mistake, just like one of the longest product threads in the network sub forum regarding not one, but two generations of products with modem chipsets that couldn't maintain a stable FTTC connection. That thread outlasted at least two Asus forum reps who promised the earth and failed to deliver. We never got much on the interfaces dropping, but anecdotal testing showed poor hardware design along with poor soldering and inadequate cooling, which is a strange problem for products that invariably look like they are technological dingleberries that belong in the Transformers franchise.

So, if you like garbage tier products networking products from marketing companies who have literally zero respect for your safety or security online and who only care about milking you, then ANUS Asus is the brand for you! If you would like at least the most basic level of competency and support, patches provided in a timely manner for CVE’s and just not to be lied to continually, then literally buy anything else. Seeing people use, let alone recommend them on the networking sub forum of a supposedly enthusiast orientated site makes me cringe.

 

[ChrisD.]

But marketing, and red, and gamer, so must be good yaknow.