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Fastweb cocks up Roman upgrade

by on13 August 2013

Tells customers to change ISP

Thousands of Fastweb customers are being told that they might have to change their ISP or wait get their internet back “one of these days” after the company cocked up an upgrade. Italy’s only infrastructure alternative to the piss-poor Telecom Italia attempted to move from being an entertainment based Cable Company with to being a pure Internet fibre based ISP.

However the software/hardware upgrade roll-out in Rome did not go as planned with thousands of customers are now left without their connection and no end to the woe in sight. Rather than giving customers information, Fastweb’s customer service teams are telling users to shop for another ISP. They are also attempting to say that a roll out like this normally requires users to be off-line for an unspecific number of days.

The whole thing was a cock-up from start to finish. Customers were told that all they would have to do is turn off their router and reboot it. They were certainly never told that they would lose all communications and it was not clear that they would ever get them back. Fastweb clearly thought thought its upgrade would work when they turned it on. Unfortunately it didn’t.

Customers who depend on their broadband are being told by Fastweb customer services that they will have to wait for their broadband back. They can’t tell you when the service will arrive, but it will be better when it does, apparently. Meanwhile Fastweb’s customer service is suggesting that people change ISPs if they want to be guaranteed a future service. There is no indication that customers will be reimbursed for their downtime either.

The whole farce means that Fastweb’s plans to peddle high-speed internet access for business have run aground. After all any business that dumb enough to buy its service when it cannot guarantee a service and treats customers like scum deserves to go under.

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