Tesco.net ISP

...read around I understand that Tesco.net may have been overwhelmed with requests for Broadband and their infrastructure was not necessarily capable of dealing with the huge initial demand. I do believe that £17.97 is good value for money, and of course there are the 17 clubcard points each month as well.

Our experience is, I honestly believe, the exception rather than the rule. The helpline people did their very best for us, spending ...
...It would have been good if they had offered something, even a £5 voucher for our inconvenience would have been nice, after all they did disconnect us prematurely. However, dwelling on past problems doesn't change the 'now' and what we've got is great!

The www.Tesco.net website is very informative.
Separate from www.Tesco.com which is the shopping site, it's possible to check and make changes to your account using a secure connection. ... more

We've been connected to the internet for some years now and chose originally to use Tesco dial-up because it was reasonably priced. We reasoned that a large supermarket chain would lose credibility if it offered something unreliable.

Tesco Internet access has four packages to choose from, designed to suit all users. You do not have to be an existing customer and do not have to have a clubcard, although if you do your account will receive points according to the cost of the Internet package you choose. It is possible to pick up CDs for all Internet options from the customer service desk and other display points of any Tesco store.

You can go online to learn more by visiting www.Tesco.net and clicking the "Internet Access" tab positioned centrally near the top of the page.

~~~0~~~ Online information ~~~0~~~

You are taken, according to Firefox which shows a padlock in the address bar, to a secure site. Listed on the right of this brightly coloured but clearly written introductory page titled "Tesco internet access, helping you spend less on internet access" you will read of four options.

Dial-up ~ three account options each briefly described in green outlined boxes which have the pricing details written in white against a green background. Within each box are further clickable links "Tell me more" and "Sign up now".

Broadband ~ this information box is outlined in royal blue, with pricing details written in white against a blue background, also with further clearly labelled clickable links.

The left half of the page broadly explains how it's easy to apply and get online cheaply. If you aren't sure which is the right package there is, below this introduction, a clickable link "Help me decide" that will take you to a "Which package?" page containing questions about how long you might spend online. There are dropdown boxes for days and the number of hours. I've fiddled around with this and found that you will be told one of the dial-up options is right for you even if you say you are online for the maximum number of hours possible to select. The only time it suggests Broadband would be good is if you might "use the internet to download large files or play games online".

Also on this introductory page, if you should choose not to register 'now' you are given the opportunity of requesting either the Broadband CD or the Dial up CD, which includes the anytime, daytime and pay as you go packages.

~~~0~~~ Details Of The Services Offered ~~~0~~~

~ Dial-up ~

With all dial-up packages you benefit from: -
5 email addresses; webmail; 15MB of webspace and access to newsgroups.

~ Pay as you go ~ dial up from 1p a minute.
This option is for those who use the Internet only rarely. 1p a minute evenings and weekends and 3p a minute weekdays (8 am - 6 pm Mon to Friday)

~ Daytime dial-up ~ £5.99 a month
For those who use the internet at home during the day - between 2am & 4pm - or if you work from home.
Internet access at any other time for a flat rate of 4p per minute.

~ Anytime dial-up ~ £12.49 a month
For those who spend a lot of time online you can go online whenever you want with no additional charge.

** Tip from me **
It's useful to remember that with a dial-up connection, if you only have one landline, you are not able to use your telephone whilst also accessing the internet.

~Broadband ~ £17.97 a month
With free connection, unmetered 512K Internet access at all times, even while you're on the phone.
Broadband users are given a free modem, there is no download limit, benefits include up to 15 email addresses, access to newsgroups and up to 50 MB of webspace.

Each of the above mentioned information pages has quick and clearly labelled links back to other pages, each offers you a "Help" page, which is a useful printable page outlining all options. Each one also offers you the chance to sign up, go back or to quit!

~~~0~~~ Our Tesco ISP experience ~~~0~~~

~~ Dial up ~~

We first chose the Anytime dial-up option costing £12.49 a month, which meant that we didn't have additional call charges. We decided this was best for us because of the amount of time we were, jointly as a family, spending online.

We found the service good, although at peak times slow and we knew when America came online! The downside of the dial-up service is that if a connection has been 'idle' for ten minutes it is automatically disconnected and at two hours use the same happens irrespective of what you're doing. However reconnecting is quick and easy. Billing was automatic, an email being sent to tell that our credit card account had been debited, usually 27th of each month.

A good option for somebody who uses the Internet a lot and either doesn't need to use their phone very often, or who has a separate landline.

~~ Broadband ~~

Broadband started to become available; this was about the time that our use rocketed dramatically and we also needed to use the telephone regularly. We are in an area of the country not served by cable so our options we limited to landline connections and we had to wait until our own area was upgraded to cope with Broadband. We heard through the grapevine that Tesco would be moving into the Broadband market and contacted them in July 2004 to ask for information, in their reply we were told that the service would be launched in August, but we didn't hear any more.

We looked at various options and decided to stick with Tesco who were going to charge £19.97 a month. (Recently reduced to a competitive £17.97) In the November we saw details in the supermarket, brought the leaflet home and ordered the package at the beginning of December. We were delighted to receive a detailed email outlining how they would keep us informed during each stage of the transfer process as follows …

"...Stage 1 - Local telephone exchange check
We've submitted your order to BT who will perform an initial check on your local telephone exchange to determine whether it is capable of supporting Tesco broadband. This currently takes up to 9 days, after which we'll send you an email to confirm whether we can progress to Stage 2 of the application process.

...Stage 2 - Telephone line check
BT will perform some checks on your telephone line. This currently takes up to 5 days, after which we'll send you an email to confirm we are able to provide Tesco broadband to you and the target activation date provided by BT.

...Stage 3 - Modem despatch
If you ordered your free Tesco broadband modem when you applied for the service, it will usually be despatched to arrive the day before your target activation day.

...Stage 4 - Confirmation broadband activated
As soon as BT have confirmed that broadband has been activated we'll send you an email to confirm that you can begin surfing online with Tesco broadband. Please follow the instructions contained in your modem pack when installing your modem.

In some areas the number of customers applying for Tesco broadband has been so big that BT have to add additional broadband capacity. This means some customers will have to wait longer for Tesco broadband to be activated. If this affects you we'll keep you fully informed by email. …"

Two days later we were told that stage 1 had been completed and within a few days they hoped BT would have completed the necessary checks.

~ Pear shaped! ~

On December 13th 2004 I attempted to get online and found I couldn't. Now, I'm not exactly technically minded, if something works that's good and I'm happy, if it doesn't then I really do rely on other people to fix it for me, although, naturally I'll fiddle around and have a go myself. My first thought was that the phone line was dead, but it wasn't, I was able to make calls. The computer was working alright, so by elimination I decided it had to be a problem with the internet connection, something that had never happened before.

This was one of the rare occasions when hubby and I had got organised before he went abroad, and had arranged that, rather than expensive international telephone calls, we would keep in touch using a messenger service. I was totally dependant on the internet to talk to him, but it wasn't working. I had no idea if he'd arrived safely, what his hotel was like nor what the weather was doing.

I telephoned the Tesco helpline, free for the first month of using broadband, thereafter 50p a minute, and spoke to a charming chap who told me that our broadband account had been activated, via the phone line. He wasn't particularly helpful when I assured him it shouldn't have been because we hadn't got a modem as outlined in stage 3 of the process! There was a stroppy exchange where he suggested I was being rude, must realise that, "We can't always have what we want" (I'll never ever forget those words) and if I didn't stop demanding something unattainable he would disconnect the call. I, on the other hand, told him in no uncertain terms that I was a customer, he was "customer service", that we had an account with them for a dial-up service, with which we were satisfied and 'they' had disconnected it without due reason … and if he didn't get it reconnected I would be in touch with Trading Standards immediately and would make written complaint to the company about his appalling "service". We both calmed down, tantrums over, and within a very short time he had managed to get our dial up service reactivated, as a special gesture of goodwill!

I was assured that the modem had been dispatched and would be with me the following day, he even gave me a contact name and telephone number for the supplier along with our account reference number, but of course I needn't contact them to make sure! He told me that all necessary advisory emails had been sent to us; the missing two messages magically arrived in our inbox later that day! He also arranged to telephone and go through the setting up process with me.

That afternoon, still 13th Dec, I telephoned the modem dispatchers, to be told they hadn't received an activation notice for our account, but they would send the start-up kit straight away. I was impressed when it arrived here the following morning, delivered by courier. Tucked neatly into a large yellow black and red rectangular box with "Broadband starter kit" written on the outside, was a disc, an installation guide, a silver "clamshell" Thomson speedtouch modem, two ADSL filters and a metre long piece of cable with USB connectors. Great, we were in business!

Later that morning I received a call from Tesco helpline, as promised, to help me set up the modem. There followed several hours of fiddling with the settings on our computer because it just wouldn't work! I was told variably that it was because we had an old operating system, that our phone line was too old, it was the wrong sort of cable, that I was doing it wrong and at one point advised to move the computer so that it was right next to the BT box, which is tucked away under our stairs ~ and I was unreasonable not to try!

I felt like telling them to get lost, but there are financial penalties for cancelling the service and I just couldn't be bothered. I was tired, fed up and totally disillusioned. I couldn't understand how so many of my friends had been able to unpack their modem, plug it in and within minutes have a broadband service up and running. Many of these people also use ME, some are still with Win98 and have their computer upstairs, a fair distance away from their phone socket yet have never had any problems.

We eventually managed to get an intermittent connection and the chap on the other end told me his shift was finishing, but somebody else would be able to help me. I phoned back to talk to somebody else who first asked me what I'd done. I hadn't got a clue, I'd been sitting here following instructions with the phone in one hand whilst typing things and altering settings with the other. He did his best and I ended up with something resembling a reasonable connection along with working email accounts. The next day I went to a local shop where I bought a heavy-duty adsl cable to run from the computer to our landline connection, it made some difference.

When hubby got home a few days later he checked everything. He got back to the help people and altered some more settings. He bought a USB splitter which gave some more, slight, improvement.

We continued to get disconnected, on occasions got an error message telling us, "The port was disconnected by the remote computer". We got back to Tesco who told us to get BT to check our line, this happened several times and early in January BT finally told us to ask Tesco to "Contact BT Wholesale Department and report a "Space-repair fault" and that a Broadband trained engineer should investigate the matter." The engineer said that even the BT ISP is reluctant to do this. Things got a little better.

~ The "now" and the future ~

By the beginning of March this year we were still rather fed up with intermittent service and an increasingly slow performance, far worse than anything we had experienced with dial-up, so hubby decided to dust off a very old computer and upgrade it, see if he could install BB and get it working. He managed it with no problems at all and got a reliable, fast connection, so it did seem that Tesco support people were right and everything was linked to the individual computer and not the ISP.

We started trouble shooting what's now known as 'my' machine. Yes, it's relatively old and in an old case. I don't pretend to know half of what's been done. After a lot of reading we discovered that it was probably underpowered and that the unpowered USB connection was possibly at the root of our problems, so we bought a powered one and plugged it in. The situation improved, but the lights on the modem would still sometimes go out and the system would seize up. This could only be resolved by a reboot. Only when all other USB devices were disconnected could we get a reliable and long lasting connection. We tracked down information about the modem, and discovered that there have been problems with it and its diagnostics package sometimes goes haywire. We also got rid of the nice new wireless keyboard and mouse, which seemed hungry for power.

Everything we did made things better and perhaps the helpline people were partly right, our computer simply could not cope with broadband, in particular the clamshell modem and its associated software. This, along with all other peripherals we have (namely printer, scanner, wireless keyboard and mouse) was just too much for an underpowered machine with too few USB ports. It's a pity that technology moves faster than some people's pockets are filled, but that isn't under discussion here.

We have got rid of the speedtouch modem, deleted all the software associated with it and bought equipment for a home network, cheaper than buying or building a new computer. Although we haven't got a network we do, at last, have a super broadband connection!

~~~0~~~ Would I recommend Tesco.net? ~~~0~~~

Actually, and despite our problems, I would.
I know a lot of people who use Tesco as their ISP; none have ever had a moment's problem. We were certainly very satisfied with the dial-up service which was very easy to install, and I know of nobody else who has had a problem installing and using their broadband modem. Having read around I understand that Tesco.net may have been overwhelmed with requests for Broadband and their infrastructure was not necessarily capable of dealing with the huge initial demand. I do believe that £17.97 is good value for money, and of course there are the 17 clubcard points each month as well.

Our experience is, I honestly believe, the exception rather than the rule. The helpline people did their very best for us, spending far more that the more normal 15-20 minutes per customer. It would have been good if they had offered something, even a £5 voucher for our inconvenience would have been nice, after all they did disconnect us prematurely. However, dwelling on past problems doesn't change the 'now' and what we've got is great!

The www.Tesco.net website is very informative.
Separate from www.Tesco.com which is the shopping site, it's possible to check and make changes to your account using a secure connection. There is information about maintenance scheduling, which is not linked to NTL's downtime although Tesco uses their network. (I have a relative who uses NTL and their email system in particular is often being 'maintained'.) You can change passwords easily; all you have to remember is your existing one. You can add a new email account without any problem and a confirmatory message wings its way to your inbox in no time at all. There is a Web organiser, which I've yet to investigate and, it would appear, you can build a 50MB website by following their online instructions. I'm not so sure about registering a domain with Netbenefit as a first step, but that'll be a whole new story!

Having fiddled with our computer we now have a fast, reliable and efficient broadband service, our children are delighted to be able to use the phone whenever another is online and we are available to keep in touch with those relatives who are not connected to the Internet.

24/05/2005 @ 21:56 Review edited slightly to remove a couple of potentially misleading comments.

09/06/2005 @ 13:31 Review resubmitted due to software problems.

© Mum52 

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