The long, slow wait for a faster Internet connection

We've Got Mail:Niall O'Connor from Donabate contacted us after spending several frustrating hours over a period of nearly two months trying to make contact with BT Ireland to sort out the delivery of the wireless modem which would grant him broadband access to the Internet.

First off, BT Ireland failed to send it, then sent it to the wrong address. Finally, last week, he received his modem.

"In total I have sent eight or nine e-mails, spent over four hours on hold and talked to five different people in the organisation. At one stage I was on hold through my landline, my mobile and my wife's mobile at the same time," he writes.

His problems began when he ordered a phone and Internet service from the phone and Internet provider in late October. The phone line was set up without much fuss but difficulties arose when he tried to get his wireless modem delivered. He spoke to no fewer than six customer service representatives who all assured him they would sort out his order.

The first customer service agent he talked to in November told him that everything was in place and he could expect his modem within a week. The following week, there was no sign of it, so he called again and eventually got through to another agent. He changed his delivery address from his home to his office to simplify the delivery process. He also requested that a supervisor call him back so he could complain about the order process and the lack of anyresponse to his e-mails.

"I never got a call back and she never changed my details on their records," he writes. The promised modem never appeared and, on December 6th, he was told it had been sent to the wrong address - close to but not quite close enough to his home address. This means that, despite assurances, BT Ireland had failed to update his records to account for his request for delivery to his work address.

"A BT agent said he would arrange for a new modem to be sent to my work address. This failed to occur," our exasperated reader writes.

The next day he talked to another agent in what is perhaps euphemistically known as the customer care department who told him the modem had not been re-sent or been requested to be re-sent and that his work address was not on the system. On December 7th he talked to yet another agent who told him that, generally, "modems that are sent to the wrong address are not sent to another address until they are returned from where they were mistakenly sent". Eventually, and just before our reader's head exploded in a rage, his modem arrived last Monday.

"However, while we were assured there would be no charge until the modem was activated, I see they have debited our account by €87.22 and I have no idea what it is for."

We contacted BT Ireland to see how it could explain this woeful lack of customer service and to find out what the charge of €87.22 was for. On the latter point we hit a brick wall as a spokeswoman said the company could not comment on individual customer account issues "due to the Data Protection Act". We did point out that said customer had given us the go-ahead to inquire on his behalf, but to no avail. She did say the company was "committed to best practices in customer service" and, where it failed "to meet expectations", the company "use that feedback to drive improvements in our processes and systems".

She said that in recent months the company had had a significant increase in call and e-mail volumes, a fact she attributed to Smart Telecom customers seeking a new provider, "bad weather causing technical issues" and very high demand for a new broadband/line rental/landline service. She said the company had taken "urgent steps" to address this increased volume. "Again we apologise unreservedly for any inconvenience we have caused Mr O'Connor and we hope this matter has now been resolved to his satisfaction," she concluded.

Bring the kids

We recently carried a complaint from a reader who was miffed about her inability to buy children's tickets for a performance at the National Concert Hall via the venue's website. At the box-office adult tickets cost €22 for A Christmas Festival while children's tickets cost €10.

A spokeswoman said that when people book online they collect their tickets from machines in the NCH foyer, which makes it difficult for staff to establish that children's tickets are being used by children, leaving the system open to misuse. In response Kay Tombe got in touch suggesting the NCH follows Croke Park's lead.

"You buy full-priced seats and then when you go to the match you bring the children along to a specific place in the grounds where you get a refund of part of the price of the tickets, bringing them down to children's prices. Quite simply organised, really," she says.