When you can't connect

What's the story with broadband efficiency? The commission responsible for the regulation of the electronic communications sector in Ireland is failing to protect consumers from broadband companies seemingly incapable of returning phone calls, answering e-mails or providing any kind of customer service other than the occasional rude brush-off, it has been claimed.

According to the chairman of broadband lobby group Ireland Offline, Damien Mulley, the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) is not being tough enough with providers who fail to deliver adequate customer service. He believes that the negative impression poor customer care creates could be hindering broadband take-up in Ireland.

"ComReg is not doing its job," Mulley says. "While it has been talking up the number of complaints that it has logged, how many of them have actually been resolved?"

It is not only the regulator that has come under fire in recent weeks. The State's broadband coverage has been described as "shameful" by opposition parties and the Government has been accused of inertia and of failing to invest in broadband infrastructure.

Broadband take-up in Ireland is among the lowest in the European Union - ComReg estimates that there are now approximately 350,000 broadband subscribers, equivalent to 9 per cent of the population.

Speaking in the Dáil recently, the Minister of State for Communications, John Browne, side-stepped responsibility for the low levels of take-up, blaming broadband providers here for being slow to launch competitive, affordable broadband in comparison with other European states.

But the poor level of customer care offered by many providers is also a contributory factor. ComReg says it received 487 queries from consumers about broadband availability, installation, billing and performance in the first three months of the year.

Meanwhile, a report in the Consumers' Association of Ireland's Consumer Choice magazine reported that 30 per cent of the complaints made to its National Consumer Complaint Register in December concerned the customer service offered by telecommunications firms.

Broken networks, low broadband speeds, billing errors and poor customer support angered many users, and if the PriceWatch mail box is anything to go by, the problem hasn't gone away. There was a huge response to PriceWatch's recent invitation to readers to contact us if they had experienced problems with their broadband providers.

"Pure poor customer care and disinterest: it's all about having your bank details," wrote a reader who found that making the seemingly straightforward switch from one telecom company to another beyond the capabilities of either.

Another reader repeatedly tried to contact his broadband provider via e-mail and phone but after receiving no replies concluded that "the broadband set-up in Ireland is a complete shambles". Another broadband user who contacted a customer service department when he could not get online was told "Leave it a bit, it might settle", as if it was a crying child. "It's almost as if the staff are reading from cards. They appear to have so little knowledge," he said.

Few of the main players in the broadband sector were spared the wrath of our readers. "I started my service two years ago and had nothing but problems," says one disgruntled customer. "They hadn't set me up correctly, their online billing was incorrect, they overcharged me. . . What a shambles."

"Once they have your money, they seem to abandon the customer. At this point however I believe that ComReg should investigate customer service levels of telecoms. Individuals can only do so much," another mail said.

But unless ComReg can punish the providers, any investigations it carries out will be irrelevant. "People are having problems signing up and then getting proper service," says Mulley. "And their negative experiences may have turned others off. Bad news spreads much faster than good news."

ComReg denies it has been toothless in dealing with complaints and says it has "used the full extent of its powers to promote and protect the interests of consumers of electronic communications services".

In response to questions put to it by PriceWatch, it insists that where it has identified a trend or significant volume of consumer issues it "intervened with the relevant operators, highlighted the issues reported and received confirmation of resolution".

It says this approach has been successful and expressed optimism that consumers who experienced difficulty in the first quarter of the year "are now benefiting from improved service with their operator".

It says that it does not have the power to impose sanctions on operators who breach their customer service charters as such breaches fall under consumer protection legislation "which is a matter for the Office of the Director of Consumer Affairs or the courts".

On its website, ComReg says its policy is "to empower consumers to take direct action" and it aims "to provide users with sufficient relevant information so that they can deal with their service providers and to ensure that operators have adequate procedures in place to address customer issues". It provides a link to the telecom operators contact details on its website. Ominously, perhaps, that link was broken last week.

See www.comreg.ie