Four to six WEEKS?

[pne]

So, this morning I called 1&1 to ask whether porting my DSL connection is as simple as telling German Telecom to transfer my phone number downstairs, and the lady said no -- that the DSL connection is separate from the phone connection.

In fact, they can't even just switch the connection downstairs; rather, they have to deallocate the port (at the DSLAM, I presume) and allocate a new one. (A colleague of mine said that that might be a problem if ports are scarce and the deallocation results in someone on a waitlist grabbing it, leaving me to end up on a waitlist myself.)

At any rate, that'd cost €99 (which the Telecom company charges 1&1, so they pass it on) and might take four to six weeks. If, after the old phone connection is cancelled, I call 1&1 after five days or so, they could try to request a whole new port, which might speed up the procedure and take only three weeks total.

Wonderful.

I suppose technically I could connect to the Internet using ISDN (which should, after all, require only the working phone connection) or -- if I bought myself an analogue modem -- with an analogue connection through our analogue-to-ISDN converter which our phones are connected to... but that would be metred Internet again, and Stella nixed that idea. She suggested I use the opportunity to read some books I had always wanted to get around to.

It's not even the low-bandwidth thing that's the biggest problem, but the pay-by-the-minute thing.

And another annoying thing is that Stella asked me this morning whether I hadn't wanted to move to a DSL connection hosted by German Telecom if we moved somewhere -- which I had considered. Only, since I thought at the beginning of the month that we'd stay here for the appreciable future (since the place in Heimfeld never rang us back), I switched from a 5 GB volume tariff to a flat-rate connection, which extends my contract by a minimum of 12 months. So even if I switched IP connectivity providers, I'd still have to pay the service charge for changing my contract and have to pay twelve monthly rates, which makes that prospect unattractive.

Sigh.

(But who knows? Maybe magically everything will work out fairly quickly.)

Comments

[musicus.livejournal.com]

I had a similar annoying experience when moving.
But I moved house not only the flat. But I thought it quite annoying, that they couldn't just switch my DSL connection from A to B. They wanted the connection fee again! The first time they reimbursed me because of a special offer. But this time it had to be payed by me. They also sent me the external modem and other hardware again, all though I didn't want to (as I had these things already). The Telecom doesn't seem able to move a connection, they always give you a new one. A pity, as moving the telephone is much easier.

The best is a) not to move at all or b) not to have such an internet connection : )

[bluewingedcat.livejournal.com]

Solution... get cable. :P

[pne.livejournal.com]

Don't know whether that would help - I imagine moving would still entail a fair amount of headache until you've managed to convince the cable company to send Internet signals headed for you down this wire now and no longer down that one! :)

(For some reason, cable Internet never really seems to have taken off in Germany, nor has powerline Internet. Broadband is pretty much synonymous with ADSL over here.)

[denial-land.livejournal.com]

Ugh, 1&1 is a trerribly ISP.

[pne.livejournal.com]

I've heard both good and bad about them... it seems to me that some people are fairly happy with them while others are deeply unhappy with them. (The "mildly annoyed" camp seems to be largely missing.)

So far, I've been happy with them, which is why I stayed... I hope I don't have to join the "deeply unhappy with their customer service" group. (Maybe the reason I haven't been unhappy so far is that I didn't need their customer service except right at the beginning, to configure the ISDN-to-analogue converter.)

[denial-land.livejournal.com]

Well, I mean in forums you only hear the bad stuff of course (when people are angry they complain, if they are content they are quiet) but it is a fact, for example, that even if they sell a "flatrate", if you turn out to be one of those "powerusers" they'd like to get rid of you.
Moving also seems to be a huge problem with them, and the customer service seems to be bad, but I guess so are other ISP's.
In any case it MUST be better than the "freenet" crap we were stuck with for a year. Terrible. I don't even want to think back, it just makes me angry.
Now we have completely migrated to Arcor, and are happy ever since.
Good luck with everything.. it might just go completely smooth ;)

[pne.livejournal.com]

it is a fact, for example, that even if they sell a "flatrate", if you turn out to be one of those "powerusers" they'd like to get rid of you.

Yes, I'd heard of that. I figured I probably wouldn't leech so much data I'd fall into that box, though.

Moving also seems to be a huge problem with them

*nods* Though sometimes it appears to be T-Com's fault, who don't like people wandering off to any competitor. (It went smoothly enough when I switched DSL provider from T-Com to 1&1, though -- 1&1 had already been my IP connectivity provider but then I switched the underlying connection to them as well because I got a larger volume allocation that way.)

the customer service seems to be bad

Yeah. I also read that some people take forever to get set up, and the company gives no information about the status of their order. Maybe I just had good luck?

Now we have completely migrated to Arcor, and are happy ever since.

Good for you! Maybe I should keep that in mind.

Good luck with everything.. it might just go completely smooth ;)

Thanks -- I certainly hope so!

Weeks and weeks of no Internet would suck for me. And weeks and weeks of no phone service would also be inconvenient.

(The lady at the T-Punkt said that if they needed to send a worker out, it might take four to six weeks because so many people are moving right now. But I hope that moving just one storey further down doesn't necessitate a visit by a technician.)

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of an old Israeli cartoon: A reporter asks Methusaleh, "You've been alive for over 900 years. What is the secret of your longevity?" He replies, "I'm still waiting for them to install my telephone!"

Oh, the good ol' years of state monopoly...