[ILUG] Ladies and Gentlemen ...

[Paul Curtayne]

(To all who hate support staff, read this:)

Proinnsias wrote:


> To whom it may concern,
> After much work and patience, I would like to present the complete
list of
> OceanFree.Net POP numbers and configuration details ...


<snip>

Before he did this, I spent (wait for it!) 35 minutes on the phone to
Ocean, including talking to a muppet and a muppet supervisor, trying
to find out the POP number for 066, as I wanted to set up the dialler
manually in Win95, not install an ISP's software (protect us from such
menace!)

They could not find out! God help me if I needed a DNS number (thanks
Proinnsiais again). The muppet said she had  ".the codes for 09, 02
and 05, but not 06.."

I said "fine, at the weekend it's the same anywhere in the 32
counties, I'll take that."

After lots of 'why do you want that sir?', where did you download the
software from?', and conferring with other staff, she eventually came
back and siad

"I don't have any of those numbers"

"But you just told me you have 09, 05 and 02 in front of you...!"

"well, I don't have that info sir..."

Amazement reigned at  my end, I thought she was refusing to tell me!

Eventually she passed me to a supervisor.
She was even more baffled.

"where did you get the Ocean software?"
"I told you, I didn't, I want to set it up by hand, I do this every
day with Indigo, and Tinet. It's really very easy."

a long silence followed.....

She asked: "have you called Indigo tech support"      <--- I kid you
not

I said no :-o.....

"I'll have to consult with someone here sir. I'll phone you back."

And she did,
"sir, I have the access codes for the entire country"

"great, what's the 066 number?"

silence, she is baffled again.

"sir, where did you download the sofware?"

"I didn't, I set up dial-up connections all the time in Windows 95,
it's not hard, and I'm not trying to scam anyone."
"well, i don't have the number for 066"

"I thought you just said you have the entire country in front of
you!!!!!!"

At this stage, I thought I was the muppet!!

It turns out that all she had was a list of *area* codes, not access
codes , ie just a table like this:

01
021
022
.
.

066
.
.
.
etc

no phone numbers, just a list of area codes!!!!! She thought these
were the "access codes"!!

My GOD!!!!

Eventually, I just downloaded the bloody software, ran it, stopped it,
and read the .ini file. There was the fucking number!!!! (Proinnsias's
idea).

BTW, With Ocean, I get 42,667 kb/s, whereas I get 45,333 with Tinet,
FWIW