"There’s nothing we can do – it’s an automated system"
That’s a sentence that is guaranteed to raise my blood pressure. Having worked in IT myself, I know that it’s not the computer’s fault; the blame can be laid entirely at the door of the humans who designed, programmed and paid for the computer system.
The latest example that has been sent to try me is provided courtesy of my Internet Service Provider, XS4ALL.
Normally, when one moves house in the Netherlands, the telecom provider (KPN) and the Internet Service Provider work in tandem to ensure that the ADSL (Broadband) service is also moved at the same time. Alas, my experience has been been far from troublefree and seamless. My experience has resulted in an XS4ALL sales support person uttering that dreaded sentence at the beginning of this piece.
The seed of my misfortune lies in the fact that I used an ISDN line at my old address to carry the ADSL service, while here at the farmhouse we have a plain old Analogue line. KPN and XS4ALL are quite happy to move ADSL between two ISDN lines, or between two Analogue lines; but between and ISDN and an Analogue line? Unfortunately, "that does not compute", as I’ve found out to my cost. At first, I was told that it could be done, but then it was: "sorry, you’ll have to cancel the ADSL service on the ISDN line and then reapply for a new ADSL service on the Analogue line". This I did – and then found out that I couldn’t apply for the new ADSL service until the old service is stopped. This takes a month. Then, once the application for the new service is made, it takes a further two or three weeks before the new service is available. Going back to dialup speeds after ADSL is like watching paint dry on most modern web sites. Still, I resigned myself to being up to three weeks without my ADSL fix.
But now, a new wrinkle in this sorry saga has appeared. KPN have indeed stopped my old ADSL service, but XS4ALL are still insisting that I have it, and are still stopping me from applying for a new one.
According to KPN’s automated system, KPN stopped the old ADSL on the 31st March. Not bad, I suppose, considering that they were supposed to have stopped it on the 27th March, as had been agreed. Considering that they had a month’s notice, they really should have been able to hit the 27th March target…
Meanwhile, XS4ALL’s automated system is still stubbornly insisting that I am enjoying ADSL service on an ISDN line that is itself no longer operational (I also cancelled the ISDN line). Last week, an XS4ALL’s sales support person first claimed that this was a temporary abberation, and that all would be well on Monday 3rd April. Inevitably, Monday has come and gone with no change. A second sales support person claimed on Tuesday the 4th April that it would all be alright by the end of this week. It was she who could quite clearly see in her information system that something was wrong, but then cheerfully uttered the Dutch equivalent of "There’s nothing we can do – it’s an automated system".
So the upshot is that muggins here has found himself trapped in a hell between two automated systems that appear to refuse to communicate with each other, with support staff who seem to be unable to do a damn thing about it. And until they do, I can’t order my new ADSL line. It looks as though I am condemmed to dialup for at least a month, if not longer. Meanwhile, XS4ALL’s marketing department’s ad campaign extolling the virtues of fast Internetting with ADSL rolls on. I am thinking uncharitable thoughts at the moment.
Geoff Coupe's Blog 
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