Manx Telecom = Thieving Scumbags?

[the mo beats experience]

Last time I looked the Isle of Man was on planet Earth. Unlike some of you who are obviously on planet Isle of Man. There's a space ship home in the morning.......oops no its crashed into a freighter from Mars. And they want salvage rights.

 

Wake up, grow up. Communication is the MOST important thing for any economy in this networked world. Without competition we will, as we are now, remain in the dark ages. Have you been to the UK recently? Have you heard of WiFi phones? Do you know the potential of VoIP? Have you seen what the rates for broadband are over there? Have you seen how simple it is to install a BT Homehub? And that its free if you order it online? And it works!!!!!!

 

I doubt it. You have a phone and know how to use it. Bless. Stay with Manx Telecom. You deserve them. And all they'll do to the Manx Economy. Learn where the light switch is. You'll need it. Before you swim back to civilisation across the Irish Sea. Because the Australian bankers have sold the ferries. And the Spaniards at Telefonica have closed down all communications.

 

And in Manx.... Slane lhiu

What a dick. Yeah, we're in the dark ages, only just found out about moving pictures yesterday, now today i hear they do colour too, wtf?

 

 

Self employed.

[Juan Kerr]

My only beef with MT is the shite, woeful, pathetic, badly organised, crud, dont-give-a-shit showroom on Victoria Street. Can you ever queue for less than 40 minutes, or speak to anyone, or buy anything convieniently. Never. Swift Communications must make a fortune out of that shop as you get pissed off of queuing after 10 minutes and go next door and buy what you wanted without wasting your entire lunchtime.

 

I agree wholeheartedly with above with following observations :

 

When you actually get a sales assistant, they are not too bad and reasonably informed, but the waiting around drives you bananas...

far to long to get served, and then takes far too long to purchase an item..

 

sort it out!!!

 

I'm not knocking their staff. They are very good. But that shop is a pile of sh*te and must be losing MT a fortune because you queue for just too bloody long, get bored and walk out.

[Sparky]

Here we go again!

It seems that the only place on earth that competition actually makes things worse for everyone is The Isle of Man!

There just isn't a big enough population, so eventually the 'successful' party has to recoup their losses in forcing the competition into submission, or go under themselves.

 

When will we ever learn to stop moaning and buggering everything up?

 

 

I second that. Once upon a time there was an airline who were accused many times of having a monopoly. Now look at the mess our air service is in. Bring back Manx Airlines, run by local people who knew what the Isle of Man was about!

 

MT do give a good service. Perhaps those who moan with the same old 'you're ripping us off & you have a monopoly' have never experienced dealing with a UK provider. I have a friend in the UK who signed up with Talk Talk 'free broadband forever' . She waited 8 weeks to get connected & even then she could only use it for an hour max before it would drop out. She spent a small fortune calling their 'technical help' before attempting to cancel it. Yes the offer was cheap but the service was awful. At least MT are on your doorstep. The two occasions I've had to contact them, the first was resolved over the phone (a free call not £150 a minute!) & for the second, an engineer was at my door by 10am the next day & it was fixed within 30 minutes. Having lived in the UK, I can safely say that service like that is NOT forthcoming! Worth thinking about. I wonder if Cloud Cuckooland & Unstable & Wireless will be able to respond to their customer's needs as quickly as MT. Should be interesting.

 

Being a comeover myself I can say that my experience to Mrs Merton's is the entire opposite, signed up with a cable provider for all their services and the service was excellent. Difference here was I was paying for the service, you can barely complain if you are paying nothing or next to nothing.

MT on the other hand have taken lots of my money and on the occassions that I have needed help have been told that there is nothing wrong with the network, they've had no reports etc of no Internet services and when going in to the shop on a Saturday with a mobile phone problem (phone bought from them) was told that this was a technical issue and would i o back in on Monday when someone could deal with me!

 

So there are always two sides to consumer experiences. Especially when they are first hand and not friend of a friend etc :-)

[Roger Smelly]

Here Here Grumble.

 

I have friends in the UK and they are all signed up for phone,TV & broadband and they are paying as much as we are just to have a landline phone.

 

The service is great and they have not yet had a problem.

 

This really anoys me when someone says "yeah its cheaper but they spend more time on the phone to fix it"

 

You have to understand that there is 60 million + people in the UK and there is bound to be problems but most suppliers get it sorted fast because they HAVE to look after the customer base, word of mouth and all that.

 

As for 3v0 he is a man after my own heart, I travel to the UK regular and everytime i come back i think the steam packet boat is a time machine.

 

I would say the Manx attitude is somewhere around about 1988 1990

[Beckett]

I would say the Manx attitude is somewhere around about 1988 1990

 

Wow, we've just about hit the 90s. Can I take my shell suit off?

[zebra]

"I travel to the UK regular and everytime i come back i think the steam packet boat is a time machine."

 

Speaking of the Steam Packet and competition, I'm old enough (and have lived here long enough) to remember what happened when competition was introduced to sea travel to/from the island.

 

Everyone (pre-internet, so it was all via the letters page in the local newspapers and on the one local radio station at the time) thought what a brilliant idea it was to have two operators carrying people to/from the island. Time has proved that the local market is not always big enough for two operators - and so the Govt in their wisdom (and possibly as a result of gauging public reaction from people with chips on their shoulders putting naive forum posts on!) opened up the telecommunications market to THREE! What you have now in shipping is what you can expect in Telecommunications in 25-30 yrs - one company with a "Don't give a ..." attitude to customer service that only came about as a result of a merger of more than one company (in order to prevent having none at all!) This ONE company will then get passed from one management company to another - could be anywhere in the world remember! - with one thing in mind only; how to generate mega profits for their shareholders from a small market. In terms of accountability, there won't be any - all the Shareholders will be businessmen who don't even live here.

 

Sometimes (as an Australian songbird once sang) it's better the devil you know.

 

To those already purchasing dancing shoes on e-bay to dance on MT's grave I would say this: read the above and be careful what you wish for!

[Roger Smelly]

Haha calm down are you startin !!!

 

I remember when a shop got robbed in douglas in the early 90's and half of jurby was walking around in shell suits lol.

 

It was like walking through toxteth, which funny enough i have actually been to and it is as bad as you think lol

[grant]

Here's a question that someone might be able to answer, I rang MT today at noon to ask them, all their staff were busy so I left my name and number, but no-ones called me back.

 

If I order a mobile, pay monthly off their website, do you have the opportunity to "pick" a phone number off a list of available ones, or, do you have to go to the shop to do this, or, is it just not possible to choose and you have to take what you're given?

 

Thought of something else, is there no choice for broadband at this moment in time.

[Foxtrotlima]

Well, I have to say that I am sticking with MT, more specifically Pronto Mobile. There are 3 mobiles in my house, 2 on PAYG for the children. Pronto is the only network I know that I can call up, top up with my debit card with minimal fuss.

 

My experiences with Virgin Mobile, and some of my friend's experiences with other providers in the UK is that you have to go through a lengthy process of telling them numbers that the mobile you want to top up has recently called to top it up. For the love of god, has anyone actually tried to prise a 14 year old's mobile out of his hand, let alone ask him the last few numbers he has called?!

[ballaughbiker]

I've been watching this thread with interest and have so far resisted any opinion. I think:

 

MT's service is very good and sometimes exceptional and their GSM (don't use 3G so I don't know) coverage is generally excellent for an island with such difficult terrain for mobile reception. The fact that there's little coverage "down by the beach" here probably doesn't concern many people except me. In general, there are very few places now where mobiles don't work. They have also gone the extra mile with broadband by installing DSLAMs for connections, like me, that are a long way from the exchange. So far so good, but

 

I also think that MT have used their monopoly position handed to them on a plate in ?1986 (for a relatively) small fee to plunder this island's population for the last 20 years and I think the Communications Commission has let them. Their massive profits over the years have been kept very secret. Yes, a tiny part of this profit pays for the excellent service and infrastructure, but where's the rest gone?

 

So far they have got away with it but modern technology like wireless broadband along with VOIP and a second mobile operator might just change all that forever. I decided not to renew my Pronto mobile contract about 10 years ago and have used a UK operator since. Even with roaming charges here its cheaper as I make relatively few calls. I use VOIP for all my normal phone calls including to island numbers so the only way that MT gets me now is forcing one of the other ISPs to overecharge me (yes force!) as they own the wires between us. Very fast wireless broadband however is available if you are in line of sight of Carnane so in theory, all communications, except mobile, can now bypass MT for a majority of the island's population. If the other mobile operators actually happen then most of us won't need MT at all. If I ran MT, I'd be worried.

 

All competition is healthy and whilst its tempting to drawn parallels with air fares, I think they are a special case. Yes, I regret the passing of Manx Airlines but they sold it and its gone forever.

[Ean]

Well, I have to say that I am sticking with MT, more specifically Pronto Mobile. There are 3 mobiles in my house, 2 on PAYG for the children. Pronto is the only network I know that I can call up, top up with my debit card with minimal fuss.

 

My experiences with Virgin Mobile, and some of my friend's experiences with other providers in the UK is that you have to go through a lengthy process of telling them numbers that the mobile you want to top up has recently called to top it up. For the love of god, has anyone actually tried to prise a 14 year old's mobile out of his hand, let alone ask him the last few numbers he has called?!

 

In contrast my experiences with Virgin Mobile have been unbelievably simple. Once you've registered a card to an account you can top up via text, phone call, online and through the top up card. Registering a card is pretty simple (i did it online but you can do it in the store when you buy the sim card) and i don't remember having to give them my life story to do it. I've never had the network get "clogged" as it frequently seems to do with MT, never had to faff about setting up WAP or GPRS settings like i had to on MT and it's cheaper call charges.

[ballaughbiker]

I've been with Virgin for nearly 8 years as have the other two in the house. No monthly fee but none of the restrictions of PAYG. They just dd the cost of calls each month.

[Busby]

First: I am an Ex MT employee!

 

Back in the 'good old days' of Analogue Mobiles, I was one of only 3 dealers signed up to sell MT airtime on the Island. We all signed an agreement to sell only MT airtime and not to compete with MT..

 

Sufficient to say, I was the only dealer to adhere to the contract.. At that time a mobile cost around £500 but you got a rebate back form MT [about £150] to subsidise the cost of the phone. We also got to keep the connection charge - about £50 - and that was our profit..

 

However, the other dealers started signing customers to UK air time and were getting rebates of between £400 and £500 per customer - so I complained to MT, who had the ability at that time to have them cut off.. What did they do? nothing..

 

As it was my wish to honour the contract I had signed, I was forced out of the mobile business..

 

Then came GSM.

 

I applied to become an MT GSM reseller and guess what? 'We have appointed as many resellers as we need at this time and do not anticipate appointing any more..' You can imagine how I felt! The only business that had honoured its agreement was cast aside - what's more, a loyal and highly respected ex-employee - well, it doesn't count for anything..

 

As for this current episode.. MT needs to keep its present retail distribution as its certainly shooting itself in the foot by its present action.. At the end of the day MT needs as many customers as it can retain.. If it thinks it will keep customers by reducing its sales outlets from 5 to 1 or whatever, I think its counting the wrong beans.. This action will make its former agents more determined than ever to sell the competition's product..

 

Regarding the broader issues. I never could understand how you could buy a SIM in the UK from 02 and use it anywhere in the UK and Northern Ireland and not pay roaming charges. Buy the same 02 SIM from MT, when it was 02, and only be able to use it on the Isle of Man, and at 2 or 3 times the cost! In fact, I was so annoyed I complained to the Comms. Commission and I thought I was talking to MT's PR department!

 

'Well, you must understand, the cost of setting up a Mobile Network on a small Island' etc etc.. Hang on! Didn't I read there are more mobiles on the Island than Landlines?

 

OK - lets say 50,000 subscribers more or less.. With Landline you have the Exchanges - 9 of them if my memory serves me correct - then you have to interconnect them with Trunks, connect them to the UK - undersea cable £Millions, Microwave links, cables to cabinets, cabinets to pillars, pillars to poles, poles to houses, houses need wiring! More £Millions..

 

Mobiles - Mmm put up a few masts and bingo - you have a network!

 

In my honest opinion - Mobile tariffs should be lower than Landline.. ever tried comparing speech quality?

 

Oh well, forgive me, rant over - but I just had to get my two pence worth in..

 

Sorry Gary! defo won't get an agency now ha ha..

[Foxtrotlima]

Ean, I shall stand corrected on this one. It was a couple of years ago I had this problem and to be honest, it really did put me off. The problem I had was trying to explain why I wanted 3 mobiles registered to the one card. From my personal experience, MT really do win on customer services.

 

My Mum, who is not the youngest or most spritely person on this earth moved house recently. She needed landline, internet and mobile sorting, so she called up, verified who she was and gave the girl she was talking to permission for me to sort it out for her. The person I spoke to looked at my Mum's account and recommended a new tariff for her, one which Mum is over the moon with. There aren't many companies I know of who will sell a package whereby they actually receive less money off the customer!

[jacko]

Well I recieved my pay-monthly phone saturday,phoned MT to activate the SIM only to be told it would have to wait until monday(she was just the help desk).I told her that I really needed it activated as I had run my PAYG sim to zero credit.She rang me back to tell me that I had been given £10 on my PAYG for free to get me through the weekend(£2 would have been enough TBH) and apolagised for the delay in receiving my pay monthly phone.

As I said before,I just can`t fault MT at all.