The end of the road for our long relationship with Demon Internet

With seemingly even the milkman offering broadband services these days, it is easy to forget that companies like Demon Internet pioneered internet connectivity in the UK, and were the best in the market for a long time; often the professionals choice where quality and reliability were more important than saving a couple of pounds a month. Through our various incarnations over the years, we have consistently recommended Demon to our clients, and until around 2 years ago this recommendation gave us remarkably little trouble. That is until THUS and then Cable and Wireless got involved.

Firstly, under THUS, we had tolerated the withdrawal of the Account Managers: who had been invaluable as they frequently took ownership of a problem and dealt with it for you. We shrugged our shoulders philosophically when they then shipped first line technical support off to India. It was after all; the way of the world these days. The first signs of real trouble however, came around the time that Demon introduced their ADSL2+ product into the market. A new technology using Cable and Wireless equipment in the exchanges; quicker speeds and longer reach were promised and initially we were quite excited about it all. Our own line transferred, we were soon enjoying download speeds of 13Mbs. However, with the extra speed came frequent degradation of speed to almost a crawl, and “far-too-often” loss of service all together. As our customer base was gradually moved over to the new technology, our experience was seen to be replicated by most of our Demon clients.

You tend to forget that new technology brings its problems. Looking back to the first introduction of ADSL MAX, all the pain we experienced then is lost in the mists of time, but a quick look at the call logs of the day proves it was no less frustrating. The difference between then and now is how Demon handled it. Back then we had access to London based techies as opposed to Indian based flowchart followers. Our access to the people “in the know” has gradually been curtailed to the point where we are frequently refused access to even talk to them before having to jump through hoops.

So it was, that around 12 months ago it all came to a head when we threatened to recommend to our clients that they move from Demon. With many circuits under our management, encompassing lease lines, SDSL and ADSL, this wasn’t something to recommend lightly. Within hours of muting this to Demon, I had their Head of Channel on the phone. A nice chap called Alex; he listened patiently to my complaints and concerns. He explained that Demon had “lost their way” under THUS, but their new owners Cable and Wireless were taking it all very seriously, and were pushing for improved customer and technical service and it was all be okay soon. “calm down dear … it’s only an internet connection”.

To be candid, I was not entirely reassured, but knowing the disruption that would ensue in moving all our circuits, I took his comments at face value and decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. Of course, this faith proved to be misplaced. Virtually a week after that conversation, I called trying to resolve a customer issue. UK “partner” technical support promptly bumped me off to India where I spoke to a chap who knew less about broadband than my cat! Exasperated I hung up. Despite our best efforts we had to wait out the problem without feedback or information.

Next was one of our larger customers who suddenly started experiencing service degradation following an upgrade to ADSL2+ at 2 sites. We could sympathise with this one, as we had experienced the same problem with our own connection. Our solution had been to change to ZEN Internet. On the face of it a backwards step to ADSL MAX, but we haven’t had a bit of trouble since. Back to our customer: Demon technical support, while not bumping us to India this time, demonstrated a complete inability to resolve the issue. It was suggested by them that the problem was inherent with the ADSL2+ kit in the exchange. Where do we go from there?

In summary, until yesterday we had “merely” suffered a catalogue of minor issues and outages, numerous router reboots and many hours onto technical support trying to get them to acknowledge issues. Tuesday 13^th July however saw over 40 circuits completely vanish at 5:15pm and not come back until 2am. I imagine that I was one of hundreds trying to reach technical support, so on this occasion I didn’t even get past the “we are experiencing higher than normal call volumes, but your call is important to us” routine. Obviously it was a major infrastructure issue, so all I could do was ring the customers and keep them informed. All very frustrating.

So, what has the past 12 months taught me? Well, I would strongly discourage anyone from taking services from Demon Internet or Cable and Wireless in the future, and recommend anyone experiencing problems with said companies to move and be done with it. Where to move too is the question? BT are as monolithic and unhelpful as most when there is a problem, and the market place seems to be full of large predators eating up those smaller independents who used to pride themselves on quality of service and technical support. Alongside Demon, Pipex are another prime example of a company once held in high esteem, purchased, assimilated and brought low. Why buy a company for the good reputation and then destroy it?

As a newly inaugurated ZEN partner I would of course have a preference. I feel quite evangelical about the company and their products. I love the way they do business, and they have the same ethos as we do. Yes, one could argue I have a financial agenda in recommending them, although the small financial reward we receive would be more than outweighed if the service was not up to scratch. We all want an easy life, so I wouldn’t suggest jumping out of the frying pan into the fire for a few pounds commission per connection. They are independent, fiercely proud of their product and support and intend to remain so.

Having been reminded what real service is like, we have reached the end of the road with Demon. A little sad really.

Lindsey Hall

14^th July 2010

Lindsey Hall has worked as an IT Consultant to Small and Medium Businesses for 15 years. She is also a director of Sentinel Business IT Ltd, Peterborough: one of the regions fastest growing IT support companies.

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