Could I just say that NextGentel sucks? Sure, I was stupid to sign up for the three year sell-your-soul deal, but the speed was going to increase such a lot and it was part of a salary package (“hjemme PC-ordningen”) so my monthly DSL subscription would come out of my pre-tax income, so it seemed like a good deal. Unfortunately after a year the government decided it was too good a deal and decided that it would have to come out of our after-tax income. And no, despite the deal suddenly becoming really, really bad, there was no way we could escape from it. So I have two more years of having to pay Nextgentel 648 kroner (US $100) a month for broadband. Awesome.
Now if they could provide a decent product I mightn’t complain, but for half of January and all of February my network was unstable and kept falling out. Very annoying, to say the least. I rang customer service, but they simply don’t answer the phone. For several days I got the message (after a three minute phone tree) that they had too many customers calling them so they wouldn’t be able to answer. Please call back another day. WHAT? On the occasions when I got through I only had to wait for 40-50 minutes. Unfortunately the people I finally spoke to often couldn’t help. Eventually, they sent me a new router. My old one, which is their property and the rent is included in my subscription, was more than two years old, after all, ancient in tech terms. After that, the network’s been more or less OK again.
Today they sent me a bill for 79 kroner for postage for the router.
I pay 648 kr a month, have appalling connectivity for over a month, they make me wait for customer service for nearly an hour on several occasions. They finally send me a replacement for the dodgy old router and I’m online again, just in time to stop me actually sending my furious letter of complaint.
And they bill me for delivery of the router.
Please, do yourself a favour and choose another ISP if you’re able.
As for me, I’m going to send THEM a bill for 972 kroner, which is what I paid for the six weeks my network was unstable.
scott
Drag. They should definitely give you your money back.
Marika
Jill, I’m so sharing your frustration, and I couldn’t agree more with you. I dislike (to say the least) NGT. It’s been 19 days since my network connection just disappeared, and I’ve called them almost every other day since (yes, waiting in line on the phone for about an 30-60 min). Now I can’t really believe I will ever be online again. Why are they doing this to me (and you)? They can’t just let their customers wait for weeks and months before fixing the problem.
Martin
Jill: NextGenTel is a lousy company, with lousy customer support. You should totally bill them for the time you lost.
Actually, a strategy which has worked for me on two occasions is this: to write them a customer
complaint and somewhere in it mention that I have a blog, read by a hundred and whatever people
every day, and that I’m posting information on the poor quality on their services etc. On both occasions I’ve done this, the problem has been fixed within the hour.
RS
How come they could change during the time you already had signed? That is not fair.
tormodh
I had some trouble with Bluecom – and when I complained, they wrote off payment for the period in which I were not connected. An polite email will probably do – and state facts. Veiled threats will not help, and I’d be very careful with them unless I am really mad. (IE. they flat out refuse your claim, or reply with a stupid reason.)
I would also check up on prices at other ISPs and ask for a reduction in price and or speed at NGT – without any additional costs, of course. Alternatively, you could try asking some other ISP to pay your transfer to them, and sweeten the deal with you promising to mention the alternative to your co-workers with like problems – and/or promise to tell in your famous blog. 😉
(sell-out – nah, that only applies to everybody else ;))
Telenor is right out (at least for me), NGT I’ve already have heard almost only bad stuff about. I’m not overly happy with Bluecom, rather mere “content”. It was better when the monthly pay were deducted pre-tax. We did get some companywide rebate when the deal fell out of the pre-taxx possibility, but that might have been a Blucom Marketing deal to keep us.
Good luck.
Gro
Hi Jill.I do recommend telenor. They are amasingly fast and
serviceminded. We’ve had some router-trouble etc, and they’ve
helped us within hours. sometimes it has been bigger problems,
and then they’ve comed to our house in a couple of days. No extra
charge as far as i have registred. ( I know it sounds like i’m working for
them, but honestly; their really good)
Thomas
Just to put in a good word for NextGenTel. I am completely happy with their service, but I have had no problems with their products so far, so I have not encountered the “customer support from hell” that many people complain about.
Jill
It’s good to here the positive stories as well… I haven’t received a reply to my bill yet. I suppose I did just submit it electronically – maybe I should print it out properly on yellow paper. I wonder where I get that sort of paper?
Shane
Finally someone has spoken out again the EVIL ISP! NextGenTel is absolutely hopeless, in terms of support, delivery and hardware. Basically for two years my connection would fall out daily, particularly when I was running wirelesss…eventually I had to stop using wireless all together. Most of my colleagues have the same problem.
As an employee at the University of Oslo, I was subjected to NextGenTel as another one of these ìuniversity dealsî- in other words, a service the Private sector charges the State more for less. However, NextGenTel was so bad that the university actually dropped them and gone with Telenor, which I hear, is quite alright.
Keep up the fight!
tankefugl
I’ve been using NGT for almost a year myself, and I can agree that it certainly does suck. I’ve gotten the same thing you do — the connection keeps resetting (or the router actually), and NGT seems unwilling to admit there’s anything they can do.
In addition, it turns out that NGT has (most of the time) lousy routing out of Norway, so for anyone who are playing online games, the latency will skyrocket. It was acceptable playing WoW, but playing FPS games on servers outside Norway is really frustrating. Also, NGT seems to have “bad hours” of the day when ANYTHING will go slow. It’s not broadband, it’s onlyslightlywider-band.
Now, this could be I’m just unlucky, but I’ve had problems getting in touch with the customer service too. They responded to my last e-mail 6 weeks after it was sent.
Luckily, I can change to someone else after this summer.
Jill
Is THAT why I keep lagging on WoW!? Aaarggh!
tankefugl
It kept me at a constant 8-900ms in WoW for a while, while the people I was playing with had no problems (so it couldn’t be the WoW realm).
Although, Blizzard has had their fair share of connectivity problems too, so NGT isn’t the only factor.
Steinar
Hi,Nextgentel really sucks….especially Nextphone,it’s been just SO unstable and they have sent me 5-6 modems (and of course I had to pay 78 nkr to send them back every time). You can live with an unstable Internet for one day or two, but having an unstable phone connection, with kids and old parents, are TOTALLY unacceptable!