Airnet - Future In Hull

[Scotty]

Since this has been split into another thread, thought I would edit the opening post so it makes more sense to people who are logging on.
You can view my previous post quoted in Mickys below.

What do you think the future of this company is?

[MickyByte]

Whether it's QL or AN, its the same network, and same old crap problems.

Air Net needs shutting down, and the QL network needs more capacity added, better technology, and more experience in control of it.

Sorry for any offence caused (if any), and congratulations if you receive a good connection from either of these companies.

Sorry for going off topic here but I disagree with Airnet need shutting down, in my opinion what I think this companies need right now is a major redesign in their network strategy because at this moment in time relying upon Quickline isn't working and is actually damaging their reputation. I hope they try contact other providers such as KC to supply bandwidth, I suppose it may be expensive but as my father told me you cant achieve something effortlessly. Maybe I am wrong and this inst the problem however, if so the only thing I can think of then is the frequency being used to carry the data to each Nano station whether it be by unicast or broadcast. I do know that NectGenUs for example use a higher frequency than Quickline which may explain why RichardMyers receives better speed than anyone on their network. This is going by what Simon told me and I don't doubt he will come on here and correct my statement if he sees this in the near future.

I may not be a customer of Airnet anymore but I do still care about them and the status of competition within this city, if they cant cut the mustard Scotty then so be it I for one will be also glad to see them leave if the situation ends up like you said. This shows bad management but I do think they have what it takes, its just that some individuals their really need to get their act together especially in the light of some event that have happened on this forum, I wont go into details, dont worry, we all know what happened but that is in the past.

Anyways thats my two pence.

[dunny]

I have to agree with micky, airnet do sorta work well, they do alot of things bad and the customer service isnt amazing, but its quicklines network and they have no control over this,

if airnet used a diffrent network and sorted out there customer service im sure they would do well, but until they do i have to agree with scotty they cant go on providing this joke to paying customers, i had an email back from watchdog the other day and they want to know more, i havent botherd replying tho as im no longer with them

[Scotty]

This is what I think personally, makes a good business;
Good customer care team
Good sales/advertisement
Quality service
Good financial management/rules

Do AN actually have of any of this?
They're customer care team equates to 1 man and his phone; Ricky - Who jumps from position to position, selling the company, giving 'support' and actually installing the service. They do not respond to e-mail messages well, do not notify of T&C changes, insult paying customers (Have screenshots of this!) and provide incorrect information when you need support. Not forgetting claiming speedtest.net isn't compatible, and you get your head ripped off if you go to Quickline support, rather than them - even though QL own the network.

The sales and advertisement of this company is also questionable. Even now (21/1/11), they're still advertising this service as great for on-line gaming and streaming, even though most people of this forum have left based on the fact we can't game properly. One of way of them gathering interest was on this forum, and Facebook. They quickly closed the Facebook page due to some negative comments from customers experiencing problems, and stopped posting support here! Don't ignore your customers, help them!

The quality of service of this company is the biggest worry of them all. This is mainly to do with QL, however AN could have better processes in place to let customers know of upcoming network outages, upgrades and down-times. The network on a whole isn't compatible with ping dependant applications, suffers with NAT issues, has immense problems with stability, has many outages/downtimes, struggles with basic streaming, and experiences packet loss. I am aware that they're maybe some customers such as marko who do not experience these issues, so fair play to them.

As for the financial side of this company, I come back to the fact that they refunded some customers, but not all - that is fundamentally wrong.
The problem wasn't with the customer, is was with the network - the network that AN promised with their advertising would be fine, however it was not.
If they're going to refund some customers for the installation charges, they should refund all of them. Not only that, they don't even remove all articles of the equipment, leaving the wires and holes in place. Monthly charges should also be reduced if the service isn't working as it should imo.
If they are aware of problems on the network, which often they are - engineer visits should be free of charge to fix the problems, instead of throwing a £60 charge down your throat.
In the words of Ricky himself to me over the phone regarding a visit - 'It will cost me £50 before I get the ladder out the van'

Now I'm sorry for going on like this, and maybe I deserve some kind of warning, and feel free to PM if you think i'm going to far (mods), but I would be happy if this company did not get one more person signing up, for 2 reasons;
1. The current customers would have more bandwidth available to them, rather than AN signing customers up with bad signal strength, negatively affecting the total available capacity to the rest of the good paying customers.
2. I do not want anyone else suffering from the quality of service and customer care which many of us have had to endure. We pay for service!

This is based on personal experiences, and ones which I have seen other customers experience, if you have not experienced these issues, I'm glad for you, and please don't take offence.

[dunny]

Everything you said is true, QL support is VERY good thats why people turned to quickline rather then airnet, but the network and the setup is so poor

[richardmyers]

No warning, but it was taking the other thread mega-off topic so I've split it into this new one.

[Djwindas]

hmmm well iv got news airnet will soon be on its own and not part of QL!

[Scotty]

hmmm well iv got news airnet will soon be on its own and not part of QL!

Really? Who will they be using for their backhaul?

[dunny]

hmm DJ thats interesting, ricky seems to know his stuff ill give him that he was a 1 man marching band lets hope it works out

[Djwindas]

ricky didnt disclose who they were moving to but he did say they will be soon (as in news few months) we will know when speedtest.net tests show our isp as airnet

[dunny]

i dont think that will happen DJ the speed test thing i mean, i wonder if airnet have done a deal with kc or nextgenus, would be nice if ricky could post on here and clear this up once and for all, As ive said before ricky is a one man marching band but even tho i did get pissed off with airnet, the facts of high pings slow speeds stop at quickline, The airnet customer service and aftersales service was poor, ricky trying to cover too many jobs plus installs

[Djwindas]

seems to me he is a 1 man band too lol but i do think hes trying his best to sort shit out

[dunny]

i hope its true for the customers who are still with airnet, now to be real  its never gonna happen

[Ricky]

Hi folks,

Quite a lot of stuff has been going on behind the scenes, and things are looking good. Our coverage and capacity has expanded massively, also speeds are now beginning to settle, and pings are lower.

Our new support team (for our 24 Hour ADSL support service) have been also helping out for the time been, so if anybody has contacted us online recently, they would have noticed a prompt response and solution from us.
 
Through collaboration via our support system, we were able to cross reference issues, and all of this information has helped us detect the problems and find find a solution, which has resulted in a complete restructure of the wireless network infrastructure, which was done wirelessly over the last 48 hours.

Looking great so far, lets see how things go!

[Ricky]

Hi again folks, as you can see things are looking pretty good for Air Net users, as I stated they would do some time ago.

We did look at some offers like other providers have done, but as I always said; we never wanted to attract millions of customers, because we don't have to. We are just happy to give an alternative to Hull.

We hope that it has worked out for the people who are using our services, and would also like to thank everyone for sticking by us when our wireless service was new to Hull. We have since massively improved our customer services, support, and also streamlined our internal systems.

I would also like to add, that more upgrades will be added to the network in the near future, offering our service access to a much broader customer base, and also wider coverage to well over 600,000 potential locations.

Thank you all for your help and support, and I'm sure that there will be some bonuses for all the existing karooforum air net customers in the future, who have stuck with us from the start