Heads up

[I_Hate_Sky_Awnsers]

What's with all the tier one agents getting defensive? If you're one that knows what they're doing then good for you, but most of them are awful I'm afraid. I also don't remember saying anything positive about CST but there you go.

And as for LAMA being taken away I heard the same as I Hate Sky Answers, basically that some agents were royally duffing things up and spoiling it for everyone else.

I agree with you on that being the reason that they are doing it.

Only thing that i dont get is how you can manage it. LAMA is a very simple system to use, worst case scenario once setup has been checked they set it to what LAMA says for the max attain. simples!!!

[User05]

It's certainly not rocket science, but it's not as simple as just uncapping speeds. Not often will the line train in at the max attainable rate. Too many people do the following:

- Don't use the correct line code for a line
- Always stick INP to auto/auto
- Always stick delays to 32ms/32ms (unless someone is calling about gaming)
- Stick random bit rates in (not a big deal as it's rounded to the nearest multiple of 32, but annoying when people simply uncap a downstream rate to 5000 instead of 5120kbps, for example)
- Forget to uncap upstream
- Leave DLM suspended
- Forget to uncap from baseline (64/64 or 128/128) for no sync issues, which means more Openreach co-op calls or customer calls through to uncap it

[I_Hate_Sky_Awnsers]

Agree with your comments User05 what i mean was they should either have a test for it or train people that they are going to give it to.

Usually it is either handed out randomly or only given if you get into CST.

They could have a test for it and ask whatever questions that they feel are relevant and then they would know which people would be able to use it correctly when they get it.

They really need to give everyone a read only version on IRIS, first thing it asks on sky answers is is it suspended. Valid question i grant but a PITA to get someone to check for you.

[Scubbie]

One firm I used to work for stopped training people in the call centre, on all the equipment because the turnover of staff was so high. Personally I think they were looking at the wrong issue.

To allow anyone on a system that can mess up someone's connection without any training is akin to holding a gun to your own head and playing Russian Roulette.

Training and a test with a pass/fail result afterwards should always be provided at all levels of support. The truth is most companies don't bother now.

The next issue is the quality of the training itself. Not everyone can teach.

[I_Hate_Sky_Awnsers]

Thats true about not everyone being able to teach.

If they wanted they could just put you side by side with someone in CST for a couple of hours and you would be able to learn by example.

[Scubbie]

Whilst the experience may be beneficial for some individuals, again it wouldn't necessarily be ideal.

I've taught plenty of people to dive. Some people take to it like a fish, whilst others require some personalised techniques to get over the hurdles that seem to appear.

Such personalised training isn't always so practical for call centres, but with a good set of teaching notes it would be possible to pass on the relevant information to the students.

P.S. Perhaps now I can say that I'm one of those people qualified to take people for long walks on short piers? (thinking of yesterday evening of course )

[slickric21]

Lama just shows the PPP session username (xxxx@skydsl), so you couldn't tell from that alone. On the other hand, PuTTY, which only a handful of advisors probably have access to now, fires up a lot more details such as vendor ID of the router being used. IWNTE would be able to tell you more about that, as I've never used PuTTY.

I know the topic has moved on from this now..... But I fail to see how PuTTY will tell them 100% if you are using a non-sky router.

I've used PuTTY before now to check the chipset on my DSLAM (To confirm it would match my Billion's so get better upstream)

Basically you will just see the Vendor ID, which is an abbreviation of the chipset.
So this would say "BRCM" eg if you were using a Broadcom based Sky DG834Gt. (im not sure what all the other Sky routers are based on, but I think the Sagem is Broadcom aswell)

However there are loads more Broadcom based routers out there, if you are using one of those then how would Sky know its a none Sky branded one ?

Personally i'd be detected as my Chipset is Conexant/Solos so "CXNT" would show up as Vendor id.......

If Sky would use this method for detecting non-sky routers, i'd just get the best non-Sky (wireless N etc etc) Broadcom based router and use that instead !!!1

They wil have to come up with a more robust method than using PuTTY to check vendor ID's lol !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[I_Hate_Sky_Awnsers]

It's fine about going back to talking about puTTY its more like a general chat in this thread anyway.

Not sure how they are planning on doing it puTTY was only speculation, hoping that they don't do it. Or not until they provide good enough routers that they can then expect people to use the sky supplied ones.

The routers sky supply are not the worst in the world but there are always going to be better routers available and until the standard of routers dramatically increases they are bound to know that people are going to use their own for a variety of reasons

[Birks]

I know the topic has moved on from this now..... But I fail to see how PuTTY will tell them 100% if you are using a non-sky router.

I've used PuTTY before now to check the chipset on my DSLAM (To confirm it would match my Billion's so get better upstream)

Basically you will just see the Vendor ID, which is an abbreviation of the chipset.
So this would say "BRCM" eg if you were using a Broadcom based Sky DG834Gt. (im not sure what all the other Sky routers are based on, but I think the Sagem is Broadcom aswell)

However there are loads more Broadcom based routers out there, if you are using one of those then how would Sky know its a none Sky branded one ?

Personally i'd be detected as my Chipset is Conexant/Solos so "CXNT" would show up as Vendor id.......

If Sky would use this method for detecting non-sky routers, i'd just get the best non-Sky (wireless N etc etc) Broadcom based router and use that instead !!!1

They wil have to come up with a more robust method than using PuTTY to check vendor ID's lol !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, but they could also be using it to log in to the router remotely and actually *do* stuff on it, in which case any non-sky router would behave differently and they'd know.

I dunno, we'd need a CST agent to tell us what exactly they use it for.

[Sanity]

N routers will be rolled out soon according to a brief we have recently recieved, although an actual date hasn't been finalised as yet, but it will be some improvement.

I have consulted 2 of my managers after reading about this apparent plan to stop people using their own routers and nobody has heard a thing about it.

Think about it. Why would they risk losing thousands of customers? As long as you connect your Sky router to call in and troubleshoot your connection if you have a problem they are fine with it.

As far as my previous post, I'm a support agent, and last night alone I was alerted to 4 calls from colleagues who were being refused escalation from CST. Not only does it make things twice as difficult for us but frustrates the customer as they have generally been on the phone for some time already.

Anyone from CST please be advised details of said calls are all currently being passed to management for investigation, so if they are being refused it should be for good reason.

And by the way, currently plans are in the pipeline to get read only access for IRIS to all agents. Although waiting for logins from Sky for applications is a bit like waiting for Brad Pitt to turn up in my bedroom....