I wonder if many ISPs have been delivering such bad service for so long that some people don't bother to ask their ISP for help any more, even if it is an ISP that is willing and able to get things fixed.

A kind of general lowering of expectations.

In reply to a post by Matchstick:

I wonder if many ISPs have been delivering such bad service for so long that some people don't bother to ask their ISP for help any more, even if it is an ISP that is willing and able to get things fixed.
A kind of general lowering of expectations.

Lot of truth in that. Fair enough if they can't or wont fix it then you can have a good moan.

However I think it is more the case that most people's default position with regard to any supplier of goods not just ISPs, is to whine first preferably as loud as possible, rather than contact the supplier to see if the problem can be fixed.

Some of the verbal incontinence I've seen on TB when a simple phone call first would probably have sorted things, never ceases to amaze me.

yep indeed, its become somewhat of an acceptance. Line drops, low synch speeds etc. people have sort of just learnt to accept these kind of problems on adsl connections.

aaisp in a 2+ year period of me using adsl max remain the only isp to take me seriously when I was reporting faults, rupert at falconnet (entanet reseller) was ok but aaisp were really on the ball when dealing with BT. aaisp not ever told me to suck it they always followed up on my fault reports.

In reply to a post by Matchstick:

I wonder if many ISPs have been delivering such bad service for so long that some people don't bother to ask their ISP for help any more, even if it is an ISP that is willing and able to get things fixed.

A kind of general lowering of expectations.

I think there is a lot of truth in that. Some of the larger ISP's have been continually eroding the "broadband product" in almost every respect. From Traffic Shaping/Port throttling on the delivery side of the product to outsourced overseas call centres with very limited expertise on the other.
I'm with Zen at present and been with Idnet in the recent past and although i pay more than the mainstream equivalent (ie large ISP) a recent reminder when listening to a mate of mine communicating (well trying to) with Pipex/Homecall reminded me of when I was with talktalk. He was so glad that he eventually got a solution after hours of tring to obtain JUST his username and password (his only reason for the call) that the thought of going through anything like that again put him off in trying to migrate elsewhere in the fear of the agro he'd likely have to go through again.
So yes, I think many just put up with bad service and support as they know that they will need to allocate hours of their time to 1) actually get through to the right department, likely after being on hold 2) get someone who can actually fix the problem when they do find the right department.