24/7 tech support

How common is it for an ISP to offer 24/7 tech support? My current ISPs helpdesk will only answer the phone between 8 and 8 weekdays, and saturday morning. I'm sure that once upon a time, 24/7 help was common, but now possibly not, or am I being mislead by my ISP who are suggesting they're all like this?

Not very common on consumer products - no profit in it.

look like the bigger companies offer it (BT, at least, Sky do 8-11 which is close enough)

8-11 is significantly less than 24/7...

Yep. however given most my time online is in the evenings (usually from 9onwards), it's a definite step up from 8-8 which is a significant improvement..

The other thing you need to consider is what actual support you need or are going to get outside of core hours.

Most of the time the support people seem to need is when there is an actual fault on the link. Even if the ISP is open for you to log a call the call won't be actioned by the wholesaler until the next working day.

What are you expecting to need support for? I have been on Broadband since 2001 and I think have called support once in all that time - due to a line fault.

BTs 24/7 support isn't generally considered to be all that great - you will get an Indian call centre and all they will be able to do is follow a script and then raise a call when they can't do anything about it.

Hi, We offer 24x7 support but unless you have enhanced care you are still only going to get basic support, this means you can log a fault, tests can be run and if its a robot fix then that will get passed to be done, stuck sessions and stuff like that are also done 24x7 but if the fault is in say the exchange with a line card for example then regardless of the ISP you are with (including BT Retail) this fault is going in a queue to get dealt with the following working day regardless on who you are with.
Again the only exception to this is if you have enhanced care but that's a whole different story.

I understand the issue.

In an ideal world I wouldn't need support. However I've been having issues with my soon-to-be-Ex ISP with occasional random dropped PPP packets. This mostly happens in the evening, when nobody is answering the phone. Maybe it's something the tier 1 operators can fix, maybe they need to escalate it. The issue I've been having is they're never around to get myself into the system, and if I follow up the next day (from work) all I get is "The line is fine right now, call back if you have any problems" Case closed.

Looking forwards, I've got no idea what I might need support for (historically my line has been quite stable, good sync speed and low errors) - hopefully not the same problem I've been having - but at least with an Indian call centre talking to me as the problem happens I stand a fighting change of fixing it. At the moment there's no chance.

Too many people seem to be looking at the cheapest deal for broadband, so it follows that to compete something has to give, in this case 24/7 quality support. Having said that if its 24/7 and based in India or wherever it's about as useful as a chocolate teapot and the staff quality and knowledge is so basic as to be laughable. Personally I'm not bothered about 24/7. I'm not likely to ring them up at 2.00am. I'd be quite happy for noon till 9pm if the staff were manned by the equvalent of fully qualified 2nd line UK technicians at the lowest level and not script monkeys.