Today was supposed to be the first step in trying to cut the cord, so to speak. As mentioned, Internet wise you don’t really have too much choice here other than to use a reseller of the big providers. Therefore, I decided to try out this company called CIK Tel because of the price. I am fully aware of the negative experiences I have read online, but for the sake of saving money I subjected myself to seeing if it is a viable way to save money.
Originally I was a little skeptical as they mentioned they can’t switch the service until the contract for the main provider runs out. I originally wanted to setup with them ahead of time before closing down all the current accounts as a safety measure. But, that was not possible so I went with it. The interesting thing was that the lady mentioned during the sign up that no one would have to come to place to set it up as all you have to do is connect the modem.
That’s what led to this funny incident today as a Shaw employee dropped by mentioning that he had to check if the line was working on behalf of CIK. We were both confused. However, he quickly checked the cable line and he was off. He didn’t try to see if it worked with the new modem that was provided. As fate would have it, I was getting no Internet service with CIK all day. It wasn’t too big of a deal as I still have the Shaw service connected.
Unfortunately, the customer service seems as disorganized as everyone has claimed thus far from my experience. First a representative at the retail store claimed that you need to keep the modem hooked up for four hours for it to activate. As strange as it sounded, I tried it. Sure enough, it didn’t work. Hours later, it got escalated to the tech department. The advice didn’t seem to be much better as they suggested going through all the cable outlets and leave the modem on for about ten minutes to see if anything comes up. Sure enough, nothing again.
Fact is, the Internet and everything still worked if I used my current Shaw modem. So after a bit of runaround, the support determined that the modem was faulty and someone would get back to me as soon as possible about a replacement. Unfortunately, that was hours ago and I assume there will be no response until tomorrow.
This is a little unfortunate as people desperately need some cheaper options out there and it’s not looking good here so far. It will be amazing if this doesn’t get resolved for days and they insist in still charging for the service. Hopefully not though. Let’s see what happens.