Cheap modems can be a constant bugbear for ISP contact centre agents because they can have a “catastrophic effect on a customer’s broadband service,” and it’s hard to determine whether it’s the client’s connection or the ISP's network that’s at fault.
That’s according to Mike Cranna, managing director of Epitiro. He's circulated an email among the industry seeking interest on to whether it’s viable for his company to establish a modem and router testing service.
“First of all, it requires the cooperation of ISPs. We run a piece of software in their core network, which, on request and via a specific URL, launches an applet on a customer’s browser, and then runs a series of tests between their operating system and the software in the ISPs’ core network.
This tells us of many of the issues that are affecting that service between those two points…. the results can then be viewed by both the user and contact centre staff. Every contact centre manager I talk to loves the idea. It’s just they don’t hold the purse strings.”
Epitiro tests have shown that anything plugged into a telephone jack – such as satellite TV connections and printer/faxes - has the potential to degrade broadband connection speeds.
“A first line of defence for contact centre staff, when confronted with a customer who is having new connection problems, should include questions about the recent addition of any new devices which require the use of a telephone jack, and the number of DSL filters they are running.”