Square Mile - Gosport Marina (and elsewhere)...

[mldpt]

I have subscribed to Square mile in Scotland and have used it succesfully in Largs and Clyde marina but I am now in St Helier marina Jersey and although it was great I have had problems with it, but its up and running again now, I have only got the standard wifi on my laptop and onlyuse it down below, tomorrow I will get a USP wifi with extention cable perhaps this will improve the signal strength. One of the great advantages of a broadband connection on board when it is up and running properly is being able to use Skipe I phone all over the world for free and very cheaply to a land line.
I have found the help line at Square Mile very helpful over the problems here in St Helier.

 

[mldpt]

Hi I have used GPRS for a few years now, and apart from downloading e-mails it is very costly I have a vodafone sim card which goes into my card slot I pay £2.50 per month for which I get 1mb included then I pay £1 per mb up to a max of 50 mb I also have gprs contract with Vodafone which I think cost me £2 per mp compared to my square mile conection this is costly. I agree its very reliable but as I am in Jersey and mobile phones and GPRS are treated as roaming it would be out of the question viewing this site on GPRS, and GPRS speeds are not fast enough for Skipe phone which I have been useing here.
Mike

 

[mldpt]

I have had several phone chats with them about the poor connection here in St Helier, and they have been very helpfull, I think that if nobody complains then they assume it all to be OK it is up and running here now but could be a stronger signal I will be trying and ariel tomorrow.
Mike

 

[Richard10002]

[ QUOTE ]
I have a vodafone sim card which goes into my card slot I pay £2.50 per month for which I get 1mb included then I pay £1 per mb up to a max of 50 mb

[/ QUOTE ]

Might be worth taking a look at this:

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showflat.php?C...rue#Post1181821

Wind offer 2 deals worth looking at

MEGA NO LIMIT 20 euros per month for 1Gb per month in Italy or 200Mb per month roaming (7p per Mb)

MEGA 15000 30 euros per month for 5Gb per month in Italy or 1Gb per month roaming (2p per Mb)

MEGA 15000 is supplied as half for the first half of the month, and half for the second half of the month.. so if you dont use half in the first half of the month, the balance doesnt get carried over to the second half of the month.

Speed is 384Kbps on 3g which is fast enough for Skype, although Skype seems to use up the Mb quite fast... about 2 minutes per Mb last time I cheked.

 

[mldpt]

Hi I have today bought a USB wifi dongle and a 2 mtr usb extention cable I am now able to put the dongle on deck and connect it to my Laptop down below. Made all the difference I now have 11Mbs skipe works well so once again the PBO forum solves the peoblem.
Regards Mike

 

[nicho]

We berth at Chichester and it's useless - I have yet to come across anyone who can connect successfully.

We tried to cancel the contract, but they refused, saying the system was about to be upgraded. We havn't been back since this was supposed to have been done, but if it's still the same when we return, contract or not, the monthly direct debit will be cancelled.

 

[BOATKID]

you should write to peter jones at the dragons den !

 

[Oen]

boatkid,

Forgive me, for I'm not a telly viewer (it was pure chance that I caught the brief bit of the bloke mentioned above).

Who's Peter Jones?

 

[jwrhind]

I have a subscription and my experience is somewhat mixed. When it works, it's very good, but over the last couple of months I have experienced a number of 'outages' at a marina. Outages are a fact of life with systems and I accept that.

The first outage was shortly after I'd received an email from them informing me that support was no longer Premium Rate. On calling the number, it was unobtainable! When complained, I was advised that the new support service was not yet actually live. My request to be called back re my fault report was refused and I was told I would have to dial the premium number. I really do object to this to report their system faulty, although I think for people having problems with their PCs it's fair enough.

The marina staff were able to exert pressure and it was fixed in around a week. Sadly, it soon failed again, but by that time the new support arrangements had kicked-in and it was much better with a prompt answer and a call back to say it was working.

Perhaps this is the growing pains of a maturing organisation. From my experience, it has improved and I am likely to remain a customer.

 

[Oen]

Well, I sent them a snotogram by e-mail on Monday. Not a word of reply.

Why do we put up with utter rubbish like this? Rhyno, I take your point, but your story is that of a company being incompetently managed. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Alrob]

I am assuming you have not seen Dragons Den

Peter Jones is one of the dragons (successful Business people) who listen to business ideas & decide if they want back certain projects. basically Peter Jones backed the chap staring up square mile (dominic something)
Peter Jones is involved in mobile technology (SWMBO says hes a smarmy git)

 

[Oen]

Well, here (a couple of weeks late) is an extract from the response from Square Mile:

START QUOTE

Bearing all the above in mind I understand the points you made and that you wish to cancel your account. Unfortunately you are on the unlimited tariff which, as you know, is for a minimum of 12 months and shouldn’t be cancelled until August 2007. I am willing to offer a compromise and can take payment for the remaining months upfront if you wish which would be £90 or you could continue to pay your £10 a month and still be able to use our service.



Alternatively I could convert your account to Pay As You Go and charge you for the minutes already spent online at that rate which would mean the following:



Total: 4654.05mins



Cost @ 20p/min = £930.81


END QUOTE

My question: Given that I certainly haven't been online for anything like that amount of time, would I be correct in assuming that the above is what is known in the vernacular as 'taking the farking piss'?

...and whatever happened to 'the customer is always right'?

 

[Gunfleet]

Just write two letters. 1) cancelling the contract and 2) reporting them to trading standards for not supplying what they promised. Matey's letter to you is good evidence. You're an individual they are a company. They are bullying you. When they've had the TSO bothering them they'll wish they'd never heard of you.

 

[Richard10002]

They may as well have written...

"You've agreed a contract, we dont care that our service is crap/non existent, we're going to have your money.... NOW F*** RIGHT OFF!!"

Given what I have read about SM., if I had a choice of marinas, and one had SM and another had a different operator, I would go to the other marina.. so the first thing I would do is take it up with the marina operator... they may be a bit upset that SM are upsetting their customers, (or they may not be bothered). I would also report them to Trading Standards, any local newspapers i could find, and the boating mags. You could also try writing to Peter Jones as they operate out of his offices and he is a shareholder.

I probably wouldnt stop paying as £10 is neither here nor there compared to the legal/collection costs that they could rack up, and it is possible that their contract may be seen as valid, albeit a pile of crap. Having said that, I would write to them and advise that you are continuing to pay under duress, (there may be a better legal way of phrasing it.

I must say that my impression of Square Mile ever since the guy was on Dragons Den was that they seemed like a bunch of sharks.

here in Lagos, there are 3 hotspots located in various parts of the marina and, now that I have a USB adaptor on deck, the service is faultless, so there is no doubt that it can be done.

You could start a www.squaremileproblems.co.uk website

Good Luck