[richdougherty]

I did this when I was choosing a laptop. I called up a few laptop repair shops. It as so helpful! They could tell me what was junk and what was OK.

I also do something like this this when choosing a new ISP. I call the support line instead of the sales line. Somehow ISPs can answer sales enquiries instantly while support calls take 45 minutes to answer. This strategy has led me to use some of the smaller (slightly more expensive) ISPs, because I know they'll answer almost straight away.

[eterm]

My best customer support experience was calling an American ISP (I guess a small regional one but I have no good way to judge their size). I had been emailed billing details for a customer - the customer had presumably mistakenly entered my email address. I was expecting the usual 40 minutes on hold but it was answered promptly and politely by someone who understood the problem as I presented it.

This contrasts greatly with my experience calling any UK ISP.

The only other phone support I've experienced that has come close to that was (the now sadly defunct) Icesave, which I believe shared their phone support with Newcastle building society.

[bensummers]

If you're not having luck with UK ISPs, try https://www.aaisp.net.uk/

They have technical people running support who talk to customers as peers. Also you can use IRC if you don't like the phone.

[Nexxxeh]

Yeah, they're not the cheapest by a long stretch, but if your connection is something you NEED rather than something you just LIKE... Andrews and Arnold are worth the premium.

If you will be losing productivity if there's any outage, you'll probably save the price difference the first time you use their support.

I've had good experiences with Zen too, on their FTTP product. (I'd have used AA, but they didn't offer that specific setup.)

[danpalmer]

+1 for Zen - they really know what they are doing. Unfortunately FTTC still requires intervention from Openreach who are still terrible.

I find Zen is a good middle ground between a reliable ISP with good features (like static addresses, IPv6, etc) and good support, and a provider like Andrews * Arnold who are excellent but will cost 2-3x the price. A&A are just not really suited to home use, and price a lot on bandwidth, which in the age of Netflix isn't great.

[Rjevski]

+1 for AAISP. I use them for mobile and they're awesome - no contracts, no marketing BS, no fine print, just voice and data at a fair price.

[Semaphor]

I'm paying 5€ extra per month (Germany) for more upstream, a crappy sla and most importantly a dedicated support hotline. Whenever I call, it's a waiting time measured in seconds and the people answering have technical knowledge.

[drewg123]

It must be nice to have a choice of ISPs. I have exactly one to "choose" from.

[brianwawok]

I have two if I count 4 mbit DSL from ATT as my second option.

Yay for monopoly!

[mod]

You aren't reaching enough. You've also got satellite and dial-up options.

I would love to have something other than DSL, satellite, and dial-up as an option.

[Moru]

I only have three medias to choose from. Dsl, cable and fiber. No idea how many companies to choose from on each of them though. You plug in your computer to the wall outlet and get a list of offers in the browser, sorted on price, contract time (3 month all of them). Click a button to choose and off you go surfing. Pretty ok for a socialist country :)

Plenty of space if you feel like moving.

[aeorgnoieang]

What country?

And is the scenario you described available everywhere in the country? I'm imagining that the cities must manage whatever infrastructure there is that connects your wall outlets to the various ISPs – is that right?

[Moru]

Sweden.

Most houses connected to the central heating system has also access to fiber. The selection of ISP is more or less the same way but in smaller villages a phone call is usually needed but this is slowly moving in the same direction as the cities. Dsl can be chosen pretty freely everywhere there still are copper networks but they are shutting down that in the less populated areas. Still might have access to fiber though even if the village only have 30 houses.

Either the powercompany, citywide housing company or the state takes care of the fiber network. Dsl is some former state owned company taking care of I believe. Havent had to use dsl the last 20 years so not so sure how it works there now.

[arethuza]

We had an excellent shower repair guy who probably saved us £1500 by managing to fix a badly installed shower valve in place rather than requiring the entire show unit to be ripped out.

I did ask him if they recommended particular makes of plumbing fittings but he told me their company policy was never to make recommendations :-(

[dexterdog]

Hard to do with laptops if you prefer the newer ones. They don't have much of a track record when I usually buy one.

[kqr]

Not only that. There are so many models out there that even if they have been around for a while, the small group of people you manage to ask does not make up a statistically reliable dataset.

Buying laptops is really scary that way. Half the time you get some shit yuo have to outlive, and the other half it's fairly decent. Only once or twice have I heard people hit the jackpot.

[richdougherty]

I agree it would be hard to ask about specific models. I just asked about which brands were the most reliable and easiest to repair.

[g45hsrthgf]

You're right regarding sales/support responsiveness.

I've found the quickest way to get a Comcast rep on the line is to select the menu option that states "I'm having trouble submitting my bill payment." :)

[nathancahill]

So how's your new Macbook Pro?