Our tv bods

[JanB]

are rubbish, really bad.

MEO, they're called. We have them for tv and internet and sadly also for the phone. When we first moved, they were the only company you could have, as there wasn't anyone else.

I won't bore you with all the rubbish service we've had, not only us, but everyone and the hassle I had to replace the router a few years ago, when they insisted I had to go to a shop, who didn't have what I needed. Algarve or Beja, take yer pick

Had to ring them tonight, as we've lost all Portuguese tv.

They all spoke English, which I wasn't expecting, I was treated to my full name, every time , they thanked me for waiting whilst they checked the problem, thanked me again for holding and then said that there is a problem with the box.

Friday morning, we have a new box being delivered. Here, to our house. Unheard of. We'd normally have to collect it from either Beja or the Algarve.

[cromwell]

That's a win then Jan.
Yay for customer service!

[victor]

Fingers crossed then Jan it's a long time til Friday

Did they actually say THIS Friday.lol

[JanB]

Did they actually say THIS Friday.lol

Yes, we double checked the date and time

My old neighbours eventually had to get their solicitor onto them, to cancel their contract. As they were out of the country, with no intention of returning, no point having their service. But not according to meo. You signed the contract, you pay.

[victor]

Had no problem with NOS when we left even though we were only a few months into a 2year contract,their rule was as long as payments are up to date cancelling was no problem.

Wouldn't have let MEO come in even if they offered it free !

[JanB]

Just had a text from them, asking me to confirm the date and time

Something is up

[Suff]

Fortunately we get Freesat here in France and Orange (France Telecom) are not too bad now they have fibred the town.

Unfortunately, from what I read, you'd need on of these to get Freesat way down south in Portugal.



If you continue to get poor service there is not really that much of an option. You could look at starlink but it is a beta service right now, not for the faint hearted. I was going to try it but we got Fibre available just before it was available to order here in France. Something to watch for the future perhaps.

Beyond the freesat stuff, I use online streaming, but for that you need a VPN and all the big public ones are now tagged. I use a very specific service which costs 1/3 the main providers price and my IP in the UK is unique to me. Meaning the Netflix/Amazon of the world can't see if I'm hiding behind a VPN or not. Not so good for downloading movies though...

[JanB]

It's not so much the reception Suff, it's the customer service, dire, really dire.

Having been here for 16 years, we're used to the Portuguese tv and only a couple of English channels. The internet, as we're remote, it wifi, so also a bit dodgy.

[Suff]

A dish like that would give you UK TV on Freesat, only a decoder needed, no support.

Big investment though and you would need to know it actually worked. i.e. someone locally who has done it. Essentially the only difference between satellite in the UK and in the south or north of Europe is that the signal is so weak you need a much bigger dish to focus it. The one in the photo is 5 meters across.

As for the internet, it is a pity about starlink not being a robust service because it is satellite based but with the performance close to a fibre landline. Mind you Starlink user support is likely worse than the Portugese ISP because it is virtually non existent. Unless you can get Elon Musk to react to your tweets that is.

Poor service is always a problem. My issue is usually the person who wants to go through all the checking I've already done, slowly and one line at a time on the on screen checklist, before they get up to speed with where I am.

When they put my fibre in it would not connect. Apparently someone screwed up the registration of the router and it was not authorised to connect. At least the installation engineer knew what was going on and got it fixed in about 30 minutes once he finally got through to their service desk internally.

Now it just works. I don't take their mail services, their document storage or their TV. Just the internet and the phone.