Toucan www.toucan.com Review

Overall Rating

Monthly cost - usually under £30. Reasonably reliable broadband service, up to now, albeit a bit slow. Technical service was relatively good (apart from the first call when they said the problem was with my PC when it wasn't!).

Namely, being given conflicting information from the service desk during a very recent incident. However, service had started to perform at reduced level and would hang or not connect with messages such as user name and password not recognised by system. Had to try a number of times on occasions before connection was made.

The reason I am writing this review is that at around 11.30 p.m. on Saturday, 6 September, the internet just hung and I had to End Task. I thought it might have been the web site I was on (although it was a well known site) and so disconnected, and switched off.
When I tried to log on Sunday morning I wasn't able to connect and Internet Explorer page coming up with the message unable to display the page. I kept trying this and in the end phone the service desk. I was also getting error messages from my virus scanner which I didn't understand. The service desk told me there was no problem their end and it was my phone! I asked about the virus scanner messages and whether I should reinstall it from the CD even though it was an older version than that currently on my PC (I knew I could download the upgrades once it was working properly). Toucan told me that would be fine so I went ahead and reinstalled. Still no luck with getting onto the internet and messages still flashing from the virus scanner. I spent the majority of Sunday trying to sort this out - after all I had been told by the experts it was my PC not them causing the problems! Finally, after nearly pulling my hair out, with the air turning blue, I phoned the service desk again (at 30p per minute not cheap) and was immediately told they had a problem on one of their broadband lines! So all my attempts to get the PC working was totally unnecessary (and I am not an expert by any means but it was surprising how much I did learn by trying to get it sorted). They reassured me the system would be back up in 24 hours - i.e. Monday morning. Well, it wasn't. So made another phone call - was told again it would be repaired by end of that day. And, you've guessed, it wasn't. So rang again on Tuesday and got a bit shirty when they said it would be sorted out in next 24 hours. I told them this is what I had been told twice now and the system was still not working. Attempted connecting late Tuesday evening but nothing. So just shut the whole thing down in sheer frustration. Wednesday morning - lo and behold I could connect to broadband. Didn't exactly go wild with joy but my neighbours could probably hear my shout of triumph!
Toucan's one saving grace throughout this was that was that a 'second line' technical person rang me during the morning to notify me that the service was back to normal. I asked what the problem and was told they had done some maintenance on Saturday which had caused problems with one of the broadband numbers. I asked if the problem had been fully resolved and she said it would be fine 'for a long time now'!
I can connect to broadband but it is still hanging on occasions and does not seem very stable. So, I have to agree with the majority of the reviews on the forum that Toucan's service is not as reliable as customers would wish. I had already decided to look at other ISPs before this happened and this has finally made my mind up. However, reading the reviews on what are noted as the top 10 or 20 providers, it seems that none of them are as reliable as customers would wish. Can anyone recommend a provider that does not suffer from the issues that a lot of ISPs seem to? I was drawn to talk because of their good signing on offer but having read their reviews, well not so sure now.
LA, Reading