Chile Forum

So, I will share the story of getting our phone lines and internet moved to a new house that is only about 1 km from our old house.

We learned the hard way the last time we moved, to not move until the phones and internet are really installed and working. VTR last time showed up to install, and then told us it would be 3 weeks before an IP address opened up in our area to move the phone number because they use a VOIP system. So, we thought we would get a head start this time, before packing anything.

This time we decided to drop VTR all together. We decided to drop VTR mostly because they could not find our new house. It is such a new sector it does not appear on any maps (including Google sat). We are still however for backup going to try and convince them it exist, and hopefully get that line and internet connection moved. Still, I will not cry any tears if I lost it. I almost never use that connection, unless the telefonica connection goes down. I have been using it as a simple fail over, rather than as load balancing for a while because our telefonica connection is much faster. The existing number we can simply redirect and disconnect the equipment.

While making the move, we decided to buy a bunch a commercial line package from Telefonica along with internet. In our buisness, the phone and internet more or less IS our buisness.

So, off to the races we went to get Telefonica to install new lines and move our existing one.

The problem they have with updating the DNS, has now become clear to me. We happened to get a small tour of Telefonica's back offices in Temuco in the course of trying to move the phone lines.

First the building was falling apart. The computers everyone was using in the back office where run from 486's Comcrashes ( A.K.A. compaques ). Those where not really any sort of thin client terminal stations either. Half looked like they had been dropped more than once. The whole office network looked like they had put it together with some scrap cables and some bubble gum. Yes, this is a major international telco. SELL YOUR STOCK!!!!

The most functional piece of computing equipment we seen was a black board and chalk.

We walked by the server room ( I think I seen a hand crank on the side of one of the servers next to the Ford model T logo). They probably can not load BIND, so no worries about patching it.

We where simply trying to get a phone line changed to a new house. They told us that it would take over a month to change the phone number. You are kidding me? It takes a month? They could install a new line however.

Well if it takes them a month to change a phone number, then I can see how it would be nearly impossible to update their DNS server. At least there did not seem to be anyone sitting at a switchboard plugging in wires. Then also, we only got to see part of the facility.

So, we had to start a compeltly diffrent contract to get a phone installed, while waiting for the other line to be switched. That was after over a week of having our application for new lines lost, misdirected, ignored, shrugged, and otherwise screwed up and finally making a trip down in person.

Their new wonderful mantra that smells of some under educated marketing guy's idea of management was that any time they could not do something they would tell us it was because they have different "channels". Channels? What the hell is a channel? I have heard of departments, sections, associates, and so on. What is a channel?

The translation was that 'we are 10,000 different companies using the same logo and have no way of communicating with each other even if the other "channel" is sitting on the other side of the room picking his nose and trying to get Solitaire to run on his 486'.

We wanted to buy four more commercial lines. Because the employees at telefonica simply did not know how to go about doing that, we finally gave up and went for having them install 4 basic consumer packages. The exact same thing, they simply did not know how to make commercial contracts in such a way as they all appear on the same bill with shared national/international min plans. I could not even imagine being a company with say 100 employees and 2 or 3 office buildings. Do you really give up your phone numbers while waiting a month to move? What happens during a sudden expansion of the buisness? Do you just tell your customers, sorry could not get more phone lines installed this month so we can not do more buisness?

I just found out what happened to half of Chile's gross domestic product. It can not get a dial tone.

So, we still have nothing more than a promise from Telefonica that they will install the lines sometime this weekend or next week. So, as backup we go to telefonica del Sur. They where able to deliver the next day without a problem. Internet, Phone, digital TV package. I will test and report back on how they do. I have one of their wireless phones, and it has worked fine over the last year or so.

So, at the end of the week, this is my ever growing list of companies that I have multiple communication contracts with including:

VTR (phone line, 1.2 mb broad band, and cable I have never plugged in to a TV)
Telefonica del sur (1 ADSL line 1.2 mb, 1 wired land line, 1 wireless line, 1 digital tv package)
Telefonica Spain ( 2 phone lines, and 2 ADSL broadband connections of 2 mb, 3 more lines on the way )
Movistar ( black berry with email/data plan, cell phone)
Claro (3 cheap calling card cell phones)

I might have forgotten one.

You see I really don't need all that, it is just that every time one fails I seem to find myself adding another contract to fill in the gap of what the others company can not be trusted to do reliably. I might add that most of those contracts above are not what I wanted, but what they could give me because the employees did not know how to sell the contract I wanted. It is just easier sometimes and quicker to take two lesser packages, then have no package.

Essentially, I need to become my own ISP, Phone company, and perhaps power company to get 100% up time. Most of these problems though again can be traced to management located in Santiago or even Argentina or Spain, not Southern Chile. Hopefully, telefonica del sur will not suffer the same problem as they do have main offices in the South.

We are set to add a bunch more employees and another office this year. If we have to go through that mess, especially loosing phone numbers after spending thousands of dollars promoting them calls for a serious long term plan to solve the problem. At least before we go heads first in to a disaster caused by the telephone companies not being able to deliver service in a reliable manner. So, it has me most definitely planning to build an in house PBX system that can move a small pool of land lines over an internal phone system and over the internet. I am also pawing over web pages that sell sat systems for backup, and solar panels.

It is not over yet. I will keep you updated on our move.

We had originally thought about just transferring our telephone/cable/internet contract with Telefonica CTC over to Temuco, we enquired and were told this would not be a problem. One month before leaving Conce we had a complaint to make at Telefonica and went to their offices.. after an hours wait we were attended by a less than helpful or friendly customer complaints staff.. so we asked to speak to the person in charge.. after entering his office he resolved our complaints in minutes and explained the mix up in such a way that I would have stayed with Telefonica just on the strength of his customer service skills!.. but it occurred me to ask again about the line transfer and how we should go about it.. and his response nearly had me falling off my chair.. this guy who was a manager told us if we planned on moving to Temuco there would be no advantage for us to transfer the line as we would lose the telephone number anyway since we were moving from one region to another.. AND that we would get the run around!.. yes that right.. a manager told us that transferring out contract was a waste of OUR time and MONEY.. he advised us to cancel the contract and get a new on in Temuco which would cut out all the BS and we'd not only get re-connected quicker but would most likely benefit from cheaper deal as Telefonica only looked after getting new clients not keeping them!!.. again I nearly fell of the chair.. He was brutally honest.. seriously I would have stayed with Telefonica had I stayed in Conce just because I would know he was the man to see... so we came to Temuco to do just as he had advised.. BUT in Temuco things were different.. Telefonica had no idea about customer service let alone how to SELL us their packages.. the girl that attended us had no more experience or knowledge about the products she was selling than I had!.. she was totally clueless and looked more interested in what her workmate was talking to her about... without any hesitation I told the wife we should head over to VTR and see what they had to offer.. obviously they were somewhat better.. the sales person at least knew the prices and products and was able to cater to our needs by modifying the triple pack to suit us.. and all of that was about 5,000 pesos cheaper than Telefonica.. oh and we we're connected on time! we set the date and time.. and the technicians were at our door.. unlike Telefonica where our new line installation would be within 15 days..

So we have VTR.. its isnt as a reliable connection as the Telefonica internet connection and seems slower despite the same 'speed' we had in Conce BUT any technical problems I have ha so far have been resolved within the day.. I remember with Telefonica we had to wait 3 weeks for them to come out and see why our Digital TV wasnt working.. it turned out to be a loose connection..

So far I am a happy VTR client... but then again I am not exactly running a business..

well, we got moved in to the new house. After hacking my way through walls and network cables all day, I finally have a second to test out the telefonica del sur line. So far not bad. Total lack of documentation with their speed touch modem and I could not read the kids hand writing for the password, but finally got everything working (I think).

I am however a little ticket at the tv is tied to a wep encrypted wireless connection that so far I have not figured out how to turn off without loosing the TV, but then also I have not spent a lot of time researching the unit they installed. I spent a good deal of time telling the kid that installed it that I wanted no open wireless connections from their equipment running on my network. Of course I made the mistake of running out to do some other things, and came back and there it was.

so, an update on my adventures in moving internet and phone providers.

Finally, we got telefonica del sur installed without a problem as mentioned above. In fact, a supervisor stopped by earlier today to check and make sure everything got setup correctly and everything was working. I again complained about the wep encryption, which really went no where; but, I also did not expect much. Just mostly wanted them to know that I knew the difference. I just firewalled the TV connection. When I get a moment I am going to run a network cable directly to the TV unit.

The interesting one was the ongoing saga of Telefonica of Spain. They finally came and installed one new phone line and internet connection. The piece of trash wireless DSL modem they brought was setup only to be accessed and maintained from their end (zyxel p-600). There was no way to turn off the wirless short of unplugging it, there was no way to turn off the dhcp, DNS, or anything else that conflicts with my own network. I told the guy to unplug it, and I plugged in the old modem I had from the other house that is just dumb generic ADSL modem. It seems you can use just any old ADSL modem on their network, so bring your own. The kid told me that they are switching to the new wireless one all across Chile. So, buy or bring your own. The kid just left the modem here, and I played around with it the other day. They have flashed it somehow with their own software, and there is no way to reset it. I suppose if I spent the time I could reflash it back to the factory defaults, just got better things to do than waist my time on a suspicious piece of equipment that cost about $30.

The even funnier one was, after talking to the kid for a while he said that Telefonica del Sur was a much better company because they have main offices in Southern Chile. He said if he did not work for the company, he would have a Telefonica del sur connection at his own home.

So, now I have one telefonica connection and one telephone line, and I have signed a contract to have two new lines installed. I am now going on over 3 weeks, and I still have not had my other two lines installed. They where suppose to be here last week. I have my secretary call them once a day. So, now I am at the point where I am simply going to cancel the contract, and go have telefonica del sur install more lines.

To top it off, after going round and round with telefonica about getting a commercial line package that no one in the company knew how to do or was willing to do, we finally signed a regular consumer contract for each line (same thing, more paperwork).

The first day the line was installed, we call our long distance carrier plan provider and they tell us that we can not use it any more because our phone line is marked commercial. Yet, I still can not get more than one phone line installed in my house per contract, or even just more than one line regardless of what they want to call it.

On another note, seems we where getting very burned at our last place on our telefonica connection. We contracted the exact same package we had, and the speeds are blistering fast. I suspect our old neighborhood was either over saturated, or the lines are bad. Everything in the neighborhood is new, as in the house across the street from us where not there last month.

The kid from telefonica also told us that it is standard company policy to ignore current customers and only focus on getting new customers. No one seems concerned that customers might be defecting. Again, sell your stock in telefonica.

admin wrote:The kid from telefonica also told us that it is standard company policy to ignore current customers and only focus on getting new customers. No one seems concerned that customers might be defecting.

VTR structures its offers similarly, with good deals available to new customers but not existing ones. Their staff in their retail offices doesn't have a clue it's bad commercial practice either. The only way to fight this type of behavior is through heavy churn. They'll end up with a lower number of net new customers, and high acquisition costs. They might adjust their behavior over a long period of time to recognize that ignoring your existing customers is damn stupid. In the short term, don't hold your breath!

If I remember correctly Bellsouth did the same with the prices for new customers, but if you were an existing customer and asked (or complained) for the newer rate they would give it to you. You didn't have to go through a manager level to get it.

When we had vtr here in Temuco, if you wanted to get good deals if you were already a client, just ask to talk with the 'supervisora'. Say that you want to shut down your service because you found a better deal at the competition. We've negotiated successfully with them, getting free upgrades in the past, although YMMV. We have Telsur at home now, but we suscribed for a deal they had around 2006 which consisted of internet (1mbps) + directv + unlimited phone minutes + home security for about 50.000 monthly. By the end of that year I had 2mbps because they upgraded all the connections for free, and this year they doubled them again, so I have 4mbps. It's better for us to keep this old deal with the upgraded speeds as it's more convenient than getting one of the new plans with WiTV. I have a wireless router that I bought in 2005, and at that time (2006 too) the companies didn't offer free wireless, which quite honestly, it's kinda useless as I already have a better router that I can configure to my heart's content. I just use MAC filtering, I don't want to mess around with wep stuff that can be cracked.

We used to have CTC in the 90's, then in 1999 we switched to Telsur when the guys were bought by Telefónica Spain and started to charge some calls that didn't belong to us. We kept the line from them + vtr cable tv until 2004 (would you believe me that I was on dialup untill 2004?!). In that year we changed to a full plan from VTR but kept the line from telsur and made it a prepaid line. By 2006 we left vtr and suscribed with telsur that deal I described above.

Yes, I know. Everything goes unencrypted through the air with my settings, but I'm only worried about the 'colgados' and since the router is somewhat old the connection slows down a bit when using wep encryption.

Hey, telefonica showed up today and installed the other lines. What do you know. They started to give us a song and dance about not being able to put more wires in the conduits in the house. I was already ahead of them, and had run new phone lines when I pulled my network cables through as we where running out of space. So, basically all they had to do was plug them in to the lines out at the street corner. It made for some happy technicians. They where in and out of here in 20 mins.

WEP has been cracked since almost before it was released to the public. The time it takes to crack it is more a function of how busy the network is that is being sniffed, so that the cracking software can get a sufficient sample of packets to work with. Typical times run from about 15 mins to 12 hours of packet collection required. After that you are more or less home free.

More of a problem is the passwords they use on all of their systems are based on a formula of publicly available information. The formula is the same across the entire country. So, feed that info to something like Jack the Ripper, and out pops your password just by brute force in likely something around less than 30 mins on even just a regular lap top. If I get some time, I might just for kicks see how long it takes to crack all of their wireless solutions.

WPA is much better as far as I know because it allows for longer keys and using things like AES preshared keys.

Mac addresses are only useful because they are hard to guess, but if I can sniff the traffic I can sniff the mac address it originated on. I use to have to switch my Mac address just to move my VTR box back when they thought that was some sort of security. Pain to do in Windows, but it is a built in feature of Linux. Someone that knows how to sniff traffic, knows how to change MAC addresses.

Turning off your secession ID broadcast on your box is likely one of the more helpful things, if for no other reason that some one needs to know your network is there and sniff it. Not fool proof in anyway, but likely sufficient to keep script kiddies from finding it. There are easier targets.

My bug to pick is that I am relying on what are obviously either totally incompetent or completely negligent IT guys at the telephone companies to determine that my security is sufficient if I use their equipment. If this the sort of sloppy security work they do in peoples homes, what is happening up the pipe? Wait!! we know already. Their DNS servers are vulnerable to cache poisoning.

At the end of the day, I treat all wireless connections like they are public because they are. Until they come up with a better mouse trap, I am sticking to my cables. I have run 100 meters this week through the house.

I mean here is the description of WPA/WPA2 cracking vs. what goes in to WEP cracking.
http://harrychanputra.wordpress.com/200 ... k-wpawpa2/

WPA is still just a plain old brute force attack.

WEP cracking is, well, kind of like swatting a mosquito in cracking terms. People do it for sport, otherwise known as War driving.

Also remember, it is not even just what is on your network, it is what you can do with someone else network that makes even the average home computer a valuable commodity in hacker circles. The people that say, "I have nothing on my computer they would want" would likely not say the same thing about bank robbers and their car. Bot nets for instance are sold in bulk for criminal activity.

With the phone companies a) what they are installing is too old to support WPA2 encryption or b) they are purposely leaving on WEP in some lame hope that it will be more compatible with users computers. As far as I see none of the boxes they have tried to install are so old that they will not support WPA or WPA2.

I've been wanting to check out DD-WRT -- Going to bring my old linksys router with me next time I'm stateside and set that up.

I'm thinking my security is way to lax. I guess living in the outside of montevideo, where we are the only wireless access point for miles, has made me feel safe

This thread has been very helpful with looking into which internet ISP to go with, BTW, thanks to all contributors. Hopefully once I get settled there I can actually start contributing to the board, as i've been mostly asking questions since arriving... thanks for your patience and tolerance

Hi, I'm a writer moving to Valpariso in the fall and will be highly dependent on my computer and the internet. So I've been reading the advice on internet issues. Thanks to all of you, so far I've figured out I'll need to take a router with me and find insurance on the computer. I'll be coming from NY and my questions are:
-should I take a small printer with me?
-my computer is a lenovo bought direct from ibm, what kind of insurance can I get that will cover damage or theft?
-will I have a problem with customs?
-what else should I be thinkng of?
Thanks.