LU underground?

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I thought I would share the saga of trying to get wifi on London Underground courtesy of O2- not a happy tale!

Previously, I was with Orange and LU wifi worked prefectly. I moved over to O2 in June and was delighted to see that they joined the wifi scheme in July. Great, I thought, I can work on the move like I used to. Mistake.

I have NEVER been able to sign in and made numerous calls to "technical support" and "gurus" which frankly are sapping my will to live. My O2 wifi and every other wifi works perfectly, so the problem is clearly that O2 will not authenticate.

I spoke to a particularly unpleasant your man this morning who reckons the whole thing is my fault and that I need to contact Virgin wifi! What exactly is the point of porting over a number to O2 if they can't be bothered to look after it?

Moreover, I know this is a new service, but am I really the only person that this has happened to? There must be a solution to this, but O2 are really trying hard not to give it!

[perksie]

All Wi-Fi from O2 is free to all users, it's hard to make that any clearer:

http://www.o2.co.uk/coverage/o2wifi

If you're trying to sign up to a paid for service, it's not O2.

From the FAQs on this site:

O2 Wifi is free. Not 'sign up, give us your card details and we won't start charging until you've forgotten you signed up in the first place' free. We mean free-free. No contracts, no surprise charges.

[Anonymous]

Only O2 customers can use O2 Wifi on the London Underground though.

[perksie]

Still free though, unless the OP isn't an O2 customer.

I haven't seen anything myself saying you must be on O2.

[Anonymous]

Yep, it's free.

The stipulation "Who can get it? London Underground wifi is available for all O2 customers" is here:

http://www.o2.co.uk/underground

[perksie]

Don't know how I missed that!

[Anonymous]

I'm afraid that we are still no futher forward.

As we have established (you know who I am talking about!) you MUST authenticate with O2 on the underground. This is the root of the problem. When I was with Orange this was fine, but it looks like O2 have not ported over the number correctly so I cannot log in. I get the error message telling me that "this is only for O2 users" and directed to a help page which says "contact O2 technical support".

This is exactly what I did and now we are getting nowhere. I followed the suggestion above and contacted O2 (again) and wasted another hour of my life which I will not get back. In the end they pointed me to the O2 page which says that they are now offering wifi on the Underground!! Who would have thought...

Basically, I think we can all agree that the Virgin database needs updating and I cannot change it. Surely this MUST be done by O2??

[Anonymous]

Lets hope your issue clarifies then if 02 are offering the service themselves.

[Anonymous]

That's not entirely correct. The service has been in operation for about 18 months. O2 only joined it in July. When you pick up the wifi signal a new home page comes up which says "Orange, Vodafone and Three customers can use this". We now also get a tick box for O2 customers. This brings up a new page into which you put your number. This is the cause of my issue. It NEVER authenticates, although it clearly recognises my number.

Now, if O2 have joined the service then they must be paying Virgin? If so, then is it beyond the wit of man that they should ahve access to the user database? I cannot believe that I am the only person in London who has changed networks and been locked out! I know that this is a new service, but this problem is only going to get worse for O2.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like Virgin are using an out of date database of ported numbers, as you say. If you feel you are getting nowhere with O2, raise it as a formal complaint with O2.

[Anonymous]

Completely agree Oliver. Any idea of the best method to elevate this? I have tried speaking to "managers" who either never call back or simply make stuff up.

I have to say, I though Orange tech support were bad, but O2 are not much better!