I have been connected to the Digital Region network via ask4 since 9th May and I am delighted with both the performance of the product and the customer service I have experienced.

My previous supplier was Tiscali/TalkTalk and I had a bundled package which offered both telephone and Internet services. The main contributing factor which made me want to switch Internet Service Providers (ISP) was the low bandwidth I was experiencing, as the download speeds were often at around the 2Mbps level. This led me to look for an alternative ISP as I often work from home and I have children who use the Internet for their studies, which meant I required a better connection.

I was already aware of the Digital Region project as I had heard about it in the media and through my work. I therefore contacted someone in their offices via telephone who gave me all the information I needed, and I also subscribed to their monthly newsletter which kept me up to date with the network rollout and which ISP’s were offering connectivity.

I decided to contact RiPWiRE to enquire about costing and provisioning times and they were very helpful and informative. I had a slight problem as I had a TalkTalk phone line and I needed a BT phone line to connect to the network, but RiPWiRE were great and helped me sort this out with little fuss. This process was fine and I managed to set up a new line with BT and keep my phone number as well which was important to me.

I did have to wait for the BT phone line to be installed before I could request a connection but once again this was dealt with very well and I was kept informed all along. As soon as I had the line installed I contacted RiPWiRE and signed up to the network. The process of connecting to the network was completely stress free as I was kept up to date via email and the connection date I was given was the date I was connected to the network.

Now that I am connected to the network the bandwidth availability has made a huge difference for me and my family and our download speeds are now in excess of 35Mbps. At times there can be 3 or more people online at once in our household and we are having no issues with contention as we had with our previous service. I work from home and I am able to connect with colleagues via the VPN which works brilliantly, it’s now like having my own virtual office within the comfort of my own home.