Trafffic Warning / Update

SpeedCam · Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2004 7:55 pm Post subject: Trafffic Warning / Update

Following the problems with the Traffic service at the weekend, I have had an update from TomTom which confirms a number of important points. In summary the Traffic service was unavailable from Sunday until Monday. TomTom responses c

1. There is no monitroing or alerting installed on the TomTom traffic infrsatructure. This is confirmed by the fact that their service was unavailable for two days.
2. There are no staff on call out, for this service.
3. TomTom do not respond to critical support calls. It took four days for them to answer my call.
4. TomTom have refused to extend my subscription by two days, becase the problem was not with their servers, but the TMC data provider.

One important thing to remember is that we are not purchasing a product, but a service, and clearly at times this will fail or become unavailable. However TomTom do not feel they are responsible for this, but as usual are very happy to accept our money.

I'm asking them for details regarding the SLA (Service Level Agreement) for the Traffic service, which should give details regarding acceptable downtime and response time. I work for a retailer and even 2 hours downtime would not be acceptable, so why should TomTom think two days is OK?

DavidW · Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2004 8:29 pm Post subject:

Good luck - though remember that relatively cheap services aimed at the end user often don't have formal SLAs.

To give an example, there's no formal SLA for ADSL provided over the BT Wholesale network - unlike for more expensive leased line connections. If I lose my ADSL on a Friday night, it's BT Wholesale's fault and they don't notice and fix it, the earliest my ISP can report the fault to BT is 8am Monday morning. I'm paying 35 pounds per month for this, too.

Details of the contractural relationship between TomTom and the data provider (iTIS for Traffic UK, unless I'm mistaken) is almost certainly commercially confidential.

David

Pauldp · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 07, 2004 Posts: 26

As I have stated on another thread, my traffic subscription is currently useless and not working at all. I have it saying it is expired when it is not. This has been the case now since 3/12/4.

Do I want some money and apologies back????

I should think so. :x

A service that is unavailable for a month of the whole subscription is getting ridiculous. I will be threatening them soon with cancelling my subscription accompanied with an email for a full refund.

DavidW · Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 5:57 pm Post subject:

There's two different issues here.

The first was an approximately two day outage that affected everyone in the UK - maybe other countries as well. I was merely pointing out that I doubt there's a Service Level Agreement that stretches right down to end-user level.

I can understand the argument that TomTom should extend the subscriptions of those that complain, but we're only talking about two days. (In a similar light, I subscribed slightly before the end of my trial period back in the summer, and my expiry date was 12 months from the date I subscribed, not 12 months from the end of my trial - though the difference was only a few days).

Your situation is quite different, Paul - it's rather sad that TomTom can't sort out your issue and get you going. I would pursue them for a full refund on the basis that you can't use the service you're paying for - offering them the alternative of getting you working and extending your subscription for a month if that's what you'd prefer.

David

SpeedCam · Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 9:30 pm Post subject:

Fair play to TomTom, its taken them a very long time but I've just had an update to say they haven't been able to identify the fault but have extended my subscription by one month...

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