BT Broaband ... terrible service

[Rick Hughes]

On 14th July I reported serious BB issues ... speed had dropped form 3.8Mbps to less than 1Mbps ... and kept dropping, often out for up to an Hr at a time. Spent ages on phone to India ... eventually they agreed to send out BT OpenReach engineer. First bod arrived ... tested and advise the uunderground cable in pavement back to service manhole was erroring ... will request replacement. Within 3 days service now down more than it is up, and speed down to

150kbps. Escalated again ... all I cold get was 'you have to wanut 10 days for stabilization' ........ I escalated to BT complaints and got same response ... even when I explained that tuning of line will not fix the drop outs. After 10 days they sent another BT OpenReach engineer, who swapped a few pairs but again advise underground cable needs changing ... he could do no more - talk to my ISP (BT) It then went down fully .... escalted again, and told cable being changed on the Weds ... waited ... nobody turned up, Help desk then advise that BT OpenReach had not approved the budget spend to fix the fault. Presume they don't want to put copper in the ground as they are now rolling out Infinity. Another 2 engineers that week .... same issue they state cable needs replacing ... andf they have been told this has not been approved by area head of Planning. After escalations myself and by some Senior BT people I work with, case was then transferred to Priority Care team ...... who assured me it would be fixed. Now 31 days since reporting the fault ......... I have a service that is more down than up, and even when up has a woefully poor thtoughhout. The IPprofile downspeeds due to erroring, and it just keeps losing synch .... for Hrs at a time now. BT say escalate to BT OpenReach, as they own the copper ......... BT OpenReach will not accept any complaints insisting I have to go through my ISP. BT Technical Help deak say they can't do anymore as OpenReach will not replace the cable.

They now offer as a solution ..... I'll repeat this, as it may be absurd to read ... as a solution, that I can cancel my 18 month contract with them. I explained I have an 18 month supply contract, I customer, I pay, they supplier they provide ... and iff they don't, then they are in material breach of contract ... if I cancel contracat I would lose all my legal rights.

I still have to go through the inane script when I call into help desk ... am assured each time that the person will take personal ownership and 'most surely be resolving this for you sir' .......... 'Priority care Team seem to have simply vanished .. and no way to contact them.

I pay for an up to 8Mbps services full uncapped - and what I get is pathetic. This is customer service of the worst kind ..............

It's getting close to an Exec Escalation into BT.

[Phil L]

BT are well known for supplying a 4th rate service at extortionate prices, why anyone would hand money over to this shower of shit is beyond me. They treat their customers as a joke - make no mistake you are having the piss ripped out of you by those who are answering your calls and you are referred to as a 'whinging peasant' by the 'complaints team'.

Cancel contract and don't open any more letters from them, because this is when they start demanding money with menaces, get a proper isp like virgin, as almost all the others rely on BT lines, then you're back to square one.

[dom]

Take it to Ofcom. A long time since I used them, but found them very good. They can plug into the BT complaints system at a higher level than the public can get to.

[Howard Neil]

I agree. There is no point changing ISPs as they you still need to use the same wires (the local loop) and you would still have the same problem.

[Phil L]

I have 4mb broadband and telephone, inc line rental for 20gbp per month, and it's not using any BT equipment or wires

[Dave Liquorice]

Virgin is only available in restricted urban areas. Most people have little choice but to use BT Openreach for "the last mile".

As for the OP is this a pure ADSL fault or is voice (even if you never use the line for voice) affected as well? Presumably this is a BT retail rented line and the service you are paying them for is voice. You stand a far better chance of geting the voice fault fixed and as a side effect the ADSL will most likely come good as well.

If you have a trouble with voice calls you might be due compensation but I'd advise reading the small print on the rules for compensation. Pretty sure if you take the free option of a call divert that stops compensation. And it'll run from when you report the voice fault not the initial ADSL problem and BT Openreach have a habit of closing fault reports before the fault is cleared... You can keep an eye on the status of fault reports on the web, ah, um, er...

[Mr Pounder]

Yes, I pay for and get the best part of 10MB with VM.

[Rick Hughes]

Virgin can only offer Broadband over copper - not fibre ... i.e using BT lines ... so would not be an improvement

[Rick Hughes]

It's ADSL issues only .. voice is OK.

I'm assuming they won't authorize spend to replace the 80m of cable as they no longer want to roll out any copper.

[Ian Jackson]

In message , Rick Hughes writes

It depends whether you're in a Virgin 'cabled' area.

[Phil L]

They use copper lines from the telewest point outside the house, down the garden and up to the PC, prior to that it is glass fibre, and none of it has anything to do with BT, it's all underground

[Dave Liquorice]

So Virgin cannot provide the "the last mile" for broadband even when they have cable telly running right into your living room?

[js.b1]

So you know...

- When you leave BT they charge a =A330 exit fee (incredible).

- If you move to certain broadband providers with a faulty local loop, they can force BT to improve the situation via their "trade route" as part of the arrangement set up for competition. This has teeth in that whilst you may "go around the houses with BT", the new supplier can sit on their desk until the matter is cleared. There are limitations but for fixable problems they are indeed fixed.

So whilst there is a cost to leaving BT, the new supplier can actually force improvements.

I use Wireless 3G which whilst not ideal (email address needs a bit of handling re migration) does provide a useful alternative such that I will be dropping BT in the next few weeks. If you do decide to stay with BT, do check with them to drop the service because they can offer discounts to stop you leaving. The decent modems are quite expensive, =A355-65-75.

[Dave Liquorice]

That is unusual, voice normally dies before the ADSL or is affected as well. I have had no voice service at all, not even dialtone but the ADSL has managed to stay up, albeit at I'm assuming they won't authorize spend to replace the 80m of cable as

As far as I'm aware BT are only doing FTTC not FTTP. If that 80m of cable is between you and the cabinet then even if you get Infinity you will still be on that bit of cable. If it's between cabinets or cabinet and exchange then it may well be a 200 pair cable which don't come cheap...

[js.b1]

Retail is =A314/m, trade will be =A37/m and BT will pay probably =A33/m re long term supply contract purchasing power (bit like Tesco, only perhaps even worse).

BT drivelled for years about 1-stop-customer service, the staff even went on strike in protest. What they meant was 1-stop - that is how far you get. There should be only 2 customer service levels, one for very minor domestic problems such as "where is my cat?" and one for any technical problem. No million dial menus and handoffs, lost ticketing. There are NNN thousand unemployed technical graduates who could do the job from home logging in, guided by an expert technical support system with problems escalated in "internet time" and BT supply the PC etc...

... the problem is of course... their local loop would have to work properly too :-)

[Andy Burns]

If you CANCEL broadband that's true, if you MIGRATE to a different provider (or address?) there's no cancelation fee.

[Dave]

I switched to Virgin last year and when the installation was under way I was asking the man on how it worked. Apparently, Virgin have fibre optics to the street boxes and use coax cable from that to your house.

Our street box is about 100 yards from my house.

Dave

[Bob Eager]

Ignoring the non-trivial cost of pulling and connecting 200 pairs...

[Bill]

In message , Dave Liquorice writes

This actually sounds a bit like the experience I was involved in recently.

A friend called me in to look at the way the BT broadband went down completely every afternoon, but at random times. It was always slow. They were up to the stage where BT were quoting a huge price to fix the house wiring. But the neighbours on the same telegraph pole all had the same poor service.

I tested from the incoming line box and the results at the time we tested were better, but not right.

I told them to call BT out and call their bluff over costs.

I then heard no more until much later. They had had multiple visits, and been told various stories by different BT people, including a statement about cables having to be replaced. Eventually, they said, one BT engineer called from the local exchange, said something like "Ah ha", drove back to the exchange, did we know not what, and it all came good.

This makes me wonder whether the problem described here is actually a cable fault. As you can tell I know nothing about the technical side of all these dslams or whatever.

[The Natural Philosopher]

On tow occasions I have had 'issues' that were not resolved by calling engineers to test the line (and upgraded it), but were magically resolved after BT 'did something else' .

my gut feeling is that BT Openreach first of all threaten dire charges to get the customer to sort out the 90% plus of cases that are sheer stupidity on the part of the customers internal kit or wiring.

They then assume that 90 of the 10% left is some sort of wiring fault.

The last 1% they reluctantly concede its 'something at the exchange' and escalate it up to there.

But they have a policy of not telling anyone what it is.

I reckon the DSLAMS and the cards fail in all sorts of shitty ways.