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OT Changing broadband supplier

In article , Bill writes

And all the preceding debacles. Original Demon was brilliant.

Reply to
bert
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Which of these work for you:

  1. Complete premium rate blocking (no route to 09...)
  2. Blocking of calls > xx pence per minute
  3. Premium rate blocking via an interface you can change (eg website)
  4. Number range blocking (eg 09xxx) via an interface you can change
  5. One-time premium unblocking via a tariff code
  6. Special routing to cause one-time unblocking (eg 09 is remapped to 'number unobtainable', a secret code like #*#*341241*# is remapped to 09)

VOIP providers can do many of these, possibly with a bit of dialplan tweaking. Though some VOIP providers don't route 09... at all - equivalent to the first approach.

Theo

Reply to
Theo

I have the cheapest line rental I can get from BT. Doesn't include caller ID. I don't care, as I never use the landline for incoming calls. I only use it for outgoing calls at weekends!

Reply to
Bob Eager

I only pay BT Retail for the physical line, phone service over that line and a fault repair service for both.

What is it with people unable to seperate the physical line, phone service provision (POTS and/or VOIP) and internet service provison?

But BT Retail aren't providing me with Internet, only POTS. B-) Once you have done battle with BT Retail's Mumbai outpost and got a fault reported any further interaction relating to fixing the fault will be with BT Openreach. AIUI call "BT Faults" to report a fault on a non-BT Retail line won't get you very far, you have to go via your provider. Your provider may or may not be any good at getting BT Openreach to fix it and BT Openreach will only report back to your provider.

A&A are certainly one of the providers that won't let BT get away with anything. But it's very rare for there to be an internet problem that only affects me. We've had a core router fail in Edinburgh that took out the western isles and huge amounts of southern scotland/northern england. Another router that took out most of the Tyne, North Tyne and South Tyne vallies and low light on the fibre backhaul from our exchange to Hexham that affected all ADSL customers on our exchange.

Faults that only affect me are almost invariably POTS related and in the last mile of the 2.5 mile long local end from the exchange to me. Getting those fixed in a timely manner (next day) is why the line is provided via BT Retail with Total Care. I've yet to find another provider that can match Total Care.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

LRS IIRC?

You could have free Caller ID with the 12 month LRS contract. "BT Privacy at Home with free Caller ID for 12 months" or somthing equally snappy.

The odd incoming call does arrive, it's number was the ISDN base number and that was given to a few people when we moved here before I got the MSNs. Those have now been ported to a VOIP provider.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

No, I pay quarterly. I should have said that. Don't want to get into complicated contracts with BT. I may get a line-only arrangement from the ISP soon (wires for DSL and nothing else).

As I said before, I never have incoming calls on the line. I have VoIP numbers for that.

I haven't ported the number to VoIP as no-one knew it anyway. As it happens, I had a call on it today! Wrong number.

Reply to
Bob Eager

Fair enough - thanks.

However, which providers allow you to bar all calls so I can exclusively use VIOP?

Reply to
Fredxxx

At one location connected to a Market 1 exchange with no LLU competitors I am coming to the end of an 18 month free broadband just pay for phone line contract with Plusnet.

Phone calls are made using Sipgate VOIP or DiscountVOIP for calls to mobiles so Plusnet only get the line rental. At the end of the contract I expect to either move to John Lewis Broadband for ADSL at £22.50 pm for phone and broadband or Vodafone for FTTC (VDSL) up to 39Mbps at £25 pm to existing Vodafone customers. I will continue to use VOIP for phone calls. The Vodafone router does not have a good reputation so I expect to buy my own.

The John Lewis phone does include free CLI an voicemail. The price of their broadband rises by £4 pm after the first year. I don't know what you can get by haggling and perhaps agreeing to a new 1 year contract,

Reply to
Michael Chare

Having one supplier for phone and broadband makes problem reporting easier as broadband faults are often voice phone line faults.

Reply to
Michael Chare

Hum, I disagree. As you say "broadband faults are often voice phone line faults".

So you want the POTS provider to have the best POTS fixing service. Which, IMHO, is BT Retail. Remember unless you happen to have a Virgin cable passing your premisis the local end will be maintained/repaired by BT Openreach(*), even if you have LLU or carrier preselect. BT Retail/BT Openreach work well together, the same cannot be said for other POTS providers and BT Openreach.

Your internet provider needs to know where and how to kick BT when the internet service throws a wobbly, a different skill set. BT Broadband doesn't fit that profile...

(*) Pretty sure BT do not let "engineers" from other providers have access to the undergound/overhead infrastructure.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

I think that's changing. There were trials last year which allowed other providers to install fibre in ducts and on poles if space was available, and to install new junctions in boxes. IIRC OFCOM are now consulting on detailed rules to make that permanent.

Reply to
Robin

In message , Dave Liquorice writes

I'm afraid this doesn't match my (perhaps limited) experience.

I was with Demon and BT for POTS. When we had POTS problems, I just remember Mumbai, a lack of understanding, threats of large charges if the fault was on my property and a lot of chasing trying to get anything done.

With Plusnet POTS and FTTC, and the one POTS fault so far, it appeared that Plusnet had the ability to identify (or maybe just confirm) that the hum on the line was an external fault, which was repaired by Openreach within a day.

Reply to
Bill

The one major problem (when I used Demon) I had was accepted in India and I was put in touch with very competant senior lady. Problem got tsolved. Moral: treat the call centre staff like human beings and you 'llget somewhere.

Reply to
charles

In message , charles writes

I'm absolutely lovely with call centre staff wherever they are. :-)

The problem was not with Demon and the internet side of things, it was with the POTS line, directly with BT. That is what Dave L was suggesting.

It was the BT human interface that I remember always being the problem, particularly the threats of call out fees even though I had tested from the master socket.

OK, maybe occasionally BT managed to wind me up, but I believe I only responded to threats by turning hard and cold. :-)

Reply to
Bill

Back in the days of KA9Q on DOS?

SteveW

Reply to
Steve Walker

Plusnet seem surprisingly ept considering that they are now part of BT. But then EE are OK provided that you never need any basic support too.

Only TalkTalk is a complete disaster that I would not wish on my worst enemy. A friend had no internet or working phone for several weeks with them - rural longest line in the village with multiple system faults.

The droids work down a very regimented script. Annoying if you are a techie and former Demon tester but it works OK for the average punter.

I never called the service line without having first tried modem into master socket with all internal lines isolated.

They do vary significantly though. I have had everything from "yes we already know your line is on the ground an engineer will be there this afternoon" to "get lost - we can't do anything for 5 business days".

The latter was particularly annoying in the run up to Xmas with my line crossed with the village shop's, unreliable dialing, bell function and no internet. Their internet service never actually recovered. It hurt the shop a lot more than me since they lost orders with the phone not ringing out properly. I just got mobile calls/emails asking where I was.

Rural internet here is so bad (and no prospect of improving) that the Parish council are negotiating a microwave link to go on the top of the village hall. It will be interesting to see how many jump ship...

Reply to
Martin Brown

FWIW Talk squawk business are much better so says someone i know who has around 50 connections in his firm, totally different outfit it seems despite being under the same brand...

Reply to
tony sayer

A customer had about a dozen TTB fibre installations a couple of years ago, TTB seemed to manage to find a dozen different ways to f*ck up the install process, generally requiring me to make a second site visit a day or two later, granted since then there haven't been any issues.

Reply to
Andy Burns

My A&A connection runs over TalkTalk commercial backhaul. It appears to be fine. I expressed concern when A&A proposed to move from BT to TT, but they too said it was a completely distinct business.

Reply to
Huge

You must be wearing your rose tinted glasses.

I was with Demon from around 1992 through to 2000 and seldom were they free of problems. They were one of the first affordable ISPs although in the beginning for me there were no local dial up numbers and two decades ago my phone/internet bill was a lot higher than it is now. At one time they were also innovators in the industry for home users but with various new owners the ethos changed.

The few ISPs I used soon after I left them just proved to me how bad Demon had become.

Reply to
alan_m

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