Please help close to tears with BT (new customer)

bockett

Also one other thing should my phone number be witheld? When i call my mobile off the house phone the number is displayed

Heinz

bockett wrote: »

Also one other thing should my phone number be witheld? When i call my mobile off the house phone the number is displayed

If you mean should it be withheld because you're XD, the answer is no.

You'll have to either dial 141 before each call or ask BT to permanently withhold your number - you can probably do that online HERE.

asbokid

Heinz wrote: »

Being XD does not stop people (or, more likely, machines) calling you, it just keeps your number out of the phone book (excluded from directory).

Joining TPS (which BT includes in BT Privacy) reduces such calls though.

Lately, I have found that the rogues who make these automated nuisance calls are simply originating them from overseas using VoIP so they can avoid the 'voluntary' rules of the TPS scheme.

The TPS is basically dead in the water because of this..

What bugs me most is that the nuisance calls are from the same callers over and over again. There's one moronic call that starts with the sound of a ship's foghorn. I've lost count of the times they've called to tell me I've won that 'free' world cruise.

Heinz

asbokid wrote: »

Lately, I have found that the rogues who make these automated nuisance calls are simply originating them from overseas using VoIP so they can avoid the 'voluntary' rules of the TPS scheme.

Yes, I've just had a call (on my VOIP number) from 00102031310!

asbokid

Buzby wrote: »

TPON stands for Telephony over Passive Optical Network - basically a 'kludge' invented in the 1980's to fit a large number of phone lines to new build premises where they didn;t have capavity in the area.

In theory, the fact he's got Fibre To The Home/Curb/Cabinet (FTTH/FTTC) should be good news.. I wouldn't grumble!

ADSL itself is a kludge.. The copper pairs were only ever meant for voice traffic. ADSL is itself an overlay on a legacy system. It overlays onto the PSTN which is based on a legacy copper pair local loop and a connection-based circuit-switched system. It was intended originally for conveying voice traffic, and never for high bandwidth data traffic, with high expectations viz packet loss and delay.

Much of BT's infrastructure, inherited from the GPO is in an appalling condition and has lacked upgrade or repair for decades. Many people suffer today from the GPO's 'temporary' use of aluminium drop wires in the 1970s.. The GPO decided to use aluminium for a couple of years when the price of copper had soared.. But aluminium cabling is no good for ADSL.. There is problem with the attentuation of the broadband signal when Cu and Al cabling meets in the loop. It often means that ADSL can't be provided at all, or only at a very poor sync rate.

As for PONs.. that's pretty new kit in the great scheme of things.. it's probably less than 20 years old.. which is very new for BT.. Besides, it's commonplace to multiplex in telecommunications. Both the circuit-switched (the old ATM systems for voice) networks, and the modern packet-switched networks (for IP traffic) are heavily multiplexed.. And we scarcely notice...

A single filament of SMF (single mode fibre) used in a PON can carry about 10Gbps to 40Gbps. And the optical signal from a single 'lateral' from the exchange is passively split at the green roadside cabinet to 32 or 64 dwellings in each street using a time division multiplexing (TDM) system. In theory in a TDM-based PON, each home should have its own bandwidth of up to ~625Mbps..

If only the OP could persuade BT to give him Fibre to the Desk, for the nominal £50 cost of a gigabit fibre ethernet card, he could run a pretty good server farm from his understairs cupboard!

iniltous

bockett wrote: »

Ok so finally got the broadband things seem ok then one evening last week we receive a sales call. Strange as i thought we were ex directory. So i rang up and they said the would put us on some BT privacy thing that is apparently more secure and less chance of the number leaking out.

20 mins ago another sales call. Raging as i thought we were ex directory and we wouldn't get these sales calls phoned BT AGAIN!

I told them about the mistakes they made at the beginning of the initial setup and that i was very unhappy then told them about the ex directory issues. The operator said well how can we help sarcastically i said well if i breached my part of the contract then you'd soon contact me so i expressed how i felt they had breached their end.

They then said well you've still got your service so what do you want me to do about it? And went on to say that ex directory only stops the general public contacting you not businesses. I know feel as out number is out there this will never end

Stunned by his response and lack of help was fuming. I did lose it i must admit not the norm for me and said things i regret and put the phone down. Then a few seconds later received a call with some kind of mumbled insult down the phone

This is beyond a joke and wish i'd never set this up. Can anyone advise

I'm at my witts end

Many Thanks

Ex Directory does what it sounds like, it means you dont have a listing in the phone book (directory) but wouldnt stop you receiving 'marketing' calls, as mentioned you could sign up with TPS or if you are a BT customer you could get BT privacy, which registers you with TPS and you get caller display so you can vet incoming calls, however this wouldnt stop overseas companys calling you, (nothing can)
If you signed upto TPS or BT privacy surely you didnt think it would be instant, these things would take a while to work through.
One final thing the problems at the begining with your broadband were because O2 were not prepared to do anything for you because were not the sort of 'vanilla' customer all these ISP's like , BT presumably went the extra mile ( unlike your prefered ISP who told you to take a hike) to get you connected to broadband yet you still slate them.....