Yet another BT nightmare

grossbeak

WHEN is BT going to do something about its utterly APPALLING customer service? It seems to be impossible to get through to anyone who isn't a gibbering idiot or speaks intelligible English. Fobbing the customer off with bare-faced lies seems to be the basis of the training manual.

We (very reluctantly and at nearly twice the monthly fee) switched to BT 5 months ago for our land line and broadband. Not from choice but because our local exchange is too small to contain equipment from other suppliers such as Orange and BT had basically put a stranglehold on anything but their own services. We knew it would lead to tears having dealt with BT in the past but we really had no choice. Orange couldn't give us a broadband connection speed faster than 115kb (down from a rock-steady 7mb) because of BT choking them back. Strangely, as soon as we switched to BT the connection speed went up to 5-6mb and has stayed there till around Christmas. It then dropped suddenly to 500kb and has stayed there. ENDLESS phone calls has resulted in:

1. A BT speed test site that doesn't work, BT phone numbers on their own website that are no longer in use.

2. An engineer coming to the house quite uneccessarily to confirm that there are no problems with the equipment, the computers, or the line back to the exchange.

3. Hours of garbled waffle from Indian call centre employees reading from a script.

4. A final (AT LAST) admission from someone 'in Technical' that our profile has in fact been throttled back to 500kb for no reason that he could see, and a promise that our our profile would be readjusted to 5.5mb and it would be back to normal in 17 hours and 40 minutes (presumably when servers are updated).

5. GUESS WHAT? Nothing. Zilch. Nada. We are still struggling through treacle at 500kb 24 hours later.

6. So it's back on the phone to India, and the questions start again. Are you sure you are connected to the main box? Have you restarted your router? Have you installed all the updates on your computer? Would you like a razor blade to slit your wrists?

How can it be so difficult? Why doesn't someone in BT actually tell the truth for once? BT are throttling back on services and just sending people round and round in endless circles until they either give up or leap off the nearest cliff.

Oh, and a friend of ours is trying to get her BT phone service put in her own name as her husband has died. The charming and friendly (and no doubt stressed beyond endurance) call centre staff in India tell her repeatedly this is only going to happen if she can provide written permission from her husband.

Mark_In_Hampshire

To respond to your points in turn:

1. Even if BT is the only "supplier" at the exchange, there is no obligation on you or anyone to actually use BT as your provider. You can pick, for instance, the Post Office as your line supplier who then "buy" the service from BT. (Actually, the lines are owned by BT Openreach, so any company can "buy" a line from them and supply it to you. You need not have any form of contract with BT)

2. BT cannot throttle an Orange broadband connection.

3. Because of the above, if both Orange and BT supplied poor broadband on your line, this may provide a clue to a line fault. If you have the ADSL Max product, and the line is unreliable causing disconnects, the "line profile" will drop to a speed that is stable. In your case, the maximum stable speed for your line might be 0.5Mbps. When you change provider, the speed jumps, but then drops back. it is odd that the starting point is 6Mpbs to 7Mpbs and it drops so far. Again this may indicate a line fault. Even if the profile is reset (which is what you were told) it might well drop back again.

4. Odd though it might seem there is no minimum performance requirement for something to be called "broadband". 0.5Mpbs is considered "broadband" in this country. From a service obligation point of view, as long as your line enables you to make calls and establih a dial up internet connection at 28.8 kbps you have a perfect working service. Laughable, but true. The Government were to announce a bill committing providers to a minimum 2Mbps speed until it was pointed out to them that this is not technically achievable with the archaic phone network we have in this country.

5. Even if you had LLU at your exchange and could pick a different supplier, if the fault is on the line (or, for instance, your line consists partly of aliminium not copper) any ISP would still be sending the broadband signal down the same physical wire with similar results.

6. However if the fault is, for instance, a failing line card at the exchange (co-incidence that it's happened twice but possible) then replacing that might restore the performance.

Stop ringing them and put this in writing with dates/times of performance drop and the history. Something may be done about this, or not, as again unfortunately you are receiving what ISPs are allowed to call "broadband".

When your line rental contract is up with BT there is nothing to stop you migrating to another provider, which simpy changes who sends you bills, and means you don't have to deal with BT any more.

grossbeak

Thanks for the reply. There is no fault on the line. The line was replaced between us and the exchange when we moved into this house two years ago, it is a rock-solid 7mb connection and has been tested on a number of occasions. There is no fault at our end. There is no fault at the exchange. We have looked into other providers of course, candid conversations with them have only reinforced the position that BT will not allow them to provide us with a better service. BT themselves have told us that 500kbps is not a useable service. It is quite simple - they have admitted our profile has been throttled back to this speed, although it has taken literally days to get this far.

As an example of just how pathetic BT's customer service is try the following:

Go to the BT website page 'Line and Broadband problems' then click on the link 'Track a broadband fault'. This will take you to a page with the following message:
Track fault: Fault details

This service cannot be used for tracking a fault with Broadband Talk. If your Broadband Talk connection is supplied by BT please call 0845 600 7030 for support. If your Broadband Talk connection is not supplied by BT please call your service provider.

If you then call the number provided you get the message 'This number is no longer in service.....'. Says it all really.

BT_company_representative

Hi grossbeak,

Just seen your thread and I'd be happy to investigate this for you. Could your email me your details and I'll see what's happended. My email address is shown within my forum profile.

Thanks,
Jon.

grossbeak

Thanks BT rep but there is no email address in your forum profile, only a link to the BT forum.

Scho

It's under additional information Grossbeak. Bottom left.
If using firefox hit CTRL + F and type bt.com and in and it should highlight it for you.

DVardysShadow

grossbeak wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. There is no fault on the line. The line was replaced between us and the exchange when we moved into this house two years ago, it is a rock-solid 7mb connection and has been tested on a number of occasions. There is no fault at our end. There is no fault at the exchange. We have looked into other providers of course, candid conversations with them have only reinforced the position that BT will not allow them to provide us with a better service. BT themselves have told us that 500kbps is not a useable service. It is quite simple - they have admitted our profile has been throttled back to this speed, although it has taken literally days to get this far.

You need to check that out. As the good people say on https://www.adslguide.co.uk "what are your linestats?"

Mark_In_Hampshire

ADSL Max will run at the maximum *stable* speed the line can support, which is 0.5 Mbps. You refer to this as "throttling" which it is not. It is the correct behaviour of the product.

The question is why the line will only support that speed and the usual factors are: aliminium in the line wiring, line length (if you're more than a mile or so from the exchange, as most people are, 7Mbps is a pipe dream) and another possibility which might well be true here, something called REIN which is electrical interference either in your house or somewhere between you and the exchange which can destroy the performance of an ADSL connection.

As DVS says, you may well be able to get the helpful people on that forum to review your line stats and possibly point to the issue.