Crossed Line, BT Not taking this seriously!

cwaite

I am a computer support person, last week I visited a customer who advised me that his broadband was running slow, I took a look at his connection speed on his router and found that it was syncing at 230kbps which is very slow as other people in the same street are getting 6500kbps (I am in the next road and get 8000kbps), the exchange is only approximately 1.4km by road or 900 meters direct away from the property.

Anyway, I asked the customer if he was experiencing any problems with his telephone line, he said yes he can often hear other people talking on the line, I had a listen and sure enough there was someone talking it was faint but if you were in a quiet room you could hear what they were saying. The customer was using a digital cordless phone, but I asked him to try a corded phone instead to rule out any interference on the cordless phone, and you could still hear someone else talking. Just to give you an idea of the setup the customer only has a BT master socket in the property, he does not have any extensions and only has one phone and the broadband router connected to the master socket.

The customer has phoned BT who have said they have run tests on the line and cannot find a fault, BT have warned the customer that if they come out and find a fault with the customers equiptment they will charge him £127.22, this has frightened the customer and now he does not know what to do? He has tried everything BT have asked to rule out the fault, but he is worried that BT will charge him.

My question really (after all that) is what responsibility to BT have in protecting its customers privacy, as I have said to the customer he can hear other people talking on the line, how does he know that they can't hear him too! Surely this is an infringement of his privacy and as BT have been notified and will not come out until he agree's to their terms and conditions of a visit. Customer should not be threatened with this when something as serious as there privacy is in question, we rent the lines from BT we dont own them why do we have to battle with BT to get them to maintain there own lines.

iniltous

cwaite wrote: »

I am a computer support person, last week I visited a customer who advised me that his broadband was running slow, I took a look at his connection speed on his router and found that it was syncing at 230kbps which is very slow as other people in the same street are getting 6500kbps (I am in the next road and get 8000kbps), the exchange is only approximately 1.4km by road or 900 meters direct away from the property.

Anyway, I asked the customer if he was experiencing any problems with his telephone line, he said yes he can often hear other people talking on the line, I had a listen and sure enough there was someone talking it was faint but if you were in a quiet room you could hear what they were saying. The customer was using a digital cordless phone, but I asked him to try a corded phone instead to rule out any interference on the cordless phone, and you could still hear someone else talking. Just to give you an idea of the setup the customer only has a BT master socket in the property, he does not have any extensions and only has one phone and the broadband router connected to the master socket.

The customer has phoned BT who have said they have run tests on the line and cannot find a fault, BT have warned the customer that if they come out and find a fault with the customers equiptment they will charge him £127.22, this has frightened the customer and now he does not know what to do? He has tried everything BT have asked to rule out the fault, but he is worried that BT will charge him.

My question really (after all that) is what responsibility to BT have in protecting its customers privacy, as I have said to the customer he can hear other people talking on the line, how does he know that they can't hear him too! Surely this is an infringement of his privacy and as BT have been notified and will not come out until he agree's to their terms and conditions of a visit. Customer should not be threatened with this when something as serious as there privacy is in question, we rent the lines from BT we dont own them why do we have to battle with BT to get them to maintain there own lines.

Whats the problem ?....overhearing on the line, call BT and (I presume BT is the service provider)..let them go through the script about potential charges if the fault is located on what the end user is responsible for, and it sounds like you are happy that the fault is outside (tested with a corded phone in the master/test socket with all other devices/sockets unplugged) and when the customer service rep gets to the bit about do you accept these terms and want to progress the fault, your client/friend says 'yes ok' and the fault gets looked at, if you dont report it it will not get looked at.
The privacy thing is a bit bogus, BT havent refused to look at the problem, but they have said that you have to accept the potential for charges first..( lots of people say they have checked their own kit but havent)...
Get the person to report the fault...
I supose an analogy is you buy a new car and it stops working, you call out the garage you bought it from and they turn up to the roadside to discover the reason the car has stopped is because there isnt any petrol in it...then its reasonable that they would charge you for the call out, because its your fault the car stopped, not the garages.

Mark_In_Hampshire

cwaite wrote: »

I am a computer support person, last week I visited a customer who advised me that his broadband was running slow, I took a look at his connection speed on his router and found that it was syncing at 230kbps which is very slow as other people in the same street are getting 6500kbps (I am in the next road and get 8000kbps), the exchange is only approximately 1.4km by road or 900 meters direct away from the property.

Anyway, I asked the customer if he was experiencing any problems with his telephone line, he said yes he can often hear other people talking on the line, I had a listen and sure enough there was someone talking it was faint but if you were in a quiet room you could hear what they were saying. The customer was using a digital cordless phone, but I asked him to try a corded phone instead to rule out any interference on the cordless phone, and you could still hear someone else talking. Just to give you an idea of the setup the customer only has a BT master socket in the property, he does not have any extensions and only has one phone and the broadband router connected to the master socket.

The customer has phoned BT who have said they have run tests on the line and cannot find a fault, BT have warned the customer that if they come out and find a fault with the customers equiptment they will charge him £127.22, this has frightened the customer and now he does not know what to do? He has tried everything BT have asked to rule out the fault, but he is worried that BT will charge him.

My question really (after all that) is what responsibility to BT have in protecting its customers privacy, as I have said to the customer he can hear other people talking on the line, how does he know that they can't hear him too! Surely this is an infringement of his privacy and as BT have been notified and will not come out until he agree's to their terms and conditions of a visit. Customer should not be threatened with this when something as serious as there privacy is in question, we rent the lines from BT we dont own them why do we have to battle with BT to get them to maintain there own lines.

There are two separate things going on here which might or might not be related (big co-incidence, though)

1. Crossed line
2. Rubbish broadband

Deal with (1) without even mentioning (2). Report a line fault and make it clear you can overhear other conversations.

If you tested with a corded phone then I cannot see how this can be a 'customers own property' fault. The fault will lie somewhere between the house and/at the exchange.

Once that's solved, the broadband might or might not resume normal service, unless it's connected to a different exchange to those on the same street (it happens) or the line itself is of poor quality for broadband and thus < 300kbps is all that's to be expected.

If BT won't solve the problem, you could try and see if you can work out who it is on the line (a neighbour?) and pop round and tell them what you overheard. They might well get onto BT then..

cwaite

Yes, I told the customer to get the crossed line sorted first because of two reasons:

1. The privacy issue
2. The crossed line will sort out the slow broadband problem (I saw the same thing last year at another customers property that also had a crossed line)

My main concern is that BT has frighten the customer off of calling out the engineers to have a look at the fault, I can understand that BT are reluctant to send out engineers to fix faults. But come on BT give your customers some re-assurance and some credit that after all they have done all that you have asked them to prove the fault isnt down to the customer.

If anyone from BT monitors this forum please can you answer this question for me:
The customer only has a master socket, NO Extensions, 1 phone and 1 modem plugged into the master socket via a Filter, the customer has tried replacing his cordless phone with a corded phone and can still hear other peoples telephone conversations, bearing this in mind, what else could be causing the problem and if there is nothing else you can suggest, could you re-assure the customer that if what I have said is true he will not be charged for this fault to be corrected.

Mark_In_Hampshire wrote: »

There are two separate things going on here which might or might not be related (big co-incidence, though)

1. Crossed line
2. Rubbish broadband

Deal with (1) without even mentioning (2). Report a line fault and make it clear you can overhear other conversations.

If you tested with a corded phone then I cannot see how this can be a 'customers own property' fault. The fault will lie somewhere between the house and/at the exchange.

Once that's solved, the broadband might or might not resume normal service, unless it's connected to a different exchange to those on the same street (it happens) or the line itself is of poor quality for broadband and thus < 300kbps is all that's to be expected.

If BT won't solve the problem, you could try and see if you can work out who it is on the line (a neighbour?) and pop round and tell them what you overheard. They might well get onto BT then..

iniltous

You seem to asking for BT to guarantee no charges will be raised before they come out, as you have checked your equipment and wiring OK, but BT wont guarantee no charges in advance because if the fault is on something that isnt Openreaches responsibility the argument would start ' but you said no charges'....if you are confident that you have checked as far as practical the fault is outside of the property (and given the type of fault, its going to be outside) you can report the fault confident that no charges will be raised, but if you dont accept the potential for charging then they wont progress the fault to Openreach.
It sounds like your client has nothing to fear in raising a fault report.
The reason BT will be pushing the 'if its your equipment/wiring' script is because the line tests OK, but the
testing system used cannot detect all faults, some are easier to detect than others.
If the CS rep has a computer screen that states the line tests OK they have to highlight the potential for charging otherwise if the call was audited they would get b*llocked for not saying it, but thats all it is a potential for charge, not a guarantee charges are going to be raised.

cwaite

Thanks to all for replying.

I am confident that I have carried out all the checks and that the customer is not going to be charged, but I cant seem to reassure the customer, this is not the first time I've had a customer that was worried about calling BT out incase they were charged. Anyway I cant really do any more.

The annoying thing is we pay enough in line rental (which is going up again soon!) which should easily cover the cost of calling out an engineer once to at least check the line from a customers master socket and then make a decision from there.

BT's so-called line checking equiptment is useless it never detects a fault, I have been to several customers with problems ranging from crossed lines, to crackling, to no dialtone whatsoever, all tested from the master socket and BT's remote line checking equiptment has never found a fault but when and engineer has come out to the property, the fault has been found within seconds. Maybe BT should look at improving their remote fault finding equiptment if they are reluctant to send engineers out.

iniltous

Although you may have a point about the quality of BT remote testing, the fact is that these days most people will have ADSL filters connected to the line, and millions probably have Sky boxes connected too, all these devices have the potential to cause a fault on the line,Openreach get about £80/year from a rented line, so one bogus call to a line that isnt faulty ( well not faulty on something what they are responsible for ) would probably cost all the £80 and more, given that all the end user is asked to do is unplug their own equipment and try with a known working phone in the test socket, then it isnt difficult to establish if the fault is on BT side of the master socket or the end users side, there is even a guide in the phone book and on line that shows you how to do this.....as you have done all thats required and the end user is still unwilling to report the line faulty I dont see what anyone including BT/Openreach can do, the end user has to have the 'courage' to report the
line faulty, but as I said if the end user wont accept the potential for charges then should the fault be on the end users kit, and they didnt agree at the outset to charges (in the event it is their kit) then how would BT cover their costs..take them to court ?, getting aggrement in advance seems to be to be a logical way to proceed