BT, OpenReach and teleco's

amorphix

Now I see why they split in two. Its a money maker for them! Surely, OFCOM could do something if lots of people complained, considering its unfair that you have to pay £90 for a faulty line that THEY installed, and upon the first installation, you also paid out!

Someone made this comment on another closed thread.

There seems to be confusion surrounding BT, OpenReach and the relationship between these companies. Many think they are one and the same.

There's also a misconception that BT customers get preferential treatment by OpenReach in terms of faster line installations and repairs, over competitors.

I have recently had direct contact with BT, OpenReach and OfCom, and would like to clarify these points for people who are considering telecom providers, or maybe biased to BT based on certain misconceptions:

1) OpenReach is a fully independent company and is not part of BT group. The government took away BT's monopoly and control of the telephone exchange to enable competition and other carriers to access the network and exchanges on a level playing field in terms of costs and service provision.

OpenReach is the company responsible for maintaining the network, exchanges and BT phone sockets in houses. There's no favourable pricing or service towards BT customers, or BT as a company from OpenReach. That would be illegal and contravene anti-competition law.

BT sales however do sometimes imply some "special relationship" with OpenReach and that they can do reactivation faster than competitors. I have found this not to be the case from personal experience.

2) It takes as long as OpenReach takes to install a line, reactivate a line at the exchange, or at a property, or repair a line fault, regardless of which teleco you're with. And the costs are fixed by OpenReach overseen by the regulator. No preference is given to BT in response time or cost by OpenReach.

HOWEVER some companies (notably BT) will absorb or reduce the cost of line reactivation to OpenReach (which costs £40 from OpenReach) but this usually means paying more for your line rental. BT are one of those companies, they will do free reconnections and sometimes lower priced new line installations, simply because they can afford to in their pricing and due to the size of the company, compared to smaller competitors. Smaller competitors often do the same if you agree to have broadband or commit to a longer contract period than 12 months.

3) BT, due to its sheer size and former monopoly status, has more regulations and restrictions on it, than smaller competitors do. One important factor is that they don't (or can't)* block Indirect Access Call (IAC) numbers like 18185 that offer free and cheaper calls routed over VOIP services.

Smaller competitors offering cheaper line rental than BT such as Primus Saver (and some larger ones that don't rely on OpenReach, i.e. Virgin, Sky) block 18185 free calls and in the case of Sky, even charge for calls to the freephone 0808 IAC number offered by 18185.

So, on the face of it, BT would seem to be the cheaper service really, if you can continue to make unlimited peak rate landline calls free using 18185, even though they charge £141 (if paid annually) for line rental compared to Primus Saver's £120.

I wonder why OfCom hasn't intervened and stopped ALL teleco companies (especially Sky) from charging for IAC calls made via 18185's freephone number. Freephone should be freephone, surely? Sky's T&C has conflicting and misleading info which states 0808 is a free phone number, but then contains an ambiguous statement saying they may charge for IAC calls. They do in fact try to charge for calls to the 0808 freephone number, unless you challenge them as I did.

So I believe OfCom may have stipulated that Teleco companies either cannot charge for freephone numbers (0800 or 0808, regardless of direct line or indirect call services) or if they do, they must state it clearly in the T&C and billing area on the site. Perhaps someone can confirm this, else I will raise the issue with OfCom?

* someone on this forum recently claimed BT plan to do block 18185 soon and probably other voip providers in future. However, I haven't been able to get BT to confirm this and they stated to me recently they do not block the service and have no plans to.

littleboo

amorphix wrote: »

1) OpenReach is a fully independent company and is not part of BT group.

BIB is not correct, Openreach are part of BT Group

amorphix

littleboo wrote: »

BIB is not correct, Openreach are part of BT Group

Oops, my mistake thanks for pointing this out.

My understanding is though from discussion with OfCom, OpenReach is run as an entirely separate independent company though and is not under the influence or control of BT, the teleco company.

Much like Post Office Counters Ltd is part of Royal Mail Group but not actually part of Royal Mail's postal services business.

littleboo

Thats correct, they are part of BT Group but a regulated business who offer services on equal terms to all providers including BT Retail. If there was any evidence, of them favouring BT Retail, the likes of Sky and Talk Talk would have a field day.

Roland_Sausage

amorphix wrote: »

and some larger ones that don't rely on OpenReach, i.e. Virgin, Sky)

You say that Sky don't rely on Openreach. Not sure where you got this from as they most definitely do.

As for Virgin, they do have their own cable network in some places, but for the rest of the country they also rely on Openreach to provide the service.

Ypaymore

Openreach is explained here : http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/contactus/areyouhavingserviceproblems/expect1.do

Your note it is an anagram of No Cheaper.:D

quattroken

OpenReach is the company responsible for maintaining the network, exchanges and BT phone sockets in houses. There's no favourable pricing or service towards BT customers, or BT as a company from OpenReach.

In my (very recent) experience, I can confirm that they also show no favouritism to any carrier when demonstrating their ineptitude.

cynicalgit_2

BT are rapidly becoming the Ryanair of the Telecommunications industry.
Customers are having their bank accounts gouged out to pay for their fatuous fantasy £1 Billion football channel.