British Telecom woes

[najaB]

Once they install a modern master socket their responsibility ends at that socket. Any internal wiring they might have put in years earlier becomes yours and is your responsiblity.

Pedantry, I know, but it's an NTE (network terminating equipment) rather than a master socket. If you did have a master socket (non-NTE) then your phone provider (via Openreach) would still be responsible for the internal wiring.

 

[gazzak]

I'm in the sticks and my line reaches me via roadside poles along (or rather through) the edge of a forest. It is a miracle the phones work at all around here. Trees branches about 400 yards away had damaged (not completely broken unfortunately) the line - it became extremely crackly. The BT number for reporting faults uses automated voice recognition for Jeez sake - try that on a crackly line. What idiot arranged that? I was screaming "FAULTY LINE!" at the top of my voice and the robot was responding "Sorry, I did not catch that, can you repeat it?." When I eventually got through (with my mobile) to a guy at BT's Indian call centre he did not seem to know what a tree was (have they used them all for firewood in India?). Funny how these guys start off with posh English accents but drop the charade as things get heated.

First they would not accept there was a fault at all because somehow it passed the automated line test (which the user initiates). So I repeated the test after disconnecting the line from the master socket, and that made BT do something. There is no mobile reception here - had to drive to a place 2 miles away even to talk to them and 10 miles to a public library to use the Internet.

It took about 6 weeks to sort out. You are not allowed to speak to Open Reach directly, although I did when they turned up (Four vans, two cherry pickers, plus the temporary traffic light team with two flatbeds) and it expedited things when I did. 600 yards of road were singled for two days. I hope it cost BT a lot of money, because the blighters would only compensate me for the pro-rata portion of line rental, nothing for my mobile calls while my line was down or my journeys. I changed to Post Office Phones immediately after.

That's uncanny. I too had an issue with crackling/random drops/slow internet that was caused by a neighbours tree rubbing away at the line. BT were totally inept and unhelpful so I did two things. Firstly, like you, I rang on a mobile and disconnected the line at the box so their tests showed a break, secondly I absolutely refused to get off the line until I'd spoken to a manager in a UK office, (they do exist).

Overall it took them a week and a lot of people to fix it, and the same day they fixed it I cancelled and moved to Virgin.

BT are fine when everything works but absolutely inept when it doesn't.

 

[Lucan]

Living in an area which is a mix of agricultural and forest, Openreach vans and repair teams are a constant sight, but they are only patching things up. Their system is a mess - the telegraph poles carry rats' nests of wires at the top, there are wires and boxes that are clearly redundant (some hanging loose ends) and some wires have sagged so much (or dropped off their poles) they are lying along tops of hedges. I commented to the Openreach foreman who mended my line (see above) that the poles along that road would be better on the opposite side, by an open field instead of by (or in) a forest, but he said they could get no money for improvements, they only respond to faults.

Contrast with Western Power Distribution for the electricity power supply (also on poles) where everything is ship-shape, and they trim trees when they infringe one metre clearance, yet you see far fewer of their vehicles around or repair teams working, so their approach must be cheaper over all.

 

[Polarbear]

Having sent a second, rather curt & pointed complaint letter on 27 March to BT, I received a call from a somewhat nervous sounding chap on 29 March. Next update will be in mid-April so 3 months with no service.

I intend to take further issue with BT's awful customer service, as in my opinion, they practice legalised extortion on their customers. I also intend to find out why no action has seemingly been taken by anyone to connect the property's to the network until I have made formal complaints.

 

[Bedpan]

Once they install a modern master socket their responsibility ends at that socket. Any internal wiring they might have put in years earlier becomes yours and is your responsiblity. You would not expect the previous houseowner to remain responsible for mowing your lawn?


I'm unclear why you need a power socket by the phone master socket, nor does your phone need to be in the cupboard.. You can take a phone cable extension (like this kit if you are not handy : http://cpc.farnell.com/pro-signal/31098r/telephone-extension-kit-10m/dp/TE05887?st=telephone%20extension%20leads) from the phone master socket to wherever you like. In my experience though the master socket position, and the line to it is often inconveniently placed or ugly, and I am "always" moving them. Eg I recently bricked up a doorway that had the lead going through the wooden frame; nor do I like leads fixed to my house facia with rusting staples.

Consensus on the web is that Open Reach engineers are not very worried unless you do it wrong, or with wrong fittings (they can tell wrong wiring from the exchange), and they are not going to crawl round you attic to check you have not put in a new junction box for example. The master socket must remain easily accessible though.

Don't they tell you that your router should be connected to your master socket, and you need to plug your router into a power supply.

 

[richw]

Openreach are the issue. Took 17 weeks when we moved to our address. Excuses ranged from cars parked too close to the cabinet, to a dog in a garden preventing access to the cabinet. I never worked out how both of those cabinet access issues could go together.

Plusnet is my provider and their customer service was top marks throughout. They paid for both my wife and I to have unlimited data bundles added to our mobile phone contracts as well as additional compensation amounts for the whole period we were without home broadband,

 

[Abpj17]

I've not been a BT customer for over 15 years and am delighted not to have to deal with them in any way.

There was a brief attempt to use Sky for TV services (rather than broadband initially) - that ended badly. It took four visits for them to decide they wouldn't install...

I've always found the actual service from VM to be very good - line speeds increase pretty much every year, without the degree of contention issues you tend to get over BT-based wires. Their customer service is hard work, but if you rarely have to contact them....

 

[Butts]

I have Broadband from Now TV along with a Landline and TV Package.

They are a subsidiary of Sky but all the installation work of a new line , boxes and connecting the router and TV Box was carried out efficiently and ontime by BT.

 

[najaB]

I've always found the actual service from VM to be very good - line speeds increase pretty much every year, without the degree of contention issues you tend to get over BT-based wires.

Contention is a service-provider choice, nothing to do with BT. You can get 1:1 services from some SPs.

 

[Polarbear]

Strangely, I've contacted Virgin Media on two separate occasions to see what they could offer. The property I've moved to is a new build and already has cables installed as part of the build.

On nether occasion have they responded to my enquiries.

It's somewhat ironic that communication companies appear to lack the ability to communicate with their customers (or potential customers).

 

[Dai Corner]

Strangely, I've contacted Virgin Media on two separate occasions to see what they could offer. The property I've moved to is a new build and already has cables installed as part of the build.

On nether occasion have they responded to my enquiries.

It's somewhat ironic that communication companies appear to lack the ability to communicate with their customers (or potential customers).

I wonder if the database the VM sales people use hasn't yet been updated to include your address?

 

[Lucan]

I'm unclear why you need a power socket by the phone master socket, nor does your phone need to be in the cupboard.

Don't they tell you that your router should be connected to your master socket, and you need to plug your router into a power supply.

Then use a longer cable from the master socket to the router. What they mean is don't connect the router via other electronics, such as through another phone or modem (some of which have a phone out as well as a phone in socket) or a private internal exchange, even though it might work anyway. Or use the kit I linked earlier, there will be no electronics in it. As your phone line has already come hundreds of yards (or 2 miles in my case) another 20 feet won't make a difference.

The only difference between a master socket (or NTE as najaB insisted ) and an extension socket is that it has a spark gap beteen the two incoming wires, and a capacitor and resistor in series between the two wires. Electronically it makes no difference where it is in your house, or if you take extension sockets from it and where they are.

 

[WelshBluebird]

Then use a longer cable from the master socket to the router. What they mean is don't connect the router via other electronics, such as through another phone or modem (some of which have a phone out as well as a phone in socket) or a private internal exchange, even though it might work anyway. Or use the kit I linked earlier, there will be no electronics in it. As your phone line has already come hundreds of yards (or 2 miles in my case) another 20 feet won't make a difference.

Not quite the case as I understood it. The reason for saying you should use the master socket is more so people don't end up getting slow speeds due to plugging it into an extension socket that is connected internally via some usually not very good wiring! At my parents before they got fibre, using the extension socket resulted in less than 500Kbps down, while using the master socket got 2Mbps down.

 

[Darandio]

I've always found the actual service from VM to be very good - line speeds increase pretty much every year, without the degree of contention issues you tend to get over BT-based wires. Their customer service is hard work, but if you rarely have to contact them....

We are the same, we have been with them since 2008 and haven't had the issues that seem to litter the internet, maybe we are just lucky. Started with 20mb and that was upgraded to 30mb. Circumstances changed so we took the 100mb package, they have since upgraded that to 150mb and then 200mb. In nearly 10 years it's only ever been off once and that was estate wide and was only for 8 hours.

Many of the gripes against VM that I see around t'interweb are with customer service but i've never had to bother with them. Maybe my view would change if I ever got that pleasure.

 

[najaB]

Many of the gripes against VM that I see around t'interweb are with customer service but i've never had to bother with them. Maybe my view would change if I ever got that pleasure.

Certainly for a while post-merger it depended on if you dealt with ex-Telewest or ex-NTL (aka NTHell) contact centres. I'm not sure how uniform the service experience is these days.

 

[Shenandoah]

In 2003 I decided to buy my own desktop, having used the local libraries equipment for a couple of years prior to this. I aimed high, good spec Windows XP HP desktop, monitor and printer.
The original XP machine came with an AOL, free for two months, dial up disc. I used this - after all this was new territory to me. As the trial period came to a close I had to choose to sat with AOL or find a new ISP. I stayed, for the simple reason that AOL seemed to have great protection for young people and children and if they looked out for them they would look out for me was my logic. I upgraded away from dial up but I have to say that AOL were good, as far as I was concerned - one soon learned how to control ISP's and some of their ways. They also had a good price as one became a valued customer after two or three years. AOL UK sold out to Talk Talk. I have never had issues with TalkTalk and have moved my landline rental from BT to Talk Talk - a wise move as far as I am concerned. I now get a very great deal, which includes free UK phone calls at any time and includes mobiles. No premium numbers of course but who uses them anyway? I have looked at the competition, they usually make good sounding offers but the small print, such as 'limits' is always what keeps me where I am.
What surprised me mostly with BT was that I had been a customer of theirs since 1964 - the guy I spoke to on the phone confirmed it by saying "yes, you are in the 1964 phone book" but no interest to keep me as a customer was ever made!

 

[skyhigh]

We are the same, we have been with them since 2008 and haven't had the issues that seem to litter the internet, maybe we are just lucky. Started with 20mb and that was upgraded to 30mb. Circumstances changed so we took the 100mb package, they have since upgraded that to 150mb and then 200mb. In nearly 10 years it's only ever been off once and that was estate wide and was only for 8 hours.

Many of the gripes against VM that I see around t'interweb are with customer service but i've never had to bother with them. Maybe my view would change if I ever got that pleasure.

I had a very similar experience with Virgin Media - I was with them for a couple of years and the service was very good, although I never had need to contact customer services.

I then moved into an existing house-share, where the existing ISP was Virgin Media. I rang up to cancel my contract. They asked why, and I explained that I was moving into a house that was already served by them. After that, I got between 5 and 10 calls a day for two weeks trying to convince me to stay with them. Despite telling them I wasn't interested in very clear terms, making a formal complaint etc it continued. In the end I had to involve the police to get it to stop! They eventually responded to my complaint apologising that they'd made a mistake and it should never have happened...

 

[najaB]

What surprised me mostly with BT was that I had been a customer of theirs since 1964 - the guy I spoke to on the phone confirmed it by saying "yes, you are in the 1964 phone book" but no interest to keep me as a customer was ever made!

Around that time period BT was actively trying to reduce their customer base so that they would be freed of regulations imposed due to their monopoly legacy.

 

[richw]

I’m with plusnet and every year I phone to leave to a better offering, and they always beat the best price for like for like product

 

[Shenandoah]

Yes, Rich, that approach works for many other things.

 

[richw]

Yes, Rich, that approach works for many other things.

I’ve struggled to get other suppliers or things to budge as easily as plusnet do.

 

[GaryMcEwan]

In my old flat when Copper Fibre was being rolled out I had 3 fully functioning phone sockets before the engineer came to hook it up. After he installed everything, only one of the sockets worked. It turned out he had back-wired the socket in the living room to become the master socket as the master socket was located in a cupboard.

Was told initially by BT that those sort of practices were a thing of past, but when they came out it was indeed back-wired. I would've imagined the engineer who came out got a bit of ticking off.

 

[najaB]

Was told initially by BT that those sort of practices were a thing of past, but when they came out it was indeed back-wired. I would've imagined the engineer who came out got a bit of ticking off.

I strongly suspect he was a contractor, they get the majority of 'simple' jobs these days and it's in their interest to do as many jobs per day as they can.

 

[GaryMcEwan]

I strongly suspect he was a contractor, they get the majority of 'simple' jobs these days and it's in their interest to do as many jobs per day as they can.

Funnily enough it was Kelly Communications on behalf Openreach...

 

[najaB]

Funnily enough it was Kelly Communications on behalf Openreach...

I knew it was just from your description of the job he did.