Scott Herts

I am really mad with BT at the moment, had to write it on here to see if anyone else has had the same problems etc....


I moved into a new house on a semi new housing estate which at the moment is only serviced by BT (arrrggghh)

Phones got connected straight away, and the day after ordered BT broadband, all quite a quick net registration, they gave me a date online of the 17/09/04 a few days after i regged, i thought cool! Instructions say that you have to be at home to see the engineer between 8am-5... Right went into work the next day and booked that friday off.

on the 17th knock knock at the door, was the postie delivering me a special delivery package, which just happened to be my modem and all the bits required to connect me up to BB, with big notice saying "NO ENGINEER REQUIRED" I thought to myself B*stards i could have just had this sent to me at work...

Plugged everything in and nothing, read the instructions a bit more and it says it can take up to 5pm the same day to get the line activated for BB, ok i went out and left it, got in just before 5, nothing working, so i decided to call bt on there free 150 service, after 1hr 1m 37secs yes now it is 6pm someone answered and said sorry we have been trying to get you through to the engineers dept but it isnt worth it now as they clock off at 6 and wont pick the phone up, have to wait til monday (again arrrggghhhh) where they will call and let me know what is going on!

Right it is now monday i had no call by 10am so again i sat in a queue holding for now just over 3hours in total, and spoken to about 6 people who all palm me off to another place, so to get me back in a queue again.

One person told me straight out there is a note on the account cancelling the order of broadband, i asked why after another 10 mins hold they tell me that a fault is on the line so they CANCELLED the order(WTF!!) and this test was done on the 16/09/04 the day before my BB install date!

Then i was put through to another dept, residential faults dept who are now trying to find out what is the fault on the line (seeing as my phone works i cant see it being a big fault) and are going to ring me back (what are the chances of this??)

So now it is getting near the end of day i want to know if anyone out here in the scooby world has got any advice.

for one I didnt need to be there friday, also if they found a fault should they not have contacted me rather than just cancelling the order, and WTF is it with holding for a guaranteed 1hr before anyone picks up the phone??

I will update this as much as possible until this is resolved, I just thought BT were better than NTL, no other BB ISP will touch my neck of the woods at the moment so i have to hang on for these monkeys to do there business!!

boxst

Hello

You really need a better ISP to follow up with BT the exact nature of the fault. I would suggest Nildram or Zen.

(I don't understand the comment: "no other BB ISP will touch my neck of the woods" ??)

Steve.

Scott Herts

no other Broadband ISP will connect me!

Tried on all the sites and they all say it is unavailable where i am. No service i gather even though i thought most places use bt line for it......i am lost with this cr@p

Geddon

Pipex
NEVER EVER use BT.

Big C

Same kind of thing from me too mate...

i would not recommend BT at all for broadband.

The support is dreadful. If you dial on 0800800060 you regularly wait on hold for at least an hour.

I suggest just going straight through to the technical support people who actually know WTf they are doing (no-one else in the organisation seems to....)

08702 404650

Let me know if you have any better luck with them..

C

boxst

Hello

When did you try? The limits on ADSL have just changed (in the last two weeks or so), so that BT will now try to put Broadband on any line (with an enabled exchange).

Rather than trying the website checkers, actually ring up one of the other ISPs mentioned.

Steve.

davegtt

had similar probs with BT at my first gaff, never again, bunch of useless fcukwits.... hours on the fone and lots of different people. first thing I do now is make a note of who you are speaking too and if nothing it done ask to spk to their supervisor and so on until 1 of them is willing to do something, even if it takes another 3 hours on the fone etc I eventually got it sorted and had 6 months free telephone for compensation off them..... problem is they stress u out sooo much u end up shouting after an hour and then they hang up on you....lol

Scott Herts

WOw got through first time with that number, even though they told me they are more of the helpdesk that help fix your BB when it has been installed she could still look into the other issues..

says that on the call it says that there is a fault with the line, and there are people looking at it, and i should be up and running by the end of the week or if not i wont be able to have BB at all!! arrgghhh!

Scott Herts

Do you think it is ok to go look for another ISP rather than get BT to fix the line first then ditch them?

dome

AFAIK If the line is not compatible then in theory no other ISP should be able to connect you as they all go through the BT exchange...

Big C

Glad to hear you got through no probs. Cut out the 'filtering' monkeys and go straight through to the fixer monkeys. I Always get good service on that number and the folks have more info than the customer service filtering monkeys at here disposal. I'm sure now at least they'll keep you informed of developments.


ATB,
C

Iwan

When i moved house recently i needed to get the telephone and broadband moved to the new house.

Telephone, called BT, told them what date i wanted to change, all done very efficiently and seamlessly. Old number disconnected at 9.00am, new number connected at 9.01am.

Broadband, called BT about 10 times, emailed about 10 times. Took nearly 4 weeks to change over, and most of that i was without any service. Hard to believe it's the same company.

ChrisB

That's exactly it - it's not!

Scott Herts

Anyone got an email address of someone at BT, i want to complain, really just at the lack of customer service of there behalf, no communication etc...

anyone got it?

Wish

iTrader: (2)

Im with Wanadoo, And they have been nothing short of Excellent

***** 5 stars

NotoriousREV

I wouldn't bother, they don't care. I was the Technical Manager for an ISP using BT to provide ADSL lines to our customers.

We had to buy a lot of network products from BT in order to support this which cost around about £100k per year. It should have cost a lot more, due to our location but it was agreed with our account manager that we would pay the lower fee as an early adopter, all of which was given to us in writing.

6 months in they hiked the price up (by about £80k a year) to what would have been the "normal" fee had we not agreed the lower one. 9 months of negotiation followed which followed the basis:

Us: you promised the fee would be lower, you put it in writing
BT: tough, we've changed our mind. Are you paying or are we going to disconnect 2000 of your customers
Us: we'll take you to court
BT: fine, in the meantime, we're hovering over the "off" switch
Us: erm...

Even complaining to OFTEL made no odds. They make so much money, individual companies and especially individual customers mean absolutely nothing to them.

P1Fanatic

Bulldog are running their own kit in BT's exchanges now thanks to LLU - not enough for sure buts its a step in the right direction.

I may swap to Bulldog from Pipex next year just to see the difference.

Simon.

mad_dr

All ADSL Connections on BT phone line go through the BT Exchange. It is at this point that most ADSL Connections fail.

There is a piece of kit called DSLAM in the Exchange which all the contended ADSL Connections go into and BT barely know how these things work! MONKEYS the lot of them!

I've had full-blown shouting matches with BT engineers who are too thick to find their *** with both hands where I've seen the same problem (BT ****-up) hundreds of times and not only do they deny all knowledge, but they insist on doing their own time-consuing tests only to deny the problem again. Then, all of a sudden, it starts working... How strange...

I work for one of the biggest UK ISPs and we have a huge amount of clout when it comes to BT and I'd never recommend them! Luckily we don't have many problems with them anymore but that's only because we have made an effort to learn their systems better than they do. It's VERY rare that THEY diagnose a problem - usually we tell them what to fix and they give us a humble "thanks".

ADSL is now on the Long-reach program which means that anyone connected to an ADSL enabled exchange (IE an exchange that has a DSL DSLAM) SHOULD be able to receive at least 512k of Upstream bandwidth. However there are many factors that can affect DSL because it's such an old technology (Copper lines etc). All ADSL is is bandwidth that is gained from the higher frequencies of the normal audio channels of a phone line. We can't hear that high frequency so BT split it off and use it to pass data. Large bodies of water or metallic structures in the local vicinity can ALL affect the ability of the line to receive DSL.

My advice? Get a Bulldog line or I can get you a good price on a Gigabit Lan Extention Service. Much more fun!

Best of luck!

mad_dr

Much better service from Bulldog mate - good move. Wait a few months though - I think that Bulldog are going to be making some interesting price-moves shortly...

ChrisB

Bulldog ain't exactly smelling of roses at this point in time though...

jjones

go here

http://www.adslguide.org.uk/

and post your problem, there are a lot of helful people - some work for BT in the ADSL arena.

mad_dr

How do you mean Chris? (Genuinely interested - not confrontational!)

jjones

click the link i posted - approx fourth article down

mad_dr

Ah - as a reseller, we provide the service to the customer and do most of our own work in the datacentre. They just sell us circuits so luckily we seem to avoid most of the problems that they seem to have a reputation for.

Phew!

Diesel

BT Broadband via AOL made me rebuild my whole computer, borrow USB hubs, phone up constantly for 2 weeks - min 10 hours spent on the phone.

Eventually a BT engineer comes out and goes 'oops forgot to throw the ADSL switch at the exchange'.

Frustration is not the word! After another 2hrs on the phone AOL gave me a month free as compo - but it was like trying to get blood out of a stone.

TOTALLY incompetent on such a basic function!

Diesel

Terrible isnt it - covert solutions and secret numbers to try obtain half decent customer service - ohh and did EVERY first line operator try to take you through basic procedures each time - 'uninstall the modem driver sir whilst rubbing your ear with a bit of wet lettuce to see if that helps - BUT I HAVE ALREADY DONE THAT 37 TIMES - I EVEN TRIED IT WITH ASPARAGUS MR FLOW CHART PROGRAMMED MONKEY BRAIN!!!!!!' [DAMNIT I STILL SEEM ANGRY ]

Albert47

Bt did the same with me. I joined wannado broadband. They said it ws fine and everything would be sent by post, no engineer required. 2 weeks later nothing not even a phone call. I rang wanndo and they said BT cancelled yr order the day after i ordered it!!! without any explanation T*$#%^s!!!!!!!!!!

P1Fanatic

Thats the BT we know and love - how many times have I heard "no alarms seen on this circuit/dsl line/isdn line" only for BT to visit site, find nothing wrong but as soon as they leave it starts working.

The worrying thing is they are far more efficient than any other telco I deal with. NTL, Cable & Wireless, Colt, Kingston, Thus, Eircom, DTAG, KPN, Swisscom, SIG, Cablecom, Skanova, Butler Networks, Telecom Italia, France Telecom - u name it they suck more than BT. Gotta love being able to loop BT lines yourself.

Simon.

DrEvil

Just be grateful you don't have to deal with them for X25 links