Apologies for lack of posts recently: heres why!

[StBarnabas]

Trouble with BT
On the 3rd of October my telephone line went down. I am in a rural location and there is 8.3km of very frayed copper between us and the exchange. The broadband connection still worked but as a telephone line it was totally dead. MrsB did not report the fault so it did not actually get reported till I retirned from Germany on the 7th. After a week of nothing happening I spoke to someone – presumably in an Indian call centre who insisted there was no fault on the line it must be in the house network. After carefully explaining that there is no house network and the telephone is directly plugged into the master socket a telephone engineer did come out and some work was done on the line (this was the 11th October). The telephone then worked but very badly – there was so much noise on the line it was effectively unusable and not surprisingly the broadband stopped working.

It has been groundhog day ever since. We complain the phone is not working. BT promise to send out an Engineer in 2 days. We arrange for somebody to be in. Towards the end of the allocated timeslot a text will be sent to MrsB’s phone saying the fault has been fixed. We phone up BT and explain that nothing has happened. The fault has not been fixed. This has now happened six times. Needless to say we are being less polite.     

Update....
Last weekend there has been some progress in that there was some work done on the line. The phone is still very noisy and but now  functions as a phone, but there is no broadband – indeed my DSL box - a Linksys/Cisco WAG120N does not even detect a carrier the DSL lights do not even flash – never mind connect.  One of my neighbours who sets up DSL networks for a living kindly came around to check the line last night. On hearing the quality of the dial tone and associated noise – he said no chance of broadband but went through the motions of attaching another DSL box just so we could tell BT that we had the DSL independently checked. Needless  to say it did not work.

They are due to once again Thursday afternoon between 13:00 and 18:00. What’s the betting they do absolutely nothing and send a text at 17:59 to say it has been fixed?
I am posting this from work – apologies for lack of replies to various people. Maybe some day I will have a working internet connection again.

[martin]

I had a 3-week outage thanks to the idiocies of Talktalk, and managed to stay online by purchasing a "3" dongle, which when taped high up on a window allowed a reasonable connection for the period (from memory, around £30 including airtime, which I eventually managed to reclaim from the eejits at
TalkTalk) - expensive, but did the job...

here's the thread - http://www.navitron.org.uk/forum/index.php/topic,9645.0.html

[camillitech]

Sympathies St B,

been there, got the book, the video and the T shirt  We used to have two lines when I had 'dial up' the internet would work on one but not the other (though it did for three months) yet they still insisted there was no fault and it was my equipment  I took the laptop and modem to my neighbours house and it functioned there too. So there are three phone lines to the north end of Raasay, my laptop and modem functioned perfectly for three months on all three, now it only works on two and the problem is my equipment  

Cheers Paul

[KLD]

StB

If you have some other company as your ISP, it is worth setting them onto chasing BT. We had a similar problem, and our ISP (Sovision, whom I'm very happy with) was extremely helpful and effective in keeping BT on their toes. It never took more than a day before yet another BT engineer came out to see us (though none of them knew that he's not the first to deal with the fault ...).
At the same time many others in our village experienced the same type of fault, and those directly with BT almost all gave up. Not that I'm saying this is BT's strategy owt 

Klaus

[camillitech]

StB

If you have some other company as your ISP, it is worth setting them onto chasing BT. We had a similar problem, and our ISP (Sovision, whom I'm very happy with) was extremely helpful and effective in keeping BT on their toes. It never took more than a day before yet another BT engineer came out to see us (though none of them knew that he's not the first to deal with the fault ...).
At the same time many others in our village experienced the same type of fault, and those directly with BT almost all gave up. Not that I'm saying this is BT's strategy owt 

Klaus

Funny you should say that Klaus, my reasoning at keeping the line rental and ISP the same the same was that they'd be more likely to look after one of their own customers. Not so it would seem for when we changed both the service improved drastically, same line, same engineers but obviously a much larger kick up the ar5e   

Cheers, Paul

[M]

If we're having a BT internet bash, how's about this then.

My sister decided to change everything over to a BT home hub all signing and dancing, for £50 per month, one year non cancelable fee.

The kit arrives in the post, but on the allocated install day the engineer doesn't turn up. Lots and lots of arguing and phonecalls, but BT insist that there is no order, contract, planned install - nothing whatsoever. So my sister has to start all over again.

1 month down, second hub kit etc arrives, same again, no engineer. According to BT nothing arranged, and can't be swayed by my sister who now has 2 sets of kit in the house from BT.

Her husband is now furious as he runs an e-bay shop and business, and is now struggling.

2 months down, 3rd kit arrives, and so does an engineer, who says this happens all the time.

Phew, time to relax. Until the first months DD goes through, for £1,250.

Yep, that's right, £1,250. The keen eyed and brained among you might be able to work out, that this represents £50 monthly fee for the 3rd system, plus 12 months fee for the first two systems that my sister was deemed to have cancelled. The two systems that BT failed to install and had no record off.

My sister got annoyed, she's very good at getting annoyed. Every watchdog, industry body, complaints body, and the next door neighbours cat knew all about it by mid day.

She got the £1,200, an apology, compensation, compensation for any missed bank payments, flowers, and a reduced fee by the end of the week.

She doesn't like BT

Martyn.

[martin]

I like the sound of your sister  - getting action like that takes real force of character!

[Baz]

new business venture?

"Rent a Sister"

[Richard Owen]

new business venture?

"Rent a Sister"

Not sure I'd get much for mine.

[Richard Owen]

When dealing with BT it is really important to take a note of the fault log number (you may have to ask for it.)

Then, when you contact them again, start by stating you wish to update fault xxxxxxx (whatever your number is.)

This is because the longer a fault is in the system the higher priority it is assigned.

If you go through the same call sequence every time and answer the same set of inane questions every time, you will be issued with a new fault log number every time and your fault will receive the lowest priority.

[M]

I like the sound of your sister  - getting action like that takes real force of character!

She's the loveliest person in the world, and at 5 foot nothing isn't very intimidating, but push her too far, or mess with her kids and the resulting fireball can be seen from space.

I assume everyone has had some issue or another with their phone (and associated services) providers, but BT does seem to employ specialists in patronising and denying fault.

I once spent 25 mins waiting for Virgin Media to answer the phone. I only waited that long as the initial 'you are in a queue' message changed after 2 mins to, 'your call will be answered by the next available operator'.

When I finally got through I challenged the delay, if I was next. I was told that I was focusing on the wrong word, and that available operator, was the important bit.

I explained that I knew the call would be answered, I knew it would be by an operator, and that the operator must be available at said time. The only piece of information therefore to focus on was 'NEXT'.

She went on to say that whilst I may be next, that doesn't mean that there isn't a queue in front of me.

I politely (honest) pointed out that next has no alternative meanings, and less politely suggested she obtain a dictionary. Things didn't progress from there.

Short chat with OFCOM the next day, who weren't responsible for Virgin, but were able to get the head of complaints to call me. She listened to me, said there was no way to interpret the message other than that I was next, apologised and got it changed / deleted. Quite a nice lady.

Some issues are tricky and two sided, but many are simply insane and the staff just don't care!

Martyn.

[skyewright]

So there are three phone lines to the north end of Raasay, my laptop and modem functioned perfectly for three months on all three, now it only works on two and the problem is my equipment

One day about this time last year every Broadband connected computer on our exchange simultaneously developed a strange but exactly similar fault. Every single user's equipment, regardless of make or, model and regardless of software developed a problem in sending or receiving across the Internet any file bigger than a few kilo bytes in size. Well, BT seemed to think that's what the nature of the problem was since they were quite certain that it could not be anything to do with their equipment (i.e. the one thing common to all connections)!

Several days later all the connections simultaneously fixed themselves again, all at exactly the same time. Well, that must have been the case, since as there was no problem on BT's network it couldn't have been anything they'd done. 

Strange things computers...

[Heinz]

When BT installed my phone line they decided that burying the cable two inches down in the edge of the ditch at the side of the forest track was a good idea. I did try and explain that the forestry commission would dig the cable up a couple of times a year, but the ears were deaf. After the first few digger related phone faults and the difficulty in reporting them due to the lack of a working phone line and the lack of a mobile signal, I invested in an ex MOD field telephone (modern push button type) for in wet ditch line testing, some jelly crimps and some cheap indoor phone cable. Now when the forestry dig a chunk out of the cable I fix bodge the fault. Trying to explain this to the brain dead BT person when reporting the fault always results in a little confusion..... 

Heinz

[camillitech]

If we're having a BT internet bash, how's about this then.

My sister decided to change everything over to a BT home hub all signing and dancing, for £50 per month, one year non cancelable fee.

The kit arrives in the post, but on the allocated install day the engineer doesn't turn up. Lots and lots of arguing and phonecalls, but BT insist that there is no order, contract, planned install - nothing whatsoever. So my sister has to start all over again.

1 month down, second hub kit etc arrives, same again, no engineer. According to BT nothing arranged, and can't be swayed by my sister who now has 2 sets of kit in the house from BT.

Her husband is now furious as he runs an e-bay shop and business, and is now struggling.

2 months down, 3rd kit arrives, and so does an engineer, who says this happens all the time.

Phew, time to relax. Until the first months DD goes through, for £1,250.

Yep, that's right, £1,250. The keen eyed and brained among you might be able to work out, that this represents £50 monthly fee for the 3rd system, plus 12 months fee for the first two systems that my sister was deemed to have cancelled. The two systems that BT failed to install and had no record off.

My sister got annoyed, she's very good at getting annoyed. Every watchdog, industry body, complaints body, and the next door neighbours cat knew all about it by mid day.

She got the £1,200, an apology, compensation, compensation for any missed bank payments, flowers, and a reduced fee by the end of the week.

She doesn't like BT

Martyn.

Similar epic here M,

my neighbour was sold a package that included broadband over the phone. "I can't get broadband" says she, "I'm 10 miles from the exchange", Oh yes you can replies the charming lady, after that it was a similar tale, equipment turns up without engineer. Meanwhile I turns up sees the shiny new modem and tells her she can't get broadband, but BT say I can she retorts. If we could get broadband up here I wouldn't have a gazillion pound satellite dish I tells her. She then phones BT saying she can't get broadband, to which she's told 'Oh yes you can'  Next thing another modem turns up, and shortly afterwards an engineer, who tells her "you can't get broadband up here"    Of course that didn't stop them charging her for both sets of equipment, rental and a cancellation fee 

It was eventually sorted out but not to the degree of flowers and chocolate 

Cheers, Paul

[rogeriko]

My internet here in Greece comes through a 2 mile distant wireless connection because we live on the top of a mountain where there is no telephone connection. I have 2 yagi antennas and 500mw boosters at each end. I have just invested in a 10 mile 5Ghz antenna/receiver but this has yet to be installed.