BT service

[catgate]

We have our telephonic communication back again. It went "off", for some reason, ten days ago.

Due to the quirky nature of broadband we had continued to have a very intermittent connection, through one wire, for a number of days, but that eventually became so intermittent that it was of no use as a communications method. It then disappeared completely this last week.

Earlier this year BT spent a lot of time and money installing a new cable, in a newly laid trunking, between the local exchange, situated in the village about three miles to the East of us, and the village about two and a half miles West of us.

This was to replace the existing cable, to which we were connected, which was put in in 1938, and which was also, according to the BT/Openreach engineers, who came out with monotonous regularity, "totally buggered" (apparently a technical telephonic term).

When the "offage" occured the usual pantomime of notifying BT of a fault was performed by the few people dwelling around here and the diversion of calls to 'mobiles' was set in place. Sadly around here most mobiles are about as useful as Gordon Brown, due to the weakness of signal. We can get a ring tone on ours but have to go outside, to the end of the garden, to hold a conversation, and we are on Orange...the best round here.

Various people kept chasing up BT about the progress of the repair, and each time another promise would be made, which, after the jungle drums had spread the glad tidings, would not be kept, and so another brave soul would fight the modern "marvel" of mobile technology only to get another duff promise.

Early last week hole appeared at the side of the road, at the bottom of which was a cable, though it was not in a plastic trunking, and no one seemed to be taking any interest in it.

Last Thursday I was passing down the road and saw two BT vans parked They were nowhere near the hole. So I stopped and had a word with the two chaps about the situation. They were very helpful and told me they were expecting to be able to find a couple of pairs of wires that were still usable and if that was the case the expected to effect a repair some time on Friday.

So I said that it sounded as though the fault was with the old cable, surely the new cable in the trunking could not have gone down so quickly.. They confirmed that this was so and also, when I asked them if we were still on the old cable, told me that a number of us were not on the new cable.

It transpires that the dozen or so dwellings between the two villages are all still on the old 1938 cable despite a totally new cable being laid virtually alongside the old knackered one.

The whole affair leaves me wondering about the logic of modern management and the case for out sourcing hole digging and repairs to India.

I am sure we can look forward to more fun in the ensuing months.

[andsome]

Thank goodness we are on cable, and that is still fairly new. :D

[Gandalph]

BT are going to be installing Fibre Optics around here early next year. That should be fun. :D

[catgate]

I wonder why they want to launch into new technology when they have never mastered the old.

Soldering a couple of bits of copper wire together seems to present them with insuperable problems, how are they going to cope with glass blowing.

[Gandalph]

I wonder why they want to launch into new technology when they have never mastered the old.

Soldering a couple of bits of copper wire together seems to present them with insuperable problems, how are they going to cope with glass blowing.

That's why I thought it would be fun. It's not too long since they practically renewed all the copper lines around here, they must be laying these Fibre Optics to try and get rid of as much money as possible before they submit there year end returns to the Tax Man. :D

[andsome]

I wonder why they want to launch into new technology when they have never mastered the old.

Soldering a couple of bits of copper wire together seems to present them with insuperable problems, how are they going to cope with glass blowing.

That's why I thought it would be fun. It's not too long since they practically renewed all the copper lines around here, they must be laying these Fibre Optics to try and get rid of as much money as possible before they submit there year end returns to the Tax Man. :D

The tax man will then put those returns onto a CD and loose it in the post. :lol: :lol:

[CurlyWhirly]

BT are going to be installing Fibre Optics around here early next year.

Lucky you

We still have to make do with POTS and, as I live a long way from the exchange, 3 Mb is all I can get :(

[Gandalph]

BT are going to be installing Fibre Optics around here early next year.

Lucky you

We still have to make do with POTS and, as I live a long way from the exchange, 3 Mb is all I can get :(

Well I am doing a bit better than that Curly. I live 947 metres from the exchange and I'm managing 6.5 Megs on the copper with a little bit up and down at times.

[Watchful]

Mine wavers a bit at peak periods but on the whole the service is good.

[catgate]

Well I am doing a bit better than that Curly. I live 947 metres from the exchange and I'm managing 6.5 Megs on the copper with a little bit up and down at times.

We are paying for "up to 2Meg" although it is very often less than 0.5Meg.

[Gandalph]

That is a bad speed catgate. I would have a word with them and ask them to get their finger out and get something done about it.

[andsome]

My advertised speed is 4MB download and 0.4MB upload.

This is what I regularly get on Virgin cable.

[Irene]

These are my speeds this morning...

[andsome]

These are my speeds this morning...

What are they supposed to be? :D

[doug]

Mine, this morning and not so long ago.

Took a couple of goes to get that right - I hope. Give up and try again later

Later

[Irene]

What are they supposed to be? :D

I can't remember!

Edit........ I think I'm on the 'Up to 8MB' service. like -pops-. :D

[-pops-]

Internet Frog tells me I'm getting download of 6.21Mb/s upload of 679Kb/s.

I'm on BT "up to 8Mb" service.

[catgate]

That is a bad speed catgate. I would have a word with them and ask them to get their finger out and get something done about it.

Getting through to them is an almost impossible task. they have this wonderful system of an "0870 labyrinth" of 'if you want this press that' etc that always eventually dumps you out in the back entrance after relieving you of lots of pennies per minute (+VAT).

I changed from Onetel to Tiscali a couple of months ago and even then it was necessary to use 0870....!

When our 'phone went down recently I was unsure of who to call, because now we get our line through Tiscali.So I eventually found an email address on their Home Page and emailed them about it. It is almost a fortnight since and I am still waiting for a reply..

I suspect the speed is not entirely within the control of Tiscali,but is related to some extent on the tattered piece of string connecting me to the BT exchange. And to be fair to Tiscali why the hell should they bother about customer service, no one else does, and if I've been daft enough to believe all their blurb, can it possibly be their fault that I signed up with them?????

[CurlyWhirly]

We are paying for "up to 2Meg" although it is very often less than 0.5Meg.

I'm lucky as Zen don't throttle at all and I always get around 2900 off a 3 Mb profile.

This is a useful reference to ISP throttling.

As you can see Zen is all green which means no throttling B)

Out of curiosity, which ISP are you with?

Why not check out the link and see if they are throttling your connection?

You may not get full speed all day but you should certainly get close to your full speed at off peak times.

Edit:

I just read further down the thread and found out that you are with Tiscali who are notorious for throttling :(

[andsome]

These are my speeds this morning...

That's not very good then, better than some land lines on here, but cannot compare with cable. Can you get cable locally? :D

[CurlyWhirly]

Getting through to them is an almost impossible task.

Tiscali also have a bad reputation for customer service

I suspect the speed is not entirely within the control of Tiscali,but is related to some extent on the tattered piece of string connecting me to the BT exchange.

It all depends if your exchange has been unbundled !

If it has then Tiscali are in control of your line as you are connecting to their equipment in the exchange.

See here as it explains what local loop unbundling is.

To find out whether your exchange has been unbundled by Tiscali click here

And to be fair to Tiscali why the hell should they bother about customer service, no one else does

Erm... Zen takes pride in it's customer service and has even won awards: http://www.zen.co.uk/

See the awards down the left hand side of the page.

You also have an idea of how many people are in the queue for both technical support and customer service by clicking the 2 links on here

Obviously it is only relevant when the lines are active. :D

I clicked on the technical support link a few minutes ago and got this:

[Irene]

That's not very good then, better than some land lines on here, but cannot compare with cable. Can you get cable locally? :D

To be quite honest, I don't know.

What services do you receive through cable?

[CurlyWhirly]

That's not very good then, better than some land lines on here, but cannot compare with cable. Can you get cable locally? :D

To be quite honest, I don't know.

As in my link above, just type the name of your exchange into here or your telephone number or postcode if you don't know it but as usual don't post it on a public forum for privacy reasons :)

On my exchange I get:

What services do you receive through cable?

Well Virgin Media offer broadband, TV and telephone:

http://www.virginmedia.com/

p.s. I just realised after visiting the page that they now do mobile as well.

[catgate]

Getting through to them is an almost impossible task.

Tiscali also have a bad reputation for customer service

Who hasn't. Service is a dirty word. It does not make profit.

I have spent most of the morning with a neighbour who is also served by the cable to which I referred in my original post on this topic. He is still "off". He is with an outfit called XLN but only for 'phone. He did not know that our offage had become an onage so since he could not dial out I said I would ring and notify BT of his situation.

BT were were interested until they found out he was with XLN and then they could not even be bothered to give me XLN's number. When I got XLN's number from the 'net I found it was, as has become the norm, an 0870 number.SAYNO to 0870 gave me a freephone number so I did get through with the cost paid for by the profit taker.. But, when the young woman at the other end of the line found it was not my line that was wrong she told me they "could not accept fault notifications from a third party". When I asked how the man could ring them when his 'phone was duff she had no answer. But seeing the truth of the situation she said if I wouln't mind holding she would go and see if it would be OK if she did do this 'on this occasion'.

She came back with a positive answer and so we shall see what happens. Why BT did not fix this line when they fixed all the others is a bit of a puzzle. But I suppose "We have to live in the winter when you've gone" still hold for the fat cats.

[CurlyWhirly]

Who hasn't. Service is a dirty word. It does not make profit.

I disagree as with me it was AOL's continual lack of customer service that led to the decision to leave them after a number of years so they won't be profiteering from me any more !