'Kin BT

Axe_meister

I guess fibre to the cabinet will still not solve your problem if there is problem with the copper wire to the cabinet.

Phil_aka_Pip

I have heard stories about those black things that are strapped to the telegraph pole - circular, about 3" wide with the wires going into a flat base and a rounded top like a large bullet, with the whole thing being about 12" long ... if your phone line disappears into one of those, your broadband is bound to be knacked.

@Sambostar reminds me of the payphones they had in the student flats back in the late 70s. The coinboxes would fill up rapidly (mainly because of pakistani students calling home), and they would then be unusable until BT came to empty the coinbox. The only way to get BT to service the phone was to vandalise it in such a way as to make the exchange think it had a "fault", so the man would come to fix it, notice the coinbox was full, empty that, and then it would be usable until the next foreign student filled it up with one call to home. Then the cycle would repeat.

I am also reminded of the chap whose bedroom was on the wall adjoining the flat to the foyer. He got fed up with being woken in the night by the phone ringing - caused by family of foreign students calling the payphone during their own daytime (our sleepytime) and wanting someone to fetch a bloke with an unpronounceable name to the phone. He dug through the wall and inserted a toggle switch into the ringer line so he could switch it off before he went to bed

Gulliver

TTony said:

3 miles up the road, the next village (on a different exchange) are getting fibre to the home.  

Have you considered moving??

Fuzzdog

If you really want to confuse BT customer service, try telling them you run Linux - half the people in the call centre just went into a confused stuttering fit, and one outright told me that my broadband problem was my fault as I was not using Windows.  The funniest one was the one who repeatedly kept telling me to click the Start button.  

"I don't have one.  I'm using Linux."  

"Yes you do, click it not please."  

"I don't run Windows."  

"Just click the Start button!"  

"I don't bloody have one!!  The problem is between you and my router!" 

"Are you sure you know how to use a computer sir?  Is there someone there who can help?" 

"......." b-(

I think it took me about ten calls and several hours of talking before I finally managed to find the one single person in the call centre with a brain, who within a few seconds told me that yes, there was a problem on my line, and they would send an engineer out immediately.  Broadband (and crackle-free phone) was back that afternoon, and the support bloke even called me back the next day to make sure all was good.

I did used to have the super secret number for the UK broadband tech support desk, which was amazing.  I had no problems with them at all.  Lost the bit of paper though, so now I am condemned to talk to the regular morons in the remote office, as they won't even acknowledge that the UK support line even exists.

boogieman

@TTony. From the description I'd say it's water getting into the underground cable somewhere. The cables are pressurised from the exchange to attempt to keep water out but if it's a long run then problems do happen. I think the last diagnosis sounds reasonable FWIW. Footway boxes let in water, the cable sits in a swimming pool and the joints break down.

The main problem with all this is Oftel insisted that BT be broken up to encourage other telecoms companies to tender for business. All that ensured though is that no one company is responsible for the whole phone line. BT own the exchange buildings and the equipment up to where the line breaks out of the exchange, Openreach own the cables from the exchange up to the sub's house, you own everything after the master socket. Everyone then just plays pass the parcel with faults and it takes a while for them to get to the right person who can actually fix the fault. I know it's frustrating if you're the sub and you've got a faulty line but conditions are lousy for the engineers nowadays. They're hassled nonstop by management, work conditions are getting worse by the day and morale has hit the floor. It's one of the main reasons I bailed from BT: I was told I had to go on external engineering (providing lines and fixing faults). Worst job ever. No thanks, bye bye.

Roland

My parents had a line problem for years.  The diagnosis involved the usual number of calls to the Call Centre in Calcutta, each of which told me that the line was working perfectly.  The breakthrough was when I got into conversation with the call centre operator whilst the tests were running, and sympathised that she was having to work on Dushera, a local religious festival. Having established a human connection an engineers visit was authorised. It turned out to be a loose screw in the green box on the corner of the street.  Half a turn of the screw, and the problem was solved.

TTony

To be fair, we've had no difficulty in getting engineers out.

Engineer #5 arrived this morning.

Of course, engineer #5 knew nothing about the work done by engineer #4 on NYD, nor even that engineer #4 had been out to look at it.  So engineer #5 went through the usual set of tests ...

He's fixed something different, without needing the traffic light controls on the road that engineer #3 said was needed, nor the second guy that engineer #4 said was needed to assist the work.

My router is reporting the best line speed for a long time, so fingers crossed.  Just hope engineer #6 doesn't balls it up when he arrives tomorrow. 

Sambostar

You haven't accounted for No.7 who will now have to fix the neighbours line, as yours is now working.

mike257

Another ex-BT bod here. Unfortunately on a long copper route like you have, there are MANY potential points of failure and what can occur is that a large number of small problems in different places on the line can combine to create an unstable service. Each chap that comes along to investigate may find and resolve a genuine issue at one of the many points and, seeing an improvement, consider the fault cleared. Some of the underground work requires particular equipment and skills that the guy who turns up to fault your line at home might not have so, as previously suggested it has to be passed to another engineer/team to resolve. Depending on the location and nature of this work, it may take place promptly or, if it's a more complex civil engineering job requiring planning and permits and affecting service to multiple customers, be passed back for planned works which can be a time consuming process and is under strict financial controls. It's a flawed process as the focus is on completing tasks "efficiently" so things are closed off as quickly as possible when a fault is considered cleared. Processes do exist for further investigation of long running or repeat faults but these can be difficult to kick off. I'm not sure ordering a business line will help you though - whilst a higher level of fault response is available to business customers this comes at a cost. Regardless, if the capacity to provide you an additional line does not exist in the cabinet serving your address, I don't imagine a single extra PSTN line will be a trigger for the large investment needed to increase capacity. I was predominantly involved in the maintenance and provision of dedicated high bandwidth business services over copper and fibre and for those circuits any excess construction costs were passed directly to the customer, sometimes in the region of tens of thousands when lots of digging up highways and laying cables was involved.


So, short version, you're pretty much stuck with what you've got! Sorry chief!

TTony

mike257 said:

So, short version, you're pretty much stuck with what you've got! Sorry chief!

I came to the same conclusion a while back ... but still thought I ought to try to make things a little less comfortable for BT.

Should be able to escalate the inability to provide a new line (if that is indeed the case) pretty quickly via the Parish Council as that would affect the whole village.

Today's moan was triggered by engineer #6 turning up (unexpectedly) with no idea that engineer #5 had visited yesterday, or what the previous guy (and those who had come before him) had done/diagnosed.  They don't seem to use any sort of central system to share information about a fault between different engineers ...

chillidoggy

I've posted before about my BT problems, and I am in no doubt that they are the biggest bunch of useless twats, given their importance to businesses.

The main issue appears to be that they have no control over OpenReach (a separate entity) who do the Broadband stuff. And you absolutely no alternative but to go through BT in order to get anything done that requires OpenReach.

Further, it appears there is no way for BT to curry favour with OpenReach and hurry urgent jobs along, cos that would be seen as BT being in control, which of course they mustn't be. And OpenReach knows it. The local business managers freely admit that they are powerless to move things along any faster, a disgraceful situation.

This has been so since the split when they used to operate the Broadband services themselves. I think it was something to do with monopolies or something, but I'm not exactly sure.

Whatever, I sympathise with anyone, or any business, that has poor dealings with this ponderous, disjointed, frustrating behemoth that is not fit for purpose in this day and age.

I managed to get three months free line rental out of them after I kicked up about their crap performance, but I'd rather have had the use of the telephones instead.

Twats.

mike257

@TTony there is a system that holds all of the data, in fact it was replaced with something new and modern a few years back and many of the legacy systems are slowly being phased out. I think the problem is in how that information is delivered to the engineer - certainly when I left around two years ago the integration of the new back-end system was awkwardly bolted on to the engineer's work delivery platform and didn't always put the info in the most obvious or accessible places, although this may have improved since. Problem is if the engineer picks up the task whilst "on the road" they'll probably be knocking on your door before they've had the chance to do any real diagnostics or reading up on the fault history as they're pressured to get themselves on site as quick as poss so many will likely just turn up and get stuck in. Whilst this is a good thing in some circumstances, for a problem like yours it'd clearly be beneficial for someone to have time to familiarise themselves with the fault history and the work already carried out. When you next speak to BT, ask about the SFI process. That's the route by which ongoing faults get taken "off the clock" so they can be investigated properly instead of rushed through.

TTony

mike257 said:

When you next speak to BT, ask about the SFI process.

Thanks @mike257

capo4th

BT are a shocking company just the worst to deal with. Everyone should leave them. virtuallynevery other company is cheaper and provides better service. Boycott this company. BT are a joke !

TTony

capo4th said:

 virtuallynevery other company is cheaper and provides better service.

No-one else provides a service here.  (Apart from the hugely expensive satellite-based service providers.)

boogieman

Virtually every other company will also be dependent on Openreach and BTs cable and equipment at some point in the circuit too, unless it's a satellite or independent fibre system like Virgin.

I was going to say there should be full records of previous work done on your fault Tony but @mike257 has already told you all you need to know.

thomasross20

We're swapping from Virgin (expensive) to Talk Talk but it's awful so far 100% due to the Indian call centres who have been useless. 

Sambostar

They ought to send around half naked women engineers in bikinis.  Is it not sexist that all BT, Openreach and subcontracted engineers are blokes.

I wouldn't care how slow my broadband was if they sent around half naked chicks in bikinis.

I don't understand feminists.  They sit at home and have a stream of the opposite sex of all ages, soaked in bad aftershave and BO come around and service their houses, yet STILL they moan

Ungrateful wenches.  Feminism has had it's day.  The truth is that they don't know how lucky they are. 

Do they know how much chance a bloke has of meeting the opposite sex by calling on an engineer or tradesman?

Zero.

In these politically correct days, the time for Openreach chicks in bikinis...climbing telegraph poles..,...'Oh I've got creosote on my thigh....can you help me wash it off'.

....'OK love'

I don't want to see another make engineer, ever.  Sexist bastard of a company.

Grumpyrocker

Our BT broadband was on the blink for several days just before Christmas. It was a major outage in the area - all of my village was cut off.

But of course phoning BT was still a nightmare of some twit spending ages trying to get me to change settings on my PC, kept asking about my operating system, ignored me saying "it's every device in the house", and almost got to the point of telling me to reinstall windows before I said I wasn't having any more of it. Absolutely fucking useless.

Fortheloveofguitar

mike257;463506" said:

Another ex-BT bod here. Unfortunately on a long copper route like you have, there are MANY potential points of failure and what can occur is that a large number of small problems in different places on the line can combine to create an unstable service. Each chap that comes along to investigate may find and resolve a genuine issue at one of the many points and, seeing an improvement, consider the fault cleared. Some of the underground work requires particular equipment and skills that the guy who turns up to fault your line at home might not have so, as previously suggested it has to be passed to another engineer/team to resolve. Depending on the location and nature of this work, it may take place promptly or, if it's a more complex civil engineering job requiring planning and permits and affecting service to multiple customers, be passed back for planned works which can be a time consuming process and is under strict financial controls. It's a flawed process as the focus is on completing tasks "efficiently" so things are closed off as quickly as possible when a fault is considered cleared. Processes do exist for further investigation of long running or repeat faults but these can be difficult to kick off. I'm not sure ordering a business line will help you though - whilst a higher level of fault response is available to business customers this comes at a cost. Regardless, if the capacity to provide you an additional line does not exist in the cabinet serving your address, I don't imagine a single extra PSTN line will be a trigger for the large investment needed to increase capacity. I was predominantly involved in the maintenance and provision of dedicated high bandwidth business services over copper and fibre and for those circuits any excess construction costs were passed directly to the customer, sometimes in the region of tens of thousands when lots of digging up highways and laying cables was involved.


So, short version, you're pretty much stuck with what you've got! Sorry chief!

I'm ex BT too and agree with this