The Problem With BT Infinity.......

My Infinity contract started on 14th April.

Since then we have suffered two disconnections. The first was fixed in about three days when a bright engineer realised, unlike the previous six, that the fault was in the Infinity junction box, and not under the road.

The second has been going on now for 2 1/2 weeks. I am told they need to replace a length of cable under the road.

Because this was the second interruption in service I emailed Ian Livingston and this has been dealt with by the Chairman's Office.

Very helpful ladies, but it appears, with no more influence over their contractors than you or I. Every day since 9th August, I've been told that contractors will do the work. Every time they haven't. The excuses have been priceless too.

I was told at the outset where the work needs doing. I can see it through my lounge window, so imagine my surprise to be told that they couldn't complete due to the number of parked cars (I sent them a photo showing there aren't any), and then they couldn't do the work because someone had stolen the cones they had put down. Twice! Again, there never were any.

At least today it's "They've been called away on an urgent job" which hopefully is nearer to getting the work done in contractor-speak than "someone's stolen the cones"

Which brings me to the problem. Virgin fibre optic uses new cable right up to the house. BT Infinity doesn't. So your super fast speeds are seriously at risk by having to travel on the old unreliable cables from the Infinity junction box to the property.

And another thing..... Does anyone know the nature of BT's service agreements with the independent carriers using their cable network? I'm beginning to think that if a competitor's customers lose connection, BT might stand to lose a lot more in paying compensation than they would with a direct customer, and that's why we're at the bottom of the food chain

Virgin fibre optic uses new cable right up to the house

Not really the question you were asking but worth pointing out that Virgin "fibre optic" in fact uses coax from the street cabinet up to the house in much the same way FTTC uses copper to the house and fibre from the cabinet back to the exchange.

IMHO the main benefit of FTTC over cable is that you're not sharing coax with other properties, so won't suffer from contention between your house and the cabinet as well as on the backhaul.

In reply to a post by New_Londoner:

the main benefit of FTTC over cable is that you're not sharing coax with other properties, so won't suffer from contention between your house and the cabinet as well as on the backhaul.

But BT's FTTC product doesn't have contention between house and cabinet either (how can it - one 2-core cable is used exclusively for each property).
I've also read (but can't be bothered to re-Google) that BT plan to have capacity in the fibres back to the exchange (which could, if BT wanted to pay for it, eliminate contention right back to the exchange), so as cabinets take on more customers, provision exists for upgrading the back-haul to the exchange.
The 'real' contention will start at the exchange (and I can't see how VM gets away without having limited capacity on their backbones).
I.E. VM "fibre" (which; as you say, isn't fibre from home to cabinet) should be a near equivalent to BT's Inifinity product (in terms of real-World performance), excepting for minor differences in top speed (e.g. 50Mbps vs. 40Mbps and 100Mbps vs. 80Mbps).

None of what you say appears to have anything to do with BT Infinity.

He was saying there isn't contention with FTTC between the house and cab

Correct, looks like we're in violent agreement on this one!

Sorry; said it the wrong way round - I meant to say I didn't think VM was contended either (doesn't each house have its own co-ax back to the street cabinet - I didn't think they were shared - of course I could be wrong - it wouldn't be the first time ).

Edited by adebov (Mon 15-Aug-11 23:28:35)

I'm interested in the answer to this

I was under the illusion that they all connected to a cable running down the street. So only the cable from the street to the property was your own. So several people all connect to this street cable.

But then again this seems a little daft as surely adding a cable to this would disrupt everyone's service.

So honestly have no idea but hopefully someone will know

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

I'm interested in the answer to this

I was under the illusion that they all connected to a cable running down the street. So only the cable from the street to the property was your own. So several people all connect to this street cable.

But then again this seems a little daft as surely adding a cable to this would disrupt everyone's service.

So honestly have no idea but hopefully someone will know

Each VM customer has an individual coaxial cable between their property and a street cabinet where it is either (1) connected to the fibre optical core or (2) multiplexed with other individual coaxial cables from other properties, that "fatter" coax then travels to another cabinet (or pit) where it is connected to the fibre optical core.

There can be different systems employed in different areas/regions. The version (2), that I described above, was what I witnessed being installed back in 1995 and was still being used in 2005 (when I moved away from a certain "chav-town").

Yes but just to add to that (1) isn't very common at all its mostly (2)

Individual coax cables go back to the cab from each home then its more coax (shared with all the properties on that cab (and other cabs eventually) back to a master cab that has fibre to the Virgin POP so anything beyond the fibre cab is where its most contended as its shared coax apart from the last leg (the bit from the cab to the house)

Very much like this:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_fibre-coaxial

But in VM's case to the right of the optical node is shared coax and cabs

Thanks GMAN, helpful link. The key point in this for me is:

The coaxial portion of the network connects 25 to 2000 homes (500 is typical) in a tree-and-branch configuration off of the node

So in effect you're sharing a link back to the fibre cab with an average of 500 properties, better hope they don't all sign up for the 100Mbps service!

Is the telephone working?

Unless this is spefically about the link cables between fibre cab and normal green cab, then this is just a telephone wiring issue, and broadband takes a lower priority to a broken voice service.

Compensation does not exist unless you are on a business contract, and rules on this are the same for all suppliers.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Is the telephone working?

Unless this is spefically about the link cables between fibre cab and normal green cab, then this is just a telephone wiring issue, and broadband takes a lower priority to a broken voice service.

Compensation does not exist unless you are on a business contract, and rules on this are the same for all suppliers.

Weeelll... I've been sent a free BT mobile dongle which they have agreed to pay for, preloaded with 1 gb, and they have agreed not to charge me for the period of no service, so that's something.

I wonder if anyone knows the answer to my comment about other users of BT's network i.e. Talk Talk having service agreements in place in accordance with the Regulator's requirements, allowing for compensation, so making their repair requirements far higher priority than direct customers'?

Certainly in the Gas and Mail industries, in which I have some experience, there are such agreements

With the introduction of WLR3 and Openreach, all Communication Providers including BT Retail, are subject to the same SLA's in terms of repairs.

How each CP decides to compensate their own customers is entirely down to them and will have nothing to do with Openreach or BT Retail.