BTw frustration

BT are often the root cause of issues. I know most of the large exchanges in my county have VP issues, These are all Market One exchanges, where BT has a monopoly they can (and do) abuse, no dates exist for work to correct this on my exchnage or others locally one of which has had red VPs for several months now, in my case I lose 5 Mbps in the evening on a 20 cn exchange with a line that returns just short of 6 Mbps this is a significant performance hit, one night last week the BT tester result was 101Kbps.

I nailed Pipex a few years back with the term "failure to use reasonable skill and care in provision of services" so its not like the end customer has no protection in terms of fighting an ISP that is under-performing. The problem is that BTw seem to occupy a privileged position where they bear little responsibility for their own failure to deliver the wholesale service on whatever level that occurs and the regulator has all the appearance of being in bed with the wholesaler - OFCOM seems happy to wash its hands of the whole BTw mess - especially where they have a monopoly, In my case they ignore the VP issues here that affect everyone on this 9800 line exchange. (figures given by BT engineers - sam knows is woefully out of date and has had same figures for my area since 2007)

My ISP is required in law to use "reasonable skill and care" in the provision of my service, the same should extend to BT. All I can do is complain to my ISP who pass it on to BT who apparently ignore it. I can do nothing because of the "separation" that exists, I am paying for a service that falls far short of being acceptable but I have no remedy against the those responsible for the poor quality of the service, it is ludicrous. I guess it needs some sort of regulator... to make BTw live up to expectations and provide decent service levels where they are responsible for the provisioning.

Right now the pendulum has swung too far away from the end user with BT taking payment for services that often fail to be as good as they should be. - especially on 20 cn market one exchanges where BT have a monopoly and remain 2 steps behind the rest while charges are not proportionate to the lower performance. and level of investment

On Market 1 exchanges, ISPs - like their end users are at the mercy of BTw, it is often NOT a good place to be.

Just My Opinion.... YMMV

Good luck, but it boils down to the way BT Wholesale populates the VP's and the amount ISP's buy to get the aggregated VP's onto their own network.

In short such is the contended nature of broadband for consumers around the world, that in a court a good lawyer would show that 100kbps is probably all you are guaranteed at peak times.


Also consider this...with investment coming from councils/government and the possibility it may go to a competitor would you as a commercial company wait until things were a little more certain.

Is your exchange due to get upgraded to FTTC ?

I hope so.

If it makes you feel any better, although I have LLU on my exchange and my exchange is due to get a FTTC upgrade sometime this year, at present I can only get just under 3 Mbps because I live quite a way from the exchange !

Life isn't fair, I agree. But what do you think your voice telephone rental, and the set portion (determined by Ofcom) of what BT receive from your broadband subscription buys you? An analogue telephone service, and the right to receive an ADSL signal of whatever the BT telecommunications infrastructure provides, and that's it. After privatisation investment decisions became matters of commercial judgement. Why? Because everyone thought it would be a darned sight better that the politicised nationalised industries - and it is. All the whinging in the world isn't going to turn the clock back. Like everyone else we all have to work with the system - look for an alternative; I was fortunate enough to find one without too much difficulty, but you might have to work harder and join with others in your area to try and make something happen. God, luck (or whatever you call it) , as always, helps those who help themselves.

BT DOES NOT HAVE A MONOPOLY.

Any company can set themselves up and provide a service, and if you feel so strongly why not do that yourself.

My exchange isn't even on any published list I can fond for WBC! Its bad enough to be 2 steps behind similar areas (Cornwall) but what we are seeing here is a failure to maintain an acceptable level of service on the outdated system that we have been abandoned on.

We are told that the future is in online services. but on current evidence It looks as if vast areas of the country will be missing out and those are the very areas that lack good transport links and other infrastructure that has been decimated over the years in the name of economy.

What angers me is paying far more for a service that is grossly under-performing because no one is spending money on routine things like enlarging the capacity as this area grows and they sell more capacity at wholesale level. Its a disgrace that there is no hi speed capacity on Poplar for new customers we hear and yet here where no on at all can get anything like the speeds that are flaunted at us nightly in adverts by one arm of the group that is responsible for the under-performance in this county and apparently we are wrong to expect BTw to at least keep pace with the demand -put another way.. so many people will castigate ISPs for overselling capacity and yet when BTw does it its acceptable and understandable, and we are expected to be grateful to pay more for far less!

its a shame this area has all of the disadvantage of servicing the country with oil gas and power generation (modern installations require few staff) and yet we are unworthy of modern communication it seems.

All of this might be bearable if the tourist class service was reflected in a tourist class price.

In reply to a post by warweezil:

My exchange isn't even on any published list I can find for WBC!

Sorry to hear that there are no plans for an FTTC upgrade for you

FTTC is my saviour as it's the only way I can get more than 3 Mbps from my broadband connection.

Edited by deleted (Sun 26-Feb-12 22:40:14)

Im not sure Fibre will be an option here even in the medium to long term, just fixing the Vps would be nice, and is a reasonable expectation in terms of it reflecting an increased uptake in lines due to new developments in the area. WBC has to arrive sooner or later - knowing BTw it will be later - much later

In reply to a post by warweezil:

just fixing the Vps would be nice, and is a reasonable expectation in terms of it reflecting an increased uptake in lines due to new developments in the area.

I agree.

In reply to a post by warweezil:

just fixing the Vps would be nice, and is a reasonable expectation in terms of it reflecting an increased uptake in lines due to new developments in the area.

I don't know how long it takes BT to increase capacity on its VP's but it looks like your exchange has been amber for less than 6 weeks.

From when I had an interest in such things, it may be possible for your ISP to move to a different VP as I assume only one is affected..

It also looks like your exchange got ADSL relatively early on, so fibre may not be out of the question (eventually!)

Tenby (locally to me) has been yellow for (too) many months already and is now over a month PAST its fix ETA for its Red status- Haverfordwest is also yellow and Milford Haven is Red and has been in and out of yellow since last year although that now has a fix date of mid April (we'll see if that one also slips shall we?)which completes the set of the 4 largest exchanges in the county.

I am not confident that BTw will schedule a fix date for SWPM any time soon, they seem happy to let end users suffer for several months before they set a date for a fix - which guarantees nothing - see Tenby - so it looks to me that BTw are reluctant to spend money where they have no opposition that people can migrate away from an under resourced network. Considering the price of IPSC compared to WBC then I think we deserve better than this. It isn't a unforeseeable, its BT starving some areas of resource while they throw more and more at areas that have services which are already better, our service is deliberately allowed to fall away.

Some exchanges here have had at least 2 WBC RFS dates published then withdrawn - makes you wonder what is going on! no wonder we feel second class

Edited by deleted (Mon 27-Feb-12 08:42:34)

Talk Talk now live at Hwest, Milford Haven and one or two others in the county.

They were in Castle Square Hwest on Saturday signing people up, may take Hwest out of amber.

IAn

The exchanges you quote are all forecast to have Talktalk unbundling, from other posts they are now live. BT is most likely not wasting the money on enhancing the VPS 'knowing' that 400+ people will move to the LLU service. ( Min to cost in is 3-400 customers and talktalk appear to LLU when they have this sort of number on the BTw product).

From BTs perspective not doing anything on these is good economic sense as any money spent would have been wasted after the migrations have occurred.

As far as BTw are concerned you are getting a tourist class service because your ISP is only paying a tourist class price. (less than £10) and these exchanges are borderline to be profitable, (remember they are regulated prices for BT).

Have to see how long it takes BT to upgrade the PM VPs now they are yellow if it is not going to be unbundled.

Certainly seems to be something odd if the exchange is that big with no LLU or WBC yet, there must be some good reason for all Industry. (Is the building small? or the power infrastructure in the area difficult to upgrade making any new equipment (LLU or BT) extremely expensive to do?

Until recently it was possible to see the list of planned exchange unbundling on the Talktalk site but that has now been changed. when I last saw mine was targeted but no firm date while all the other decent sized exchanges had firm RFS dates. When the talktalk dates were up on Samknows (they have all since disappeared) Pembroke wasn't on that list either. Neyland was on both and I'm waiting on a friend to come back from holiday as he is a TT customer (ex Tiscali) for phone and broadband so maybe he may be able to confirm for me what has happened over that way as he has been waiting for me to tell him if I hear that his exchange has gone unbundled.

Pembroke Dock was built circa 1959 it has some room for a small extension or they could build upwards. maybe they cant find it... Google maps has it in the wrong place. Or maybe they are having a "lock in" at the pub across the road lol

Edited by deleted (Mon 27-Feb-12 12:05:54)

That seems strange because most ISPs cite the higher cost of IPSC as the reason for less data allowance/higher costs of IPSC exchange areas, similarly they claim to make minimal amounts off of each customer, in my case the service costs near £20 per month for a 30 Gb peak allowance. I know that there was a small reduction recently in the wholesale cost of IPSC but that didnt reverse the 24% hike put in by BTw a couple of years back. Im sure I saw a wholesale figure quoted for IPSC connections higher than the price you cite but cant find it now.

I would not have thought Power was an issue as the area has been developed in only the last few years, previously the exchange was one of the last buildings as you left town, now once you pass that there are 2 new business parks that have been established on the old Tip which required new power infrastructure to be laid, Given the retail park that has grown up next to the exchange in the last 20 years I would tend to believe that extra power infrastructure was also laid in for that

It remains that a loss of more than 5 Mbps during peak times is an unacceptable degradation.