Well, at least he's straight with you. You don't get any flannel off him. Not like Baron Sugar

I've had a telephone call from somebody at B.T. Complaints department this afternoon, asking me to contact her regarding the issue. I presume, this is in relation to my email to Ian Livingston?

Problem is, the line is pretty crappy and I'm really pretty crappy on the telephone and definitely don't feel like speaking to them today.

The alternatives are: Find an email contact for the person at B.T. Complaints or see what happens with the PSTN checks being arranged. Hopefully an Engineer will come out again, who knows!

That reply from Ian Livingston (if it really was him!) disregarded all the problems about the Openreach Engineers coming out and blaming my (mostly new) equipment. No apology for the not turning up Engineer.

He disregarded the crackly line and again is trying to pass the buck back to Fast, who no doubt (rightly so I believe) will say any crackle on the line with no ADSL equipment connected is nothing to do with them.

The quote from Mr. Livingston regarding B.T. Wholesale is all about the appeal regarding the charge for having the Engineer condemn the XTE2005.

As far as I'm concerned, both the Engineers who came out could have done more. The first one arranged by Fast, just seemed to concentrate on "No Sync at all" which wasn't the problem I'd reported.

Anyway, I think both of them could have examined any terminations or the state of the nigh on 25 year old cable etc.

Phill.

Edited by deleted (Sun 16-Aug-09 14:06:54)

If I were you, I'd phone them. I don't like talking on the phone either, but sometimes it's better. Don't talk like a techie, though. Don't worry, these people talk to hundreds of people during the course of a week. Just explain that you've had a lot of problems on your line which are still ongoing, and that you are considering taking it up with BBC Watchdog or a consumer programme on local radio, because you are getting nowhere with BT. They hate bad publicity. Jot down the important points and refer to them during the conversation, but don't read from them like a script, and most important of all...... stay calm !

Hi,

I've now had a reply from Mr. Livingston's P.A.

Thank you for your email to Ian Livingston on 14 August. I have contacted Openreach regarding this issue and they have advised that this would require the involvement of Wholesale via your Broadband service provider, who will have an escalation point within Wholesale. They would not respond to my enquiries regarding this as I do not represent your service provider.

I am sorry I have been unable to help further with this.

So back to blaming the ISP. Well, I guess that's what he's saying!

And there's me thinking Mr. Livingston was in charge of B.T. Wholesale/ Openreach / Retail or whatever they are today.

There's no mention of any goodwill gesture of withholding the £170 fine er I mean charge for having an Openreach Engineer condemn my brand new filter, until they are 100% sure it is my equipment. Which as now everything has been replaced (even the telephone), it's not going to be down to my wiring/ equipment.

No apology for Openreach not turning up for the first arranged visit.

Looks like I'm still expected to pay Fast so they can pay B.T. even though Trading Standards say no!

I asked Fast, what if another Openreach Engineer came out and found a line fault after I'd paid the £170. I was told they'd help me get a refund off B.T. Whoever. Surely as I'm not a customer of B.T. this refund should be from Fast?

Arrggghhhh!

Phill

Edited by deleted (Mon 17-Aug-09 17:45:52)

do what trading standards say, you may end up having to leave fast of course since I expect they will treat it as arrears and could suspend your account if they not willing to appeal it on your behalf.

In reply to a post by Flip74:

I've now had a reply from Mr. Livingston's P.A.

Check your PM box.

After emailing a reply to the Assistant to the Chairman & Chief Executive, asking him basically why Openreach couldn't have done better checks etc I received a reply from another Assistant to the Chairman & Chief Executive who said:

Please be assured that I will own this matter through to a complete and satisfactory conclusion as your case handler and single point of contact and welcome the opportunity to discuss your complaint with you.

The next day, I received an email from the High Level Complaints department with the following:

I am emailing to advise that i have sent an offline request to BT Openreach asking them to carry out an end to end check of your line due to the problems you have been having. Due to the fact that we only have one fault report against your PSTN service they may well come back to us and ask that we raise another fault but I am hoping they will deal with it from the complaint we have logged on your account.

Which surprised me as I thought everything would be handled by my single point of contact!

A week went by after replying to my single point of contact and I'd still not heard anything.

So, I email my single point of contact again, who said:

I am sorry you have not received an update.

Although I will retain this issue until you complaint has been resolved
the Consumer Repair Team will deal with the issue regarding the repair
as I do not have technical knowledge regarding repair.

The problem you have reported has now been escalated to Openreach via
consumer repair team. I will urge and update you when I receive a
further update.

That was a week ago. Nothing since.

I've still been having the same problems with my line, been keeping records of results from Router Stats and nothing changed.

Put a phone in the test socket and got crackle. B.T. know about this, but don't seem too bothered again.

I bought a Speedtouch 585 v6 off eBay as I wanted to use DMT.

Yesterday, I set it up and got no sync. Lifted the telephone handset and got sync. Replace handset - no sync.

Disconnected the filter, put a phone in the test socket and crackle was still there.

Put another filter in, powered up the router and got sync at around 5 Meg. Hmm, I thought (well it wasn't exactly what I thought!).

Took out that filter and placed a telephone in the test socket again. No crackle, just what sounds like a hissing sound.

I thought I'd replace the previous filter, just in case, and this too synced at 5 Meg.

Replaced the 585 for my DG834G and again got 5 Meg!

What ever filter, router or cable I use around sync is around 5 Meg. Throughput, though is less than 160 kbps, which I doubt will improve due to the nature of the problem I've got.

I've had this symptom before, where sync improves. And the common factor is the improvement in weather. Since yesterday, it has been really dry and sunny.

I presume that in the next bout of rain & wind we get (outside that is!) the HR problem will arise again.

Just hope when this "end to end test" I'm supposed to be having involves actually examining my line, and takes in to consideration the weather/fault which I'd already told them about.

Phill

Ah Well,

I've been charged £99 plus V.A.T. for an Engineer who couldn't be bothered to check for a H.R. fault and who only stuck around for less than half an hour, waving the WAN lead around obviously not knowing what a H.R. fault is.

Back to Trading Standards I go.

Have had it confirmed by an Openreach Engineer on a forum that the fault is more than likely a H.R. Dis.

Edited by deleted (Tue 15-Sep-09 01:04:35)

Get on to the chairman's office, challenge the charges, and tell them that you are going to give this as much bad publicity as you can (Watchdog, Local radio, web page, web logs, Facebook, etc). BT hate the threat of bad publicity.

Hi zebedeee,

I've emailed the Assistant to the C.E.O. (the one who said she'd act as my single point of contact).

I've asked for an update, as an end to end test was supposed to be carried out, but the silence has been deafening!

I have also mentioned what Trading Standards advised me to do, which was to put in writing to B.T. regarding the issues and give them seven days to rectify the fault.

I have been told by an Engineer that what should be brought up is:

Swapping D (Distribution) side pair from your Green (PSP) cabinet to your house and the E (Exchange) side pair. After that comes a "Lift and Shift" to alter the wiring in the exchange.

Typically, as we haven't had rain for a few days, my IP Profile has improved:

Download speed achieved during the test was - 4441 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 600-7150 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :5824 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 5000 Kbps

It's been like this since Sunday.

There was also a crackle present on the line, via a telephone in the test socket. Now there is a noticeable hiss present.

Got to wait for the rain now.

So, £99 plus VAT Call out Charge (as stated on my bill) gets you an Engineer:

who sticks around for < 30 minutes after blaming Customers equipment

who can't be bothered checking B.T.'s property,

and spends ~ 10 minutes sitting in the van (which was opposite the pole) whilst on his mobile.

God, I'm in the wrong trade. I can imagine where I'd have ended up if I'd tried the same with my Customers. i.e. Turn up at their house regarding a dead Television, decide I don't feel like taking the back off the set and leave them with a bill for £99 plus VAT callout and a fault still present.

I'd end up on Rogue Traders! As well as having enquiries from Trading Standards no doubt.