Still no broadband...

Good morning,

Posting from my phone so please excuse typos.

I migrated to Zen on 21/08, and received my login details on 23/08 along with notification that the service would be activated on 31/08. Upon checking my customer portal this morning, I see that the order activation has failed on 29/08. Having spoken to Zen customer support I am told that the order has been cancelled on the supply side and that this is not a technical issue.

This is all depressingly familiar. I migrated from BT Total Broadband after they failed to move my broadband to this address. BT Wholesale cancelled my broadband by accident, despite having no deactivation order. After a few weeks of tech support hell I had enough of being palmed off onto different tech support depts in call centres far, far away and got my MAC from them to move to Zen. During this time they even sent an Openreach engineer to my flat, who discerned that the problem was not with my equipment or the telephone line.

I did tell all of this to Zen tech support last week in an effort to avert BT Wholesale messing everything up again, but apparantely it hasn't made a difference.

The annoying thing is that withmy router switched on I can see my ADSL status:

Downstream. Upstream
SNR. 17.0. 6.6. db
Line Attenuation. 30.0. 16.4. db
Data Rate. 6655. 1039. kbps
POWER. 0.0. 11.3. dbm
CRC. 40. 0

My router is a TP Link TD-W8961ND. I am no technical expert but from the data above I think the phone line/internal wiring/router are all working fine.

Update:

Just spoken to Fahrrad from Zen Support who was very helpful. As my phone line won't be transferred over to Zen until 05/09 (order placed on 21/08...) the broadband cannot be activated until then, as only one order can exist at any one time for a phone number. So, my broadband will only be activated 3-5 working days after 5 Sept.

This is very, very annoying. BT caused the problem in the first place, and because they need 2 weeks to move a [censored] phone line over I have to endure another week at least without internet.

Apparantely there is no way to elevate or hasten the proces unless Openreach are at fault. I can't understand how such a simple task takes so long. I have had multiple ADSL lines before this and none of their installations was such a cluster. Massively frustrating.

Unfortunately BT are a law unto themselves and Zen are as much a customer of BT as you are of Zen.

Be assured though its definitely worth the wait and if you've transferred the line rental to them it makes things much easier in the event of a problem.

Edited by techguy (Thu 30-Aug-12 11:53:26)

Just spoken to Fahrrad and Rob from Zen Support. Again, both of them were very helpful and professional.

BT finalised the order this morning. Zen have done the line tests from their end and everything is fine there. But I still have no internet!

I have sync on my router:

Downstream Upstream
SNR Margin 16.7 6.4 db
Line Attenuation 30.0 16.4 db
Data Rate 6655 1104 kpbs
POWER 0.0 12.3 dbm
CRC 164 65506

The phone line is now with Zen and works fine, and the ADSL passed the line tests from the Zen end. So, the problem is at the exchange. The Openreach engineer who visited a few weeks ago found no problem with my equipment, cabling or wiring. There was no signal from the Main Distribution Frame.

As I understand it, this is a trivial problem for someone at the exchange to fix. Yet now I will probably have to wait another 3-5 working days for an Openreach engineer to tip up and tell me what I already know before BT Wholesale even dream of attempting the easy, obvious solution.

Its been about 2 months without internet at this address now. You would think there would be some way for BT Wholesale to escalate the problem and resolve it quickly. After all, they caused it.

I'm really disgusted with BT Wholesale and their lack of service. Is there anyone I can complain to? OFCOM seem a no-go...

Update. Just spoken to Andy from Zen Tech Support.

Zen have worked their magic and have got BT to send an Openreach engineer directly to the exchange today (or within their SLA? of 24-48 hours). Originally they had an SFI engineer booked but he wont' lt be available till the 10th, so Zen got them to send an Openreach engineer ASAP which is much appreciated.

The problem seems to be my cabling being cross jumpered with somebody elses at the exchange. It is weird that the other poor sap without internet hasn't got this resolved by now, as this issue has been ongoing since the beginning of July when I moved to this address with my old BT Broadband account.

As an aside, the BT engineer at the exchange this morning only checked for line snyc, and not any other data (PPP?) before deeming my order/line activation complete. That seems pretty poor form to me...

I must reiterate how professional, helpful and committed all the Zen staff have been. Such a breath of fresh air.

Not so sure the Openreach engineering staff have access to PPP type information, as knowing that may mean they favour one provider over another.

As far as I am aware they don't, however they can check the Tie-pair information to make sure it is correct. It appears the engineer didnt do this and hence the issue of no connection.

MrSaffron - I see, not exactly ideal but I understand the reasoning.

An Openreach engineer visited the exchange this morning and found no problems with the circuit itself, and that the dial tone was fine on the ADSL E side. He did note that the CSS records were wrong on the ADSL D side and thus needed updating. He informed the CP, that is BT Wholesale (BTW), of this.

Here comes the funny part: BTW states that they could find NO RECORD of this fault and advised the engineer to close the fault with good notes, which he dutifully did.

Words fail me. Just how incompetant are BTW? Why would they just summarily disregard the problem and deem it resolved when there is obviously a fault at their end? It seems as if they are casually negligent, if not outright hostile, towards the ISP and end user. How are they allowed to conduct themselves in this farcical manner and retain their monopoly?

Can I complain about BTW to the regulator or anybody else? I tried to complain to Ofcom about them, but they only let me lodge a complaint against BT Retail (my old ISP before migrating to Zen), which I did in laborious detail.

Edited by deleted (Fri 07-Sep-12 14:23:17)

What's your Fault Ref please. (PM Me) and I'll have this escalated for you.

As for complaining about BTW, unfortunately you are not thier customer, the ISP (in this Case BTR and ZEN) are and hence only they can lodge the complaint. With this in mind, this is why an escalation will be raised for you.

Azzaka - ok, I see, thanks. I messaged you the reference.