Broadband Woes - contined

This is the press release that i sent out last week in the hope that it may attract some media attention. It has, a national TV network consumer affiars show has made contact although i don't want to announce who it is at this point in time whilst investigations in to the matter continue.

BT Incompetence means Swindon based IT Consultant is 4 weeks without broadband

Andy Poulton, an IT Consultant in Wiltshire, lives in North Swindon and has long been frustrated by the slow speed of the broadband service that he is able to access – this is due to the fact that although he lives just 1.2km from the telephone exchange in Blunsdon, planning decisions mean that he is right on the limit of line length for service delivery, some 7.2km of cable lie between his house and the exchange.

On Monday September 17th Mr Poulton’s broadband connection failed.

Between September 17th and October 8th, BT claim to have fixed the fault no less than 8 times and yet Andy says the service is still unavailable.

Only once (right at the beginning of this saga) has a BT Openreach engineer visited Mr Poulton’s house (after carrying out work at the exchange) to verify that the service was still faulty. An administrative error somewhere in BT Openreach meant that the job was closed and so the engineer was unable to pursue the matter further and make good the repair.

Andy believes that it will require a visit to his house to properly address the issue and to prove that service has been restored to his satisfaction – a step that BT Openreach seem unwilling to take, even when they agree that a house visit is necessary.

This is despite BT Openreach calling Mr Poulton on the morning of Day 16, Wednesday October 3rd and explicitly stating that they would like to send an engineer to his house that afternoon to check the connection to the property.

Mr Poulton went to some length to re-arrange his diary, re-arranging several pre-existing appointments and made sure he was home by 1pm, the earliest that BT said an engineer would call.

BT Openreach did not visit the house, wasting one whole afternoon of Mr Poulton’s time. Instead, the Openreach engineer went to the Blunsdon telephone exchange and claims to have carried out a repair to some “jumpers”, signed the job off as completed and advised Mr Poulton’s Internet Service Provider that service had been restored.

Sadly, like the previous 4 BT Openreach interventions and the 3 subsequent interventions where BT Openreach claimed to have resolved the problem Mr Poulton’s broadband was still unserviceable.

Despite emails to CEOs of BT, BT Openreach, BT Wholesale and his Internet Service Provider, Mr Poulton has yet to be contacted by anyone in these organisations who may be able to resolve this issue to Mr Poulton’s satisfaction, once and for all.

In a recent interview Andy said “I cannot believe the level of apparent incompetence demonstrated by BT Openreach. I live less than 15 minutes from the exchange, all it would take is a simple visit to my house to confirm that they have failed to restore the service and yet no-one within Openreach seems prepared to take this action. They are either not prepared to offer an acceptable level of customer service and appear incompetent, economical with the truth or are deliberately acting in an anti-competitive manner to prevent my Internet Service Provider delivering an internet service to my home”

Notes
Andy Poulton has worked in IT for over 11 years, first in network design and implementation and customer support roles for many national companies and latterly as an IT adviser for Wiltshire based businesses, helping them identify and resolve their IT and web site issues and assisting them with their plans for growth and expansion

More information, including a complete diary from Andy’s perspective is available , just post a comment to this blog indicating that you like to know more.

BT and Tesco fail to deliver the goods

Well....it is now 24 days that I have been without a home broadband service and so in the past week I have started to circulate letters of complaint.

This is the diary so far -


Day 0 Saturday / Sunday September 15/16
Broadband service to 01793 700480 becomes increasingly unreliable, dropping out frequently during this time.

Day 1 Monday September 17th
Service unavailable all day

Day 2 Tuesday September 18th
Service call logged with Tesco premium rate number.
I had already carried out as many tests as possible – connection attempted with 2 x devices (router and Speedtouch ADSL modem), multiple computers, a variety of ADSL filters and two leads known to be good - all via BT master socket.

These steps were duplicated whilst on the telephone to the premium rate number and it was agreed that the broadband provision was faulty.

The next step was for my call to be escalated. No Level 2 tech was available and so an appointment for a call back had to be made.

Earliest mutually convenient time was Thursday September 20th in the evening.

Day 4 Thursday September 20th – Evening
Support Technician called back as arranged. Discussed diagnostic process undertaken - agreement that broadband provision was faulty and agreed to escalate to BT for remedial action

From your records, BT claim to have subsequently conducted a line test and claimed that everything was OK.

Day 9 Tuesday September 25th
Called Tesco to advise that the problem had not been rectified

Escalated to next level of support

Day 10 Wednesday September 26th.
Contacted by a call centre and appointment with BT engineer was booked for the afternoon of Friday September 28th.

Day 11 Thursday September 27th
Contacted clients with whom I had meetings scheduled on the 28th to rearrange. Level of inconvenience caused by broadband outage expands beyond household.

Day 12 Friday September 28th
Early afternoon - BT engineer called, as agreed, and started making investigations at Blunsdon exchange. He telephoned again a short while later to provide update (he had identified a fault at the exchange and was in the process of rectifying – BT engineer action – “lift and shift”).

Engineer called back to advise that he had completed this action and that the problem should have been resolved. I told him that I still had no service.

Engineer visited property, accessed telephone line junction box outside of property and confirmed that there still was no broadband service.

Engineer returned to Blunsdon exchange and diagnosed that “lift and shift” had failed, that another piece of hardware was faulty and that he would take the appropriate steps to arrange another “lift and shift”.

Because it was now late in the afternoon, I was advised that it was unlikely that he would receive the appropriate authorisation until Saturday but, since his shift included Saturday, he would be able to continue

Day 13 Saturday September 29th
Message from BT engineer advising that job had been inadvertently marked as “Complete” by BT and that Tesco would have to re-open the job.

At this point I was still happy with BT because this engineer had provided an excellent level of communication whilst attending to the issue.Day 14 Monday October 1st c 13:00
Having heard nothing further I once again called your Tesco service desk in an attempt to find out whether any further progress had been made.

Was informed that the system had been updated by BT at around 11:00 that morning claiming that BT would provide a further update in a couple of hours

Day 14 Monday October 1st c18:30
Contacted Tesco again - and was again told the same – that BT had updated the system at around 11am and would provide more information in a couple of hours.

I made the point that this was exactly the same message as at 13:00 and more than a couple of hours had passed. Subsequently requested that someone call me on my mobile on Tuesday 2nd to advise me of any progress

Day 15 Tuesday October 2nd 11:08
Message left on landline number (no one available to take call which is why I requested contact to my mobile) advising me that broadband service had been restored.

Wife picked up message at around 2pm and tried to log on – to no effect.

Wife contacted me and as soon as I was able, I took more time off from work to come home. Carried out diagnostics (as per Tuesday September 18th) and confirmed that broadband service still not working.

Called Tesco to advise

Day 16 Wednesday October 3rd 08:29
Call from BT Openreach looking to make appointment. Openreach had identified a line fault and wanted to book an appointment to visit property to examination external cable junction box. (Funny – according to BT there the service was fine at 11:08 Tuesday October 2nd – where has this line fault appeared from – did it exist on Tuesday, in which case BT is providing inaccurate information to Tesco and are failing to properly complete a repair – so they are inept – or BT are deliberately acting in an anti-competitive manner, denying Tesco customer access to internet via BT equipment.) Supposition – BT may like client to give up on Tesco and migrate to alternative supplier…BT perhaps?

Agreed appointment for Wednesday October 3rd between 13:00 and 18:00

Re-arranged PM diary (again calling clients, apologising and moving appointments – inconveniencing clients, adding to logjam of work building up as a result of previous time off and time taken to make extensive calls to Tesco). 2nd time that inconvenience had been visited on people not directly affected by BT failure to resolve fault.

Day 16 Wednesday October 3rd 18:00
No engineer visit, no communication to advise as to reason for failure to make visit.

Consequence – afternoon wasted. Potential revenue lost.

Day 16 Wednesday October 3rd c 20:20
Called Tesco Internet to advise of engineer no-show and request update to mobile as soon as possible

Day 17 Thursday October 4th 13:45
No call from Tesco to either landline or mobile. Called Tesco at first possible time (13:45)

Was advised that BT engineer had visited exchange and had rectified problem with “jumpers”. Engineer claimed that broadband provision restored.

Tesco, noting that no attempt had been made to access Tesco broadband on account presumed that fault had not been rectified and so put in another request to BT to investigate.

Day 17 Thursday October 4th 15:28
Call to Tesco enquiring as to status. Advised that job is now open with BT (again) and that I should await a call back to book an appointment.

Day 18 Friday October 5th 12:15
Nothing heard from Tesco so I called in at earliest opportunity. Was advised that I would be called back “shortly”

15:30 called again since “shortly” had come and gone. Was promised a prompt call back

16:45 called again – my definition of “shortly” and “prompt” obviously differs from the Tesco dictionary definition. Finally spoke with someone other than a member of the first level response team. Was advised that BT had updated the job status and closed the job, implying that the fault had been resolved. I was sceptical. It was agreed that Tesco would call me after 19:30 to run some diagnostics.

17:45 – arrived home, checked router – no broadband service. Just to be sure, connected Speedtouch modem to BT master socket – no broadband service

19:30 call from Tesco – missed by self
20:00 call from Simon at Tesco. Advised that broadband service still U/S. Was advised that BT reported they moved telephone line to a different line card.

Simon offered to take matter up with team leader and also to try to contact Openreach on Saturday and to call me around lunchtime to update – even if the update is just that he has been unable to make progress

Day 19 Saturday October 6th 13:12
Message left by Simon, no update – will have to wait until Monday for more news

Day 20 Sunday October 7th
Nothing new

Day 21 Monday October 8th 12:16
Having heard nothing from Tesco, I called – phone rang, was answered but kicked straight to music. Hung up and redialled. (46 seconds)

This time, phone was answered – asked for update. Placed on hold for 11 minutes. Since I have an MP3 player to play music, I gave up listening to the music-on-hold and hung up.

17:06 – called again. Again given music to listen to – some of which was badly distorted. After another 12 minutes on hold, was advised that the tech guys had been trying to call BT all day but hadn’t been able to get through.

17:26 – Simon called back. He had BT on the phone and they wanted to book an appointment to come to the house. Agreed to a visit Tuesday 9th, AM so spent the next 5 minutes making outbound calls to re-arrange diary.


Day 22 Tuesday October 9th (week 4)
No reply to any of the emails circulated to the address list provided below.

09:50 BT Openreach engineer calls to advise that he will be at the house in around 10 minutes

10:03 BT Openreach engineer arrives, plugs laptop and ADSL modem in to BT Master socket – no service.

Removes master socket from the wall and bares 2 incoming wires which he connects to his own phone socket. Connects laptop and ADSL modem – no service

Replaces Master Socket and leaves to visit street cabinet, promising to return.

11:30 BT Openreach engineer calls. He has been to the street cabinet and carried out a variety of checks. This has indicated to him that the fault lies back at the exchange – there is no broadband service on 01793 700480 between the exchange and the street cabinet.

He advises me that this job now has to be passed to another engineer – he does not know their workload and is not able to give an estimated time/date when work will re-commence.

How frustrating – if the original site visit had been allowed to continue on Friday 28th September / Saturday 29th September, this problem would have been resolved by now.

16:55 Call from Samuel, Tesco Broadband. Introduced himself as a member of the customer care team who would be taking responsibility for managing the problem and that he would carry out some investigations and call back.

Samuel called back and left a message due to my being in an evening meeting. There was no real news – just that the Openreach engineer had closed the job because he felt the fault was at the exchange and a different engineer had to take over.

Day 23 Wednesday October 10th
12:15 Call from “David” and Tesco to update me o the situation. Actually, there was no real update just that David was going to call BT in an attempt to get things moving.

17:20 David called back. He had been on the telephone to BT and learned that the engineer had been in to the exchange and carried out some work. This had failed to resolve the problem. It was felt that a “cease and restore” was required and that this was in the process of being booked. David advised that he would be back in touch on Thursday with a further update.

Based on the fact that BT have already tried a number of “fixes” I have no faith in this next proposed course of action and will continue to have 0 faith until BT propose a solution, implement a solution and visit my home to demonstrate that a working solution has been implemented.

Day 24 Thursday October 11th11:00
No update from Tesco

Can you say "frustrated". I'd have more success if I tried to headbut my way in to the Bank of England. At least someone would pay attention - even if it was only the police to drag me away or the hospital to mend my broken head.

Watch this space