By The Curious Scribbler
Why haven’t I posted a single interesting blog in the last eight weeks?
Well it has quite a lot to do with the arrival, on the pole opposite my house, of a lovely green box, what BT call a Cabinet, bringing fibre optic cable from the exchange.
The Cabinet outside my house attached to an optic fibre line
Having endured years of download speeds of 1 MBPS I was excited. I placed an order for BT Infinity broadband. I even bought a Smart TV.
Engineers came and connected the cabinet to a new optic fibre cable joined to a box on the outside of my house. Another engineer came and attached it to a pretty Openreach router which he installed inside the house. One little problem, a light showed red, indicating no connection to the exchange.
My OpenReach modem. Three pretty lights but no action
After 3 weeks the red light went green, and spirits soared. The helpful Openreach engineer came back and confirmed it was now working. But it needed an activation code. All I needed to do now was get it activated.
I have spent much of the last 10 weeks trying to get it activated. BT Faults thinks I have copper wire slow broadband which works. BT billing is charging me for installation of the fibre and the new expensive contract which they are not providing. BT Orders won’t let me cancel and re-order because the order is “Pending”. All routes lead eventually to the FTTP team ( Fibre to the Premises) who can only be spoken to after you’ve listened to 150 repeats of the “We are very busy at the moment, your call will be answered as soon as possible” message. Often , after an hour or two the line goes dead, unanswered.
I’ve spent 19 hours on the phone to various departments. I’ve been promised connection dates and callbacks which are never delivered.
And don’t underestimate the mind draining effect of the repetitive BT musak after an hour or two.
Today I took to Twitter to protest. You’ll find the strand on @BTCare if you tweet. I don’t know if BT has any skilled engineers or decisionmakers, but they obviously have a roomful of young people called Ash, Stephen, ClaireC, Alana, Kevin, and Pete, highly trained in emitting pointless platitudes in 140 characters.
Total nightmare – I feel for you!
Poor Caroline!
They are obviously hopelessly incompetent. We are also rural and while it isn’t as bad as your situation, BT fails us miserably, too. If it’s any consolation, Virgin was just as bad, only for different reasons… good luck!
Write an invoice and send it to them. If not paid in 28 days issue SCC proceedings. It makes them take notice. I’m sure you must be worth £35 per hour plus process fees?
Hi Caroline,
Good to hear from you even though it is in the context of desperate circumstances.
As for the roomful of twitter-skilled young people, I think it entirely possible that they are all one single automation.
Best,
Doug
Its a nice idea. But as we all know the BT Faults line is entirely staffed by by workers in the Indian subcontinent seated at computer screens. The twitter department seem more local, both in their name handles and their use of language. None have any more idea what is going on than I do, they simply shunt one along an endless “customer journey” with no resolution ( or even an explanation) on the horizon.
Oh, how I sympathise! I haven’t had the heart or energy to even think about going for fibre optic after my experiences with TalkTalk over the YouView box they persuaded me to install and which, despite the visits of engineers and complicated negotiations over the phone, has never worked for more than a few days. Oh those promising green lights that then turn red! Valerie
try susi.marston@bt.com. Point her at your blog, be clear what the problem is.
Thanks I’ll certainly try this. It is so hard to get to anyone in BT with more than a Christian name, and there is no way to achieve continuity between one assistant and the next. Each promises action which never takes place, and they are all totally unaccountable since you cannot get back to them to ask why nothing was done.
What speed are you ACTUALLY getting? Try speedtest.net to find out ….. if you are fibre to the cabinet and then copper to the house you should get 38 to 51 and if you have fibre all the way into the house then I think 80 or so.
Sadly, that is all in the future. I have no speed at all on the fibre because they won’t activate it. But the installation is indeed fibre all the way from cabinet to house, so if it worked it might be wonderful.
The old technology – the trusty copper wire, still delivers my landline, and around 1MBpS broadband, which isn’t great. But it does at least allow me to struggle with BT Customer Care without resorting to a mobile. Not that I’ve achieved a result!
Sounds about right for B T.
Like most large companies, the employees don’t give a hoot.
Good luck.
This is a late reply but now in 2019 and BT’s service is shocking.