The Horror Of British Telecom

MBCook writes "'Someone, raised amidst the elegant lattice of custom and tradition that serves as the foundation of English society, came up with a very elegant, very British, solution to broadband policy here. And it absolutely, positively sucks.' So starts an article by Mark Hachman over at ExtremeTech chronicling his odyssey to get broadband in his new flat."

Seconded

[gowen]

I'm trying to get broadband to my house, which is in a pleasant little Staffordshire village, but can't because BT can't be bothered to upgrade the exchange to have sufficient capacity. So my friend down the road has broadband (albeit only 512k) and all I've got is a BT dialup li@$@%"£"%((%NO CARRIER

Re:Been there, done that

[norfolkboy]

BT do not own o2.

BT used to own a company called Cellnet, that later became o2. o2 is owned by mmo2, which does not belong to BT.

mmo2 are not another name or brand of BT. mmo2 operate several mobile and communication networks of their own (the new police network, manx telecom, o2, etc)

TFA Books I-IX

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, for those that haven't RTFA, the entire thing can be summed up with this quote:

But I just moved in, I said. I barely had a telephone line, let alone broadband. My landlord had broadband, but he moved.

"Well, what you need to do is contact your ISP--"

I don't have an ISP, I said.

"Then you need to have your landlord contact his ISP and have him free the line."

And this is in no way exclusive to Britian, I had to do this exact same thing in the US of A, but I didn't write a novel about it. Sheesh.

Should have checked his facts...

[taobill]

Which means that almost all of the ISPs simply resell the same BT service

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Check your freakin' facts before you go slagging off the rather elegant BT system.

The bit that is the same is the DSL connection between your house and the exchange, and the virtual circuit over BT's ATM network to the ISP.

It is then up to the ISP in question as to how they link you (the customer) to the Internet.

You can pay a pittance and get a shitty connection with a dynamic IP address, through a transparent web proxy and have your web surfing go down every few weeks (or whenever it gets really busy).

Or you can pay a few pounds more and get a static IP address (or even a range) and no transparent proxy, and loads of back-end bandwidth so that you get a very reliable service.

Although I am not surprised that a foreigner wouldn't know this because very few Brits are aware of these facts either.

Re:Public sector companies usually suck...

[deaddrunk]

Except that BT always made huge profits, even when it was a state monopoly. Privatising it hasn't improved the service at all. The evil state monopolies of Germany and Luxembourg were offering DSL a couple of years before BT, since BT wanted to protect its ISDN monopoly and was forced in the end to move on by the rather crappy regulator.

Re:Poor article

[daern]

BT terrible? It's an outrage!!

Just try NTL, then you'd know what terrible service really feels like...

Re:What's taking so long?

[KiloByte]

Outdated ex-state-owned monopoly owning all the [local infrastructure]

Beh, it's not just the Britland that's suffering this problem. In Poland, we have Telekomunikacja Polska SA (tp SA), although the name obviously must have came from "communism" rather than "communication". Abysmal service, and no competition -- a cable operator would have to provide his own backbone as tp sa obviously isn't going to cooperate.

Just a few tidbits:

• when my workplace moved, it took a month and a half to get the damn phones connected, and a bit longer to get DSL as well. We gave them notices several times, the first time four months before.
  Our business crawled to a halt during that time -- but, there is nothing we can do about this. Sue them for lost profits? Hah. All we can possibly get is getting back the bill for 30 days, and it would take a 5-10 years long lawsuit that would cost plenty.
  And, the guy who does the real work for them said it's a matter of flipping a switch (as the cabling already existed), but he was not allowed to do it without clearance from the bureaucracy.
• the best connection we could get were "consumer-level" 128/512kbit ADSL for 160zl/month and "business" 512kbit DSL for 250zl. The sales rep claimed it's full, symmetric DSL. As you can guess, it's in reality just 128kbit upstream, same as the consumer version, with no value added but a different price tag.
• at home, I had a 3-week outage just because they had some "internal repairs". Sweet.
• at work, over half a year later, we still keep getting invoices for the old line. The customer service line just gives us a poor random clerk who doesn't know anything, and can't be told to escalate. To provide us with more entertainment, the clerks are assigned on a random way nation-wide, ensuring no two calls can reach the same representative.
• and oh, Poland has the most expensive phone services in Europe.

This post is pretty grim, indeed. But, as the brighter side, the rumors say there are people who live in Somalia and Sierra Leone...

Re:I know the horror

[Herbster]

Heh.

by "you'll need a microfilter plugged in to each phone line or extension that you want to use with broadband."

they really mean "With the broadband service you must have a microfilter for EACH device which you want to connect to the line on which broadband is enabled."

Good luck!

Re:Let's review...

[PowerBert]

Actually I had a fault with my BT line a litle over a month ago. I called BT on Friday evening (from my mobile) and a BT engineer was at my house on Saturday afternoon. BT kept me informed throughout the process. At around 4:30 Saturday afternoon I asked the engineer what time he clocked off and he replied "When the lines fixed, I can't leave a customer without service."

BT's not all bad.

Re:Let's review...

[NetNifty]

Well for me it was (I'm in the UK):

Step 1: Go to providers web site, order broadband and modem.
Step 2: Recieve and install modem


But that's because everything went well for me (exchange was only recently activated for broadband, and phone line was only installed 15 years ago). I think the problem he's pointing out is when it goes wrong, it usually goes horribly horribly wrong.

I haven't really had massive problems with BT myself - but at the end of last year I had a problem with my broadband connection dying in the evening so I phoned BT (who provide my phone line). They ran line checks at their end and found nothing wrong, even though the connection was down at the time, so told me to contact Eclipse (who provide my broadband).

So I contacted Eclipse and they ran line checks, which also returned fine, and they could see no reason for the line being down! They told me they would contact BT and about three days later they sent an engineer round who managed to fix the problem.

He hasn't even started yet!

[bodger_uk]

He's still trying to clear the line. Next we get to the part where he requests a service, this gets passed to BT to check his line (again) then back to the ISP with the results, then back to BT with the request for service, then back to the user with the activation date. Then the modem doesn't turn up, then the microfilters don't work.

Finally, he gets a connection. It connects at something completely stupid like 30k over a 2MB line. Fault process gets raised with the ISP, passed to BT, passed to ISP, passed to user for (really stupid) checks over their system. Passed back to BT, closed, opened, closed, re-filed, and finally, one day, it starts working. No explanation will ever be forthcoming. In reality, you don't want to ask.

Then comes the fun of trying to work out what the daft ISP has blocked port wise, and which bloody stupid MTU they are using (sticking to the standard for ethernet would be *WAY* too easy.

After all that, 3 months down the line they start capping your download limits, and charging you for more on a per byte level (slight exaggeration).

And yet, after all that, we thank them and pray to them because they are the gods, and we have no where else to go.

Re:What's taking so long?

[wsapplegate]

> Most of these problems would likely not of occured if they hadn't privatised BT .

I agree _in part_ with you. I've witnessed first hand the result of the deregulation of another telco market (the French one, with France Télécom as the Ugly Monopolist From Hell), and here's what happened :

• You can now transfer your local loop to another provider, either just for ADSL (in which case the signal is split at the exchange between voice--to FT--and DSL--to the competitor's DSLAM) or completely (in which case the entire pair is routed to the competitor's equipment--still not widely practiced). I understand that FT charges the competitors a nominal fee for caring over the physical loop)
• If you've a problem with your DSL (or, in the latter case, your entire line), you need to call your provider (FT won't process your call). This implies calling an overpriced hotline which often won't be open 24/7 (in some cases, it's a far cry from that). In turn, your provider's technical services will call a FT service called the GAMOT. This is a service which *only* deals with operators, not customers. The GAMOT will then dispatch FT techs to the exchange and report the tech's findings to your provider, who will (or not !) tell you what they found. If they weren't able to diagnose the problem, you'll be in for a wild ride, trying to get your operator to call back the GAMOT with more technical details, and hoping nothing will get lost in the process. The situation can even get worse if your provider uses the services of a third-party operator for hauling the traffic to their routers, since you know have *three* levels of indirection. And throughout this, you've no way at all to communicate with the guys who will really act on the field, or even their dispatchers, nor any way to know firsthand what they found
• To add insult to injury, some resellers practice slamming : they will happily sign you up for their provider (even if you said "no thanks"), thus grabbing some affiliate proceeds. Of course, since you aren't that interested in changing providers, you will need to get the slammed provider to retake the line, and make sure the slamming one understands they've acted on a false request and doesn't charge anything. In the end, you're sure to win (provided you weren't dumb enough to sign anything), but it's a time-consuming process
• Finally, there is wide confusion about what services exactly you're eligible to, especially since different providers have different standards, you'll maybe find that your line would support 2 Mbps with $provider_one but your $chosen_provider refuses to give you more than 1 Mbps. At times, the databases are also confused, your provider telling you initially you're eligible, then changing tune when they check with their operator's realtime database. Tiring. There even exists websites dedicated to checking the databases to find out exactly what you can get with whom.

On the other hand, before deregulation you would only get 1024 kbps at cut-throat prices. Now, most providers go up to 8 Mbps, and a few will even provide 20 Mbps ADSL2 with free national long-distance phone calls and TV service. So, I will stop short of saying "there shouldn't have been any deregulation", it was clearly good since it spawned a lot of interesting offers. But the way it has been done is quite stupid, especially the fact that you no longer get a free hotline in touch with the actual people doing the work. The market was stagnant, right. But the way it is now is more like "anarchy in the .FR"... I can see why they did it this way (avoid confusing the users with multiple points of contact) but the end result is that many problems take longer (in some cases *much* longer) to be solved. The most knowledgeable people still have a separate DSL traffic hauling contract with FT and an Internet service contract with a third-party provider that still does it (there aren't many that do anymore) for reliability (yo

Re:Should have checked his facts...

[taobill]

Or you can pay a few pounds more and get a static IP address (or even a range) and no transparent proxy, and loads of back-end bandwidth so that you get a very reliable service.

AAISP http://aa.nu/ [aa.nu] offer a very fine ADSL service wherein you can get an IP address range if any size (provided you can justify it to RIPE of course) regardless of the service package ordered.

They offer static IP addresses as standard. If I understand correctly they don't even do dynamic IP addresses on ADSL.

AAISP provide the highest data rate your line that can be achieved on your line (currently 2Mbps with more coming this year), at no extra cost.

They also have no transparent web proxy, guaranteed, cannot be changed - it is an intrinsic part of their service that they just carry IP packets between you and the rest of the Internet.

With AAISP there is absolutely no filtering whatsoever. With AAISP you are considered to be part of the Internet, rather than a "client" or "user" of the Internet.

There are no mysterious or unstated bandwidth caps. Each service package has a clearly stated data allowance, which is more than any reasonable user might need. More data can be transferred at extra cost. Demand during the night time and at weekends is so low that data transferred during those times is not metered.

(Please no babbling about wanting uncapped services at no extra cost -- it is simply not economic to have people saturating a 2 megabit pipe 24/7 for £20 per month. So-called "uncapped" services will always be subject to increased service charges, unstated limits, highly variable performance, ... or a pack of lies.)

I have no connection with AAISP other than as a satisfied customer! They just happen to offer a service which I find to be most agreeable.

Re:The UK is broken... patches welcome

[91degrees]

Stop opening other peoples mail. Return to sender with "No longer at this address" on it.

BT? Dont talk to me about BT!

[willm5]

I was an early adopter of ADSL, which I purchased directly from BT. When they first set me up it all went smoothly - although it did take 2 weeks for an engineer visit.

Then I had to move. Unfortunately I still had a few months to go on my one year contract. But when I called BT to set up ADSL in my new flat, they were happy to waive the remaining months I owed them. Very nice of them I thought, yet when I tried to order the new ADSL installation they told me I couldn't pay for it with my credit card because only one installation was allowed per credit card. They wouldn't let me pay by any other method (not cheque, cash nor gold doubloons). I only had the one credit card at the time, so I offered to pay up the remaining months on the old installation to free up my credit card. But they wouldn't let me do that either. Several weeks of calling and being called back went by with no progress and I was eventualy given email addresses to complain to, which were just ignored.

I eventualy just went with another ISP, who were more expensive but helpful. So I am no fan of BT. And dont get me started on the time they routed my phone calls to another (unattended) number, then spent two weeks calling me to arrange an engineers visit!

Dealing with big companies

[cerberusss]

It's better to write a letter rather than call. When you call, note down the subject, time, employee name and conclusion in your agenda. If possible, record the call.

When it's too important to call, write a letter and have it sent with the option where they sign to receive the letter. Again, you have a date, time and name.

When the inevitable time comes that they claim money from you, reply with a letter enumerating all your notes. You'll never hear from them again.

All telcos suck

[Alioth]

BT doesn't have a monopoly on sucking.

I lived in the US for several years, and was in a GTE (which became Verizon whilst I was there) area. They sucked every bit as hard as this guy's complaint against BT, and that was just for voice (I used RoadRunner cable for broadband). Specifically:

- two weeks after I moved in, they disconnected me without warning because they unilateraly decided my apartment was 'abandoned' (yes, that was the word they used).
- I got disconnected *again* when a new neighbour moved in because they thought my line belonged to my neighbour.
- more billing errors than I care to mention
- abysmal line quality; in the middle of a metropolitan area, when I was on dialup it was impossible to get much better than 33k dialup connections. Yes, they DO have line faults in the US. They just don't actually fix them.

Then there was MCI. They had a whole new level of suckage. I wasn't even a customer of theirs, and one of their charges showed up on my bill. "Third Party Call" it was called - a $10 call from Florida to New Jersey (and I lived in Texas). MCI never did properly refund the money and I had to PAY Verizon for 'third party call blocking'. I had to PAY them to fix a horrible security hole whereby you can charge money to a different phone line! Apparently you can set up a 3rd party call by calling the operator and having the charge sent to another phone line. I suspect you do have to provide some details so the operator knows you're not just picking a line at random, what I suspect is the operator mis-keyed the number to charge to.

I also got charges put on my phone line from another random long distance company with no explanation. I could never get them to remove that charge, fortunately it was trivially small.

Re:I Once Wanted to Live in England...

[Anonymous Coward]

Taxation is not much higher than the US, all considered.

If you think free healthcare is expensive then I despair.

You think the UK press is sensationalistic? I couldn't stop myself laughing when I saw Fox "news"

No TV licence man can enter without a warrant unless you are fool enough to invite them.

Please, do some research first.

Re:Poor sod!

[puke76]

I can't wait till he finds out that UK Online port filter their broadband traffic [ukonline.net] ...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Article Was Fine Says Fellow Brit

[Makarakalax]

As a fellow brit, I have to disagree. He pretty much spoke the truth (eg BT suck, and so do most of the related industries). His comments such as "Does that even happen in the US?" etc, were sometimes silly (nothing's perfect), but otherwise pretty tame. I've read commentries about people visiting other countries before and usually people are far less pleasant.

Take a step back and look at your response, bit extreme perhaps?

Frankly your response does damage to how people here on slashdot will generally perceive us, so thanks for that.

Re:Learn some f***ing geography

[Anonymous Coward]

And while you're at it....the same applies for the Netherlands.
No, it's NOT "Holland" or whatever you English people/Brits call it.

FYI: The Netherlands consists of 12 provinces, only 2 of which have "Holland" in them.

Same as in Ireland

[Zerikai]

ISPs/Telecoms probably share the software...

In my case it took me about 3 months to get the local thieves (Eircom) to free up my line from the broadband service that they claimed I had ordered from them (no, never did, why would I order the same package at 3x cost?).

They only moved their asses when finally after about 2 months I decided to contact the Communications Regulator.

Nowadays when your ISP encounters this situation they send you a nice form where you can specify which ISP you want and which one you no longer want... I guess that even with this process it takes about 2 months anyway.

The Psychology of Attracting BT Engineers

[evilandi]

>>their engineers will only come out between 9am-5pm Mon-Fri.
>Technically not true. They have early-shift and late-shift engineers, and the former can work pretty early in the morning. But you have to find your way through the incredible, Byzantine, almost unreal tangle of red tape

...or...

When you arrange the engineer's visit, insist that the operator puts "CUSTOMER WILL SUPPLY BACON SANDWICH" on the call details.

I have used this trick twice now. First call of the morning (08:30) every time. One of the guys actually drove a 30 mile round trip back to HQ to pick up a spare part and come back to me, after being fed a bacon sandwich and promised more.

Seriously, you have to be aware than BT engineers get allocated a whole heap of calls for the day, then they get to choose which ones to do in which order. The ones they leave until later will probably get postponed as they run late.

Therefore you need to make your call the attractive one which the engineer picks first.

All BT engineers like bacon sandwiches. There are NO vegitarian BT engineers. You need calories and protein to climb telephone poles.

Next, the most important question when the engineer arrives is "Tea or coffee, milk and sugar?". Once you have your engineer, you want to keep him on your side. Your anger with the bureacracy of BT means nothing to him, if you get feisty he can just pretend he doesn't have the part and will have to come back tomorrow (ie. you get marked as troublesome and always get picked last each day).

Re:BT

[demented]

They are without a doubt the worst company in the world.

Oh, yeah? Well, check this out, then:

• The company in charge is Telekom Srbija, state monopolist in telecommunications in Serbia, 80% owned by Serbian Post (which is, in turn, 100% state owned), 20% by OTE, a Greek telecomm company. Italian company STET owned some 28-29% but sold it to the Serbian Post (effectively, the state)
• Getting a plain phone line here is an enterprise of biblical proportions - if you're lucky enough to meet technical conditions (there is a wire from LLE to your building and there are free slots at the LLE) you'll need to pay about 100 EUR and to wait for up to several months. If you are in rural areas, you probably have to shell out some 1000-1500 EUR for a line. Even if you buy and put the wire yourself (areal or underground), you have to pay a lot and the wire becomes the property of Telekom Srbija (according to the Telecommunications law)!
• Recently, Telekom Serbia started offering ADSL service thru ISPs. Lots of people applied for it at their ISP of choice only to find out that only a handfull of local loop exchange points are equiped with DSLAMs and only in the state capital, Belgrade - out of 20 or so LLEs only 8 were equiped with DSLAMs, others are in process of being upgraded. The test project lasted for over a year, and at the beginning even Telekom Srbija didn't know which LLE's had DSLAMs!!! The process of getting an ADSL service here is that you contact your ISP who will in your name check with the Telekom's technicall support do you meet technical conditions, and if you do you can sign a contract with your ISP for the ADSL service - there is a setup fee (some 50+ EUR) and you'll have to wait up to two weeks before ISP's technician comes and installs the splitter and ADSL modem. However, when the service first started a couple of months ago, Telekom Srbija responded positively to most inquieries for tecnical conditions and people signed contracts and payed for the setup fees only to be informed two week after that there was a misunderstanding in Telekom's technical service and that unfortunately you do not meet technical conditions for ADSL service, could you, please, come to the ISP HQ to terminate the contract and be refunded?
• Current price range for ADSL for the few lucky ones are in range of 20 - 60 EUR for 256-768Kbps.
• Internet link (for ISPs) can only be licenced from Telekom Srbija and price range is 2.000 - 100.000 EUR/month (2 - 155 Mbps).
• Since Telekom is officialy monopolistic in the area of fixed telephony (that is, excluding mobile telephony), each and every company that sells VoIP to customers violates the Telecomunnications law (Telekom's monopoly expires in June 2005 but noone knows will it will be terminated or prolonged for some time).

Re:Almost

[symbolic]

I laughed while I was reading the article, because nearly the exact scenario happened with us (here in the U.S.) as we were trying to transfer the provision of DSL service from AOL to Qwest. Because each one decided to point the finger at the other, it took several weeks of phone calls, several promises on their part, my increasiug ire, and finally, someone who decided that it might be a good idea to actually do their job and get things take care of. The whole experience was quite nasty, but unfortunately, not all that surprising.

Re:Learn some f***ing geography

[kfg]

Obviously his mistake was in not calling English Telecom and EnglandOnline, the ignorant colonial.

Please, for my own information, point out where he called the UK England. I can find no reference in the article to the UK at all, only the company UKOnline.

For that matter, despite your protest and that of others, I can find no single instance where he used the terms "Britain" or "England" inappropriately. In fact he seems quite careful about refering to his place of residence as England and BT's service as British, never English.

I may have missed some instance or other, however.

He infers in his opening statement that England is British, which, as it happens, it is. It's not like he's living in Wales and calling it "England."

KFG

Re:What's taking so long?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but a) You're the 1% of the population who can currently get an 8Mb ADSL service & b) What's the upstream? I'd love a 1Mb up stream service but everyone seems to take the 'A' in ADSL a little too literally for my needs.

Re:yeah, at least he could a mobile that worked

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

". there is no such thing as text message interop! You cant text other networks. So you need to know the network of your friends."

Bullshit. I've texed plenty of people on Verizon, Cingular, and Sprint with my T-Mobile phone. Try it before you spout crap.

". phones are bound to a particular area code. If you move, you either need a new number, or people pay long distance rates to get to your phone."

Guess what? Long-distance is actually *cheaper* in the US than calling a mobile is in Europe.

"you pay to receive calls, on your mobile. So family minutes are cut in half if they are used intra-family."

Yes, you do. But the person calling doesn't. Look at the rates for calling a mobile in Europe - then tell me that we get a raw deal here. Even by multiplying the rates in the US by two (to account for the fact that both parties pay), I still pay less per minute than in Europe.

"When you buy a phone, you pay an "activation fee" for some idiot in the shop to turn it on and press a few buttons."

Generally waived if you buy your phone at the right place.

"Different network providers have different handsets. You cant juggle SIM cards around or choose the phone you want."

You certainly can. Some phones are SIM-locked, but I can use any GSM-1900 compatible phone with T-Mobile. I've had 13 different handsets in the last two years (4 grayscale Sidekicks, 4 color sidekicks, 2 Sidekick 2s, 2 Treo 180s, a HTC Wallaby Pocket PC Phone, and a basic Nokia).

"you pay to receive text messages!"

I don't pay to send or recieve text messages. Nor do I pay by the kilobyte for GPRS like you do in Europe. I get flat-rate ulimited data & SMS for $15 a month.

"you pay to receive calls, on your mobile. So family minutes are cut in half if they are used intra-family"

Not so. I don't pay to calls to any other phone on my network (T-Mobile USA). I can call my family *all I want* and not use any of my minutes.

"prepay is very expensive, minutes expire unless you phone is topped up, not available everywhere"

Prepay runs on the same networks as non-prepay. Cards are availabile at gas stations, supermarkets, and many other locations. Prices average to about $0.15 per minute, cheaper than prepaid in Europe. Expiration varies, but T-Mobile, for example, gives you 365 days.

"you need to work out which providers have approximate coverage in the places you live, work and travel."

Namely, most of them. Verizon, Cingular, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Nextel all have major population centers and larger towns covered. Anything with more than 10,000 people will have coverage, as will interstate highways. Some providers are better, some are worse.

T-Mobile is generally considered the weakest provider, coverage-wise, in the US. I have no problems using their service 99% of the time.

"you then need to decide between prepay or x-minute contracts"

This is different from Europe how?.

Your comment shows that you are misinformed about the US wireless industry.

For $85 per month, my family gets:

- 3 phones
- 500 pooled minutes
- Free nighttime calling, weekend calling, and calling to other T-Mobile subscribers
- Unlimited GPRS on two of the phones
- Unlimited SMS on my phone
- No long-distance to any number in the US
- No roaming anywhere in the US

If you don't want GPRS, you can do even better:

For $40:
- 600 "peak" minutes
- Unlimited off-peak (night) and weekend minutes
- Unlimited calling to other subscribers on the same network
- No roaming or long-distance charges in the US

Run the numbers. Compare the rates. You'll see that they are much lower in the US.

The "cheapness" of wireless in Europe is a myth.