The Horror Of British Telecom 651
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."
What's taking so long? (Score:2)
Re:What's taking so long? (Score:2, Insightful)
Think that's bad? Try NTL. (Score:4, Funny)
Dear Cretins,
I have been an NTL customer since 9th July 2001, when I signed up for your 3-in-one deal for cable TV, cable modem, and telephone.
During this three-month period I have encountered inadequacy of service which I had not previously considered possible, as well as ignorance and stupidity of monolithic proportions. Please allow me to provide specific details, so that you can either pursue your professional prerogative, and seek to rectify these difficulties - or more likely (I suspect) so that you can have some entertaining reading material as you while away the working day smoking B&H and drinking vendor-coffee on the bog in your office.
My initial installation was cancelled without warning or notice, resulting in my spending an entire Saturday sitting on my fat arse waiting for your technician to arrive. When he did not arrive at all, I spent a further 57 minutes listening to your infuriating hold music, and the even more annoying Scottish robot woman telling me to look at your helpful website.... how? I alleviated the boredom to some small degree by playing with my testi*les for a few minutes - an activity at which you are no-doubt both familiar and highly adept.
The rescheduled installation then took place some two weeks later, although the technician did forget to bring a number of vital tools - such as a drill-bit, and his cerebrum.
Two weeks later, my cable modem had still not arrived. After several further telephone calls (actually 15 telephone calls over 4 weeks) my modem arrived
I am still waiting for my telephone connection. I have made 9 telephone calls on my mobile to your no-help line this week, and have been unhelpfully transferred to a variety of disinterested individuals, who are it seems also highly skilled bollock jugglers.
I have been informed that a telephone line is available (and someone will call me back), that no telephone line is available (and someone will call me back), that I will be transferred to someone who knows whether or not a telephone line is available (and then been cut off), that I will be transferred to someone who knows whether or not a telephone line is available (and then been redirected to an answer machine informing me that your office is closed), that I will be transferred to someone who knows whether or not a telephone line is available (and then been redirected to the irritating Scottish robot woman.... and several other variations on this theme.
Doubtless you are no-longer reading this letter, as you have at least a thousand other dissatisfied customers to ignore, and also another one of those crucially important testicle-moments to attend to. Frankly I don't care, it's far more satisfying as a customer to voice my frustrations in print than to shout them at your unending hold music. Forgive me, therefore, if I continue.
I thought BT were sh*t, that they had attained the holy piss-pot of god-awful customer relations, that no-one, anywhere, ever, could be more disinterested, less helpful or more obstructive to delivering service to their customers. That's why I chose NTL, and because, well, there isn't anyone else is there?
How surprised I therefore was, when I discovered to my considerable dissatisfaction and disappointment what a useless shower of bastards you truly are. You are sputum-filled pieces of distended rectum - incompetents of the highest order. British Telecom - wankers though they are - shine like brilliant beacons of success, in the filthy puss-filled mire of your seemingly limitless inadequacy.
Suffice to say that I have now given up on my futile and foolhardy quest to receive any kind of serv
Re:What's taking so long? (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you in possession of the facts?
You can get 2Mbps for £14.99 (about $28.17) per month.
2Mbps is the highest speed generally available.
Later this year, higher speeds will be available (up to 7.2 Mbps), and "hip" ISPs will offer these speeds at no extra charge. "shitty" ISPs (e.g. BT) will probably restrict the higher rates to premium services.
Re:What's taking so long? (Score:2)
Re:What's taking so long? (Score:3, Insightful)
I could imagine myself wanting a full set of Debian ISO images now and again. That might take 10Gb of my cap. But why I'd want to do that more than once a month at most I have no idea.
The only scenario I can think of where 30Gb a month might be low is if your downloading a new film (I nearly wrote "movie") every day or two. If you have the time on your hands to watch that much video, then
Re:What's taking so long? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What's taking so long? (Score:3, Funny)
last month my totals were 40.9gb down 33.9gb up. This was mostly comprised of pr0n, feature films, tv shows and warez. It should also be noted that i can barely afford my rent and do not have a TV.
I know in your world downloaders are high class
Re:What's taking so long? (Score:2)
We don't have fprofitable cable companies so we get gouged on the cable side of things.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What's taking so long? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well the lines atleast , it gave the private BT a near unbreakable telephone monopoly outside of state controll due to the rather pathetic regulators.
If only they had just privatised the telephone service alone and kept the lines state owned we likely wouldnt see many of the problems
Everything must go through BT at one stage so prices are allowed to pile on and they have no real reason to worry about reducing costs as either way they make money.
Just my opinion , but i don't like infrastructes such as water
Re:What's taking so long? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What's taking so long? (Score:2)
Being in Germany right now , its the same situation . Whatever DSL i have i still must pay the line rental to T-COM (Detusches Telekom , Owners of T-Mobile T-com , T-DSL etc)
Free Market (Score:2)
Exactly! (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, let's just look at the Deutsche Telekom here. They didn't just get the whole phone and data lines, they actually got the TV cables too. I.e., they got _everything_ that could have been competition.
Can you even get a cable modem instead of DSL? Well, no, in 90% of Germany you can't, because the Telekom isn't going to compete with itself.
Re:Almost (Score:3, Informative)
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,
Re:What's taking so long? (Score:5, Informative)
> 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 :
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:What's taking so long? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't speak for the last two, but I do know that with water, power and the railways, before they were privatised, sucessive governments regarded skipping on infrastructure investment as an easy way to save money. Sure the regulators could tell them off, but if the investment wasn't forthcoming, there was nothing being done. By removing these industries from the government teat, and by enforcing the regulations on the new private owners, the infrastructure is only now beginning to come up to the required standards. Sure it may end up costing more, but its a far better situation than waiting for unmaintained infrastructure the collapse.
Re:What's taking so long? (Score:5, Informative)
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:
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.
This post is pretty grim, indeed. But, as the brighter side, the rumors say there are people who live in Somalia and Sierra Leone...
Been there, done that (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Been there, done that (Score:3, Informative)
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)
BT (Score:3)
Now that I've vented, I'll go and read the article. After which I'll probably need to vent again.
TWW
Re:BT (Score:2, Interesting)
First, lets be clear. BT are in this for the money, not for the coolness. They have no intention on offering cool products dot-bomb style that do not bring profits.
Second, they may seem technologically backwater, but they are obliged by the UK regulatory regime to offer their products on a national basis. As a result if it takes to limit DSL to 512 (old Fujitsu linecards) or 1M (new linecards) to offer
Re:BT (Score:3, Interesting)
Total crap. On three different occassions BT has failed to even install their products and have given up. I have lost my own Internet connection, a large contract in the City of London (hardly a backwater) and in a smaller Woking office because, in each case, after literally weeks of talking to BT and reporting fault after fault with the work done by their so-called
Welcome to the UK... (Score:2)
Seconded (Score:2, Informative)
Alternatives... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Alternatives... (Score:2)
At least thanks to some of the deregulation and anti-monopoly stuff, we have alternatives to BT, like NTL... oh wait... they're just as bad.
...and as bad as NTL (and Telewest) may be [1], they're still only available in selected areas. There's no cable down my street, nor the street I lived in before (though going back 5 years, I did have cable). And this is inner-city Glasgow, lest I be accused of living in Little-Rural-by-the-Mold. Or Stonybridge ;-)
Wandering OT slightly, a friend used to work for
Not news (Score:4, Funny)
"Damn and blast British Telecom" exclaimed Dirk, the words coming easily from force of habit.
Dirk Gently's holistic... telephone (Score:3, Funny)
But you have to admit that they only charge local rates for calls to Bermuda from London, even back through time to the beginning of life on earth (which is either a few million or exactly 6000 years). What other company can promise good reception while using a time machine.
Here's another nice one: Use BS&S and DieLet's review... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, let's review the procedure for obtaining broadband in the UK:
Step #1: Call up BT, to make sure you have a line capable of receiving broadband. (Apparently everyone in the US can receive a broadband connection. That's what this guy says, anyway!)
Step #2: l up your cable or DSL provider, walk through the options, and decide what you want.
Step #3: Receive and install the modem, or have an installer do it for you.
Step #4: There is no Step 4! Unless there's a problem, in which case the useless bureaucracy of BT kicks in!
Seriously though, this guy's problem with "The Horror of BT" is just him making a lot of noise about nothing. There's plenty of room for more legitimate gripes about how BT run things - for instance, if you have a fault with a line, their engineers will only come out between 9am-5pm Mon-Fri. Absolutely useless for 99% of the working population!
Re:Let's review... (Score:5, Informative)
BT's not all bad.
Re:Let's review... (Score:4, Funny)
After 2 weeks and 3 visits, my dad phoned BT. They told him that they had no record of the problem and that it must be the first time he was reporting it, therefore they could not help him. Two phone calls later, one member of the call centre actually bothered to run a search instead of just reading the first screen that appeared. Found the problem, confirmed that it was not fixed. Did nothing else.
It's still not fixed. They're sending an engineer round to 'try and find the fault' (again). My dad has refused to pay for the past quarter's line rental and has queried Citizen's Advice for possible solutions.
Re:Let's review... (Score:3, Informative)
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 connecti
Re:Let's review...Where the horror ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds to me like he has a FAR wider range of options for broadband than I have in the US, at prices that look pretty reasonable: UKP29/m for 8Mbit ( US$60) including telephone service - wow
Re:yeah, at least he could a mobile that worked (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Yes. Partially due to the fact that the USA is very large and sparsely settled in places. We have multiple carriers. We saw fit some years ago to dismantle our telephone monopoly. Perhaps that was wrong, I can't say.
2.) Yes. Choice is bad?
3) [shrug] Prepay is expensive? OK. I wouldn't know. Sounds like it's not a good choice. Bummer.
4) No, it's 50 minutes of calls per month. There's no restriction on calls being 1 minute or less.
Re:yeah, at least he could a mobile that worked (Score:4, Informative)
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.
The Psychology of Attracting BT Engineers (Score:5, Informative)
>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
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:The Psychology of Attracting BT Engineers (Score:4, Funny)
I was, of course, aware of the magnetic attraction that sugar, salt and grease hold for the British technician. I didn't realize, though, that you could ask the call center to annotate the request.
I will try your suggestion. Soon engineer requests will look like this:
#1357726 Line from local p.c. suspected broken. BACON SANDWICHES AVAILABLE. WE PROVIDE TEA!! DON'T DO 26 Elm Gardens first! He is crotchety! Also, we guarantee that if you come before 8:30 our daughter will answer the door (subject to availability).
Learn some f***ing geography (Score:4, Funny)
England is a subset of UK
UK = Wales, Scotland, England and Northern Ireland
Each country has it's own race [bbc.co.uk]. Calling the UK "England" is both offensive and ignorant.
Please learn some geography and manners.
Thank you.
Re:Learn some f***ing geography (Score:2)
Actualy calling alot of Us Scotts brittish is pretty offensive for some of us , we are rather proud of being scottish
Re:Learn some f***ing geography (Score:3, Insightful)
this has just been about being recognised
many people naturaly equate national pride to hatred of other nations or Belife in superiorty
This is in no way true for the SNP and like movements in Scotland such as the SSP
Being a Scottish nationalist is not about your hatred of the rest its about your love for your land and the people who live there
Re:Learn some f***ing geography (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Learn some f***ing geography (Score:3, Funny)
What, you want us to go back to being The United States of Arkansas?
-Adam
Re:Learn some f***ing geography (Score:3, Funny)
(Moderation guidance: this is a very funny joke in Welsh
TFA Books I-IX (Score:3, Informative)
I know the horror (Score:2)
I don't have broadband myself, I'm trying to troubleshoot over the phone with no real idea what is going on and getting very little help ("an error has occurred" is all very fine and well but getting specific detail
Waiting..... (Score:2)
Just be happy you get to wait that long in the first place. I (unfortunately) became a customer of E.ON Energie [eon-energie.com] in Germany when they swallowed up my local energy company. When you called their customer support department they would make you wait for something like 5-10 minutes and then disconnected you with a message that went some
Re:I know the horror (Score:2, Informative)
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!
Should have checked his facts... (Score:5, Informative)
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:Should have checked his facts... (Score:2, Interesting)
At the other end you get something horrible like "BT Yahoo! Broadband". bleccch.
Public sector companies usually suck... (Score:2)
In India we saw an about-turn in service quality when BSNL [bsnl.co.in] became a for-profit company. After all telecom is not for Future Good like Education or something... it's for now and today.
Re:Public sector companies usually suck... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Public sector companies usually suck... (Score:2)
Re:Public sector companies usually suck... (Score:2)
a) BT was a state-owned, public sector organisation.
b) Certain parts of BT are still run by empire-builders that think they're still working for a public sector organisation.
c) The original poster might not be aware that BT were privatised.
Took me 9 weeks to change UK ISP's (Score:2, Interesting)
So, I had to leave Tiscali and they wanted one months notice, w
Re:Took me 9 weeks to change UK ISP's (Score:2)
Sadly, that's my experience too (though with fairadsl, not Tiscali). I'll never go with an ISP who (a) is cheap-as-chips, and (b) isn't part of the MAC system. The whole MAC thing annoyed me; basically OFCOM (OFTEL?) don't really seem to regulate the non-MAC ISPs, which mean that the ISPs have yo
My Sympathies... (Score:2)
I ordered broadband from a company (lets call it pipex). Unfortunately abut 20 minutes after I ordered it I realised that they did not provide everything I required, and another one did. So I went to website and cancelled. Then came 4 weeks of hell.
You see pipex had been a little too efficient. Even though I had paid no money, cancelled in the cooling off period, the order had go
I got DSL in 7 days in Cumbria (Score:2)
I had the same problem (Score:2)
It's a shame that it should come to this. (Score:2)
The reason for this is British Telecom. Despite their faults they have created a stable package that for the bulk of connections just works.
And it works a damn sight better than the nasty connection I set up in our Miami office 5 years ago which was so poor it had to be downgraded to IDSL.
One of the reasons costs are higher is because ISPs in the UK have the burden of paying to connect to networks in the US - so our bandwidth is pricier.
I sympathise about the bank problem (Score:2)
When you are new in a country, getting a bank account isn't necessarily all that easy, though.
It might have been easier before, but certainly after the 9/11, the government put in much stricter regulations for obtaining a bank account.
By regulation, in the UK,
Burocracy.... (Score:2)
and kept on thinking that the whole UK system was pretty shitty
Just wait until you fly to the US. :-)
Then you will *truely* have fun in a US airport. A place where "Every ones a superhero, everyones a Captin Kirk" and nail clippers are considered weapons of mass murder
MAC code? (Score:2)
BTW, cable might be a bit less troublesome, as it doesn't involve BT. Might.
I see his problem... (Score:2, Insightful)
I can see how it's irritating, but as nightmare stories go, I've seen a lot worse.
Experience is not uncommon but not indicative (Score:2)
However this isn't particularly indicative. While the sort of ADSL-wholesale-provider concept does undoubtedly introduce hiccups from time to time, it's also quite cool in a way which Americans might not necessary get.
We can
He's an idiot... (Score:2, Insightful)
Cannot send mail properly on £1000/quarter B (Score:2, Interesting)
Unfortunately, in our area the only provider available is BT (there are others who resell, but were significantly dearer).
You would think, with a £1000/quarter ($7500pa for American friends), that you might get an IP address from a range used solely by businesses (and that hasn't therefore been blacklisted due to residential customers in the same block relaying spam), and that you might
Bloody Luxury! (Score:2)
So when I returned to the UK I was pleasently surprised when BT activated the Phoneline in my flat overnight and ADSL was activated one week later.
He hasn't even started yet! (Score:2, Informative)
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, passe
Everyone loathes BT (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm on one of the last exchanges in the UK scheduled to be upgraded to broadband, and at present I use a combination of Satellite and ISDN. The sat is rock solid, the ISDN is a continual tail of woe. It regularly dies and BT won't fix it within 72 hours unless you pay extra for some 'service' contract. However the 'service' contract only guarentees a 'response' - which BT seem to take as simply phoning you up on another line and saying word to the effect 'oh dear, looks like your ISDN needs an engineer'. They don't actually do anything until they absolutly have to.
They always make the excuse that they are short of engineers because 'work is heavy at the moment'. Work is always heavy, in 5 years of my ISDN line they have never had even the glimmer of enough engineers to service the system with any hint of a timely response. An as to bullet-proofing the line so it doesn't do down as regularly - dream on, that would only take the fun out of torturing their customers.
In the days when they ran a mobile phone business I made the mistake of having a contract with them and their behaviour came pretty close to fraud.
I used to commute regularly on the railways, and bad as their service was - legendary awful in fact - the rail companies still can't lay a finger on the shere loathsome corporate dreadfulness that is British Telecom.
BT? Dont talk to me about BT! (Score:4, Informative)
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 (Score:4, Informative)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
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.
US Equivalent (Score:3, Interesting)
Having just arrived in the US, you wouldn't have a social security number. So no one would give you credit for anything. So you can't get anything which you pay for in arreas.
Of course being unable to get broadband would not be a problem. In the absence of electricity, what would you plug your computer into?
Phil
What bugs me about BT!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds familar: Telstra (Score:3, Interesting)
There best effort for me was watching a Telstra tech out on the street playing in the Telecomms pit. He accidently disconnected an E1 (30 digital phone lines) of ours at work. I noticed it go down so immediately went out to speak to him.
He realised what he had done and appologised. I asked him to fix it, he said he wasnt able to do that, and Id have to ring Telstra and lodge a fault. But HE broke it! Not me! Sorry, but he couldnt raise a fault or escalate it.
So I ring Telstra in a bad mood. We have a few decent service contracts with them, so it shouldnt be a problem. No worries, I ring telstra and lodge the fault. The woman on the other end of the phone mentions that they will have to Test the line and that it would take FOUR HOURS. But the tech is already there! Call him. He will tell you that its broken and exactly what the problem is. Sorry, they cant do that, they have to test it and you WILL have to wait 4 hours. (Meanwhile we are short 30 phone lines.)
I get a call in four hours, that yes the E1 is down (no shit sherlock!) and they will need to send a Tech out. But there is a tech already here! Anyway, three hours later and another tech arrives, but he sees the first tech in the pit still, so he leaves. Another call to Telstra sees him come back. The tech then speaks with the first tech and decides that he cant do anything that the first tech cant, so we need a DATA technician. Guess what, I need to call tesltra again. Why me?
But heres the best bit, Its now very late on a friday, because of all their time wasting antics, so a Data Technician wont be able to come out to MONDAY. A weekend with out the E1 we desperately have to have in our crucial period.
When we did get our data tech out, it took 30 minutes of him scratching his head, and 30 seconds to do something in the exchange to fix it.
Monopolies suck.
Culture Clash (Score:3, Insightful)
When I first moved to the US we had similar problems with all manner of things. We had to arrange for a phone company, and once we had one we had to get another one to speak to people a long way away.
We had to take our driving tests again (fair enough), but the test was conducted on a large empty car park with stripes for roads (and then I lost a point because I wasn't paying sufficient attention to other traffic - what traffic, there's only us here!)
We had to buy insurance to make sure that the house we owned wasn't actually someone else's house.
We had to pick an amount of insurance we wanted for our car. How do I know how much insurance I need? Should I be carefully to only crash with Yugos?
The list goes on, but the point is that while the system may be odd, it's primarily my lack of familiarity that causes problems.
Re:Poor article (Score:2, Insightful)
HOWEVER, you Yanks better not forget that your "cellphone", or as we backward Brits like to call it, "mobile" service is years behind ours.
I hear you could only recently send cross-network texts (SMS)? too bad, too bad!
Re:Poor article (Score:2, Interesting)
While it's really cool that the 3G networks can do so much, it doesn't make me feel any better about paying $70/mo in France for 2 hours of talk time. Because, you know, a cell phone is, like, for talkin' and stuff. I could easily do without that extra network capability that no one ever uses in exchange for 50% off my bill.
Re:Poor article (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides the whole BT system sounds not so much quaint as uselessly fucked up. Why are you choosing to read criticism of such an assbackwards system as xenophobia against the brittish? If he wanted to do that, he could have just refered to the people he dealt with at the various isp's as being limp-wristed tea-sucking limeys--but he didnt. In fact there were no negative imprecations against britain at all apart from what he saw as the rather neolitic broadband situation, which seemed pretty well justified. In fact he started out by making sure that it was understood that he happened to like the place and that his was not a typical UglyAmerican tirade against a foreign country for not being america.
I think you're reaching a bit
chill
Re:Poor article (Score:3, Insightful)
Big utility companies screw up. It happens everywhere. As for the broadb
Re:Poor article (Score:5, Insightful)
To label a self-deprecating piece by an American who has moved to the UK, and has a lot of positive things to say about the UK as 'xenophobic' is
+Pete
Re:Poor article (Score:3, Insightful)
At my home they're renting out a number of holiday cottages as full term lets now so there aren't enough phone lines serving the place. Next week, rather than install a splitter and cause us to lose our ADSL, BT are going to replace six miles of cable to our house, as we live out in the sticks.
Please note that this
Article text in case of slashdotting (Score:4, Funny)
whine whine bitch moan moan bitch whine whine
moan bitch moan moan moan Whine whine whine bitch
bitch whine moan bitch whine whine bitch moan
moan bitch whine whine moan bitch Whine whine
whine bitch bitch whine moan bitch whine bitch
bitch whine bitch moan moan bitch whine whine moan
bitch bitch bitch Whine whine whine bitch bitch
whine moan bitch whine whine bitch moan moan bitch
whine whine moan bitch god I had the brits moan
moan bitch whine moan bitch those bloody brits
moan bitch whine
And then I had to actually call up and ask about the line! The nerve of it...
whine moan bitch moan bitch whine whine moan bitch
Re:Poor article (Score:2)
It is a timeless kind of story - helpless man stuck in beaurocracy. I don't think anyone makes any kind of real judgement on a nation based on this kind of thing, because we know it happens everywhere.
I think I can honestly say, though I may be wrong, that if this were told with the same tone but the situation reversed (English person in the U.S.) I would still find it to be just as funny
Re:Poor article (Score:3, Informative)
BT terrible? It's an outrage!!
Just try NTL, then you'd know what terrible service really feels like...
Re:Poor article (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Poor article (Score:3, Insightful)
Bull, you are way too touchy
It's you that makes the connection of British = bad service.
The OP says British Telecom = bad service.
Yes he compares with the US, that's only logic as it is his natural benchmark
In The Netherlands we've seen similar problems when switching ISP's.
But the OPTA, the independent regulator, has been able to set some strict quality criteria and the phone company that owns the lines has lately become a lot more responde
Re:Poor article (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Poor sod! (Score:3, Informative)
Article Was Fine Says Fellow Brit (Score:3, Informative)
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 per
NTL *ARE* worse (Score:5, Funny)
Below is a copy of a letter that won a competition in UK as complaint letter of the year.
A real-life customer complaint letter sent to NTL (to their complaints dept....)
Dear Cretins,
I have been an NTL customer since 9th July 2001, when I signed up for your 3-in-one deal for cable TV, cable modem, and telephone. During this three-month period I have encountered inadequacy of service which I had not previously considered possible, as well as ignorance and stupidity of monolithic proportions. Please allow me to provide specific details, so that you can either pursue your professional prerogative, and seek to rectify these difficulties - or more likely (I suspect) so that you can have some entertaining reading material as you while away the working day smoking B&H and drinking vendor-coffee on the bog in your office:
My initial installation was cancelled without warning, resulting in my spending an entire Saturday sitting on my fat arse waiting for your technician to arrive. When he did not arrive, I spent a further 57 minutes listening to your infuriating hold music, and the even more annoying Scottish robot woman telling me to look at your helpful website....HOW?
I alleviated the boredom by playing with my testicles for a few minutes - an activity at which you are no-doubt both familiar and highly adept. The rescheduled installation then took place some two weeks later, although the technician did forget to bring a number of vital tools - such as a drill-bit, and his cerebrum. Two weeks later, my cable modem had still not arrived. After 15 telephone calls over 4 weeks my modem arrived... six weeks after I had requested it, and begun to pay for it.
I estimate your internet server's downtime is roughly 35%... hours between about 6pm -midnight, Mon-Fri, and most of the weekend. I am still waiting for my telephone connection. I have made 9 calls on my mobile to your no-help line, and have been unhelpfully transferred to a variety of disinterested individuals, who are it seems also highly skilled bollock jugglers.
I have been informed that a telephone line is available (and someone
will call me back); that no telephone line is available (and someone will call me back); that I will be transferred to someone who knows whether or not a telephone line is available (and then been cut off); that I will be transferred to someone (and then been redirected to an answer machine informing me that your office is closed); that I will be transferred to someone and then been redirected to the irritating Scottish robot woman...and several other variations on this theme.
Doubtless you are no longer reading this letter, as you have at least a thousand other dissatisfied customers to ignore, and also another one of those crucially important testicle-moments to attend to. Frankly I don't care; it's far more satisfying as a customer to voice my frustrations in print than to shout them at your unending hold music. Forgive me, therefore, if I continue.
I thought BT were shit, that they had attained the holy piss-pot of god-awful customer relations, that no-one, anywhere, ever, could be more disinterested, less helpful or more obstructive to delivering service to their customers. That's why I chose NTL, and because, well, there isn't anyone else is there? How surprised I therefore was, when I discovered to my considerable dissatisfaction and disappointment what a useless shower of bastards you truly are. You are sputum-filled pieces of distended rectum incompetents of the highest order.
British Telecom - wankers though they are - shine like brilliant beacons of success, in the filthy puss-filled mire of your seemingly limitless inadequacy. Suffice to say that I have now given up on my futile and foolhardy quest to receive any kind of service from you. I suggest that you cease any potential future attempts to extort payment from me for the services which you have so pointedly and
Re:NTL *ARE* worse (Score:3, Funny)
Re:NTL *ARE* worse (Score:3, Funny)
Yes. If you ever visit Europe, be sure to ask the first friendly policeman on the street if he is a bollock juggler, or can teach you to juggle yours.
Re:Where's the news here? (Score:2)
I Once Wanted to Live in America... (Score:4, Insightful)
But anyway, here in the UK taxes seem reasonable to me. I have to pay for society afterall.
Healthcare seems fine.
I don't notice the cameras really.
Yeah the bureacuracy sucks.
TV Licenses are cheap and the result is great, advert-free, TV, great radio stations and a great bbc online resource. At the very least it pays for Doctor Who.
Speed Cameras make it less likely that some speeding arsehole will get me killed, and don't bother me because I don't break the speed limit! The fines aren't much really, I think it's the 3 points on the license that hurt.
I don't mind cameras, speed cameras, etc. Who the fuck cares if they're getting watched? I'd much rather be safe on the streets and the roads, which I believe these cameras assist.
Re:I Once Wanted to Live in England... (Score:3, Insightful)
- Huge taxation.
Compare to where? Certainly many countries on mainland Europe have higher tax rates (and some have better standard of living as well). VAT (sale tax) is 17.5%, but it is not on some items. Income tax has 20, 25 and 40 percent bands. Historically it used to be a lot higher, so I think we compare it with what it was and Europe.
Fuel tax does annoy people, we pay more for petrol than just about anywhere else and a huge chunk of that is tax.
- Mandatory, expensive and mediocre health care
Re:I Once Wanted to Live in England... (Score:4, Insightful)
US federal Income tax:
Rate: 25%
Income Band: $29,051 - $70,350
UK income tax:
You were saying? The UK has one of the lowest income tax rates in the developed world. It makes me laugh (and cry) when I hear people complaining about the "high" rate of tax in the UK.Rate: 22% + (1-3% for National Insurance)
Income Band: £2,091 - £32,400 ($4k - 60k)
Sources:i ncome_tax_rates/index/life/tax/income_tax_rates.ht m [adviceguide.org.uk]
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/itax/2004taxrates.asp [bankrate.com]
http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/n6w/index/life/tax/
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rates/nic.htm [hmrc.gov.uk]
Mandatory, expensive and mediocre health care.
That comes out of of the 1-3% mentioned above. What does your government do with that 1-3%? Invade countries? Build space weapons systems? Subsidise cotton farmers? I think I'd rather have my free health service, ta.
Cameras everywhere
Not sure what you mean by that.
A sensationalistic press that makes Fox look bi-partisan.
Umm... not really. Having read both US and UK papers, I've seen nothing in the US to compare to the Guardian or the Independent. People take as much notice of the Sun and Mirror as they do of the National Inquirer.
Out of control, bureaucratic utilities
BT is the last one, but yes.
Television licenses along with warrant-less searches of homes suspected of running an unlicensed television.
TV licenses pay for the largest (ad free) news site on the web, plus a whole bunch of programs that wouldn't get made otherwise (The Office, HHGTTG, Little Britain, The League of Gentlemen, etc). Warrantless searches is bollocks. The TV License people have no more right to enter my house than you do, or the police do, for that matter.
Speed traps everywhere, set to excessively low limits and with giant fines.
Speed traps yes, they are a fucking pain in the arse, but not in their self a reason not to live here. "Excessivly low speed limits" is a bit rich coming from a yank. What's the interstate limit? 55mph? jebus!
Cameras monitoring every meaningful inch of public space.
I guess that's a repeat of No. 2 above. Don't know where you got that from. Don't believe everything you read on slashdot.
wtf does libertarian mean in the US?! I can't believe you put up with the possibility of being shot by the police after being stopped for traffic incidents; a transparently corrupt political system; unrestricted development on a beautiful countryside; blatant society-wide racism; a massively powerful religious right-wing movement; advertising on every inch of spare space;
Now THAT is taking up the arse.
BTW, you wouldn't have been able to live here even if you wanted to, yanks can't get permanent residence without marriage, academia or intelligence.Re:Just another self-centered american complaining (Score:3, Insightful)