BT & DNS

Anybody have any experience of dealing with BT on DNS issues.

I have a business account with BTOpenworld. It has the upgrade option
for fixed IPs etc and has a .co.uk domain registered to the account.

I phoned and asked about assigning sub-domains to the IP allocation and
was told that I'd have to email the DNS people with a request. I was
also told that it would take a week.

I emailed the DNS people and gave them clear instructions as to which IP
should have which sub-domain name.

8 day's later, nothing had been done.

I called tech support. After keeping me on hold for about 15 minutes I
was told that BT "don't do sub-domains". I asked the tech support person
where this information was advertised - as I hadn't been aware of this
when I paid for the upgrade. They couldn't tell me, and also seemed very
vague about the whole concept of a what a *sub-domain* was and why I
should want one.

Next day I called business sales and was told that BT did in fact do
sub-domains and that the business support people could do this
themselves if I called back the next day.

I did call back, but the guy I spoke to said he didn't know how to do
DNS and would have to forward my request to the DNS people. I told him
that I was dubious that they would get the job done or call me back. He
insisted that they would and took my details.

He apologized for the delay in getting stuff done and told me how busy
BT DNS were. To which I replied: "if they were that busy they should try
working longer hours than 9 to 5.

They never called back and I still don't have my sub-domains.

Do BT do sub-domains? And if they do, how do you get the DNS people to
update the records?

--
Martin

* Martin wrote:

> Do BT do sub-domains? And if they do, how do you get the DNS people to
> update the records?

I don't know. But the general answer is, I think, that what you should
do as fast as you can is wrest control of the domain from them, and
then either run it yourself or give it to some competent, small, DNS
people to handle. Gradwell.com are competent DNS people though there
are no doubt others.

Wresting it from them involves persuading the .co.uk nameserver people
to delegate to your preferred servers, and secondly making sure that
BT don't continue to serve it (as otherwise everyone who uses their
nameservers will still see the old bogus information, even though its
orphaned). There's politics involved because you need to persuade the
..co.uk people that you own it. It's long enough since I've been
through this that I suspect my information on the politics is not
useful any more (and anyway it was a .com domain not a .co.uk one).

It will probably be painful, but it will probably be worth it...

--tim

Tim Bradshaw wrote:

> I don't know. But the general answer is, I think, that what you should
> do as fast as you can is wrest control of the domain from them, and
> then either run it yourself or give it to some competent, small, DNS
> people to handle. Gradwell.com are competent DNS people though there
> are no doubt others.
>
> Wresting it from them involves persuading the .co.uk nameserver people
> to delegate to your preferred servers, and secondly making sure that
> BT don't continue to serve it (as otherwise everyone who uses their
> nameservers will still see the old bogus information, even though its
> orphaned). There's politics involved because you need to persuade the
> .co.uk people that you own it. It's long enough since I've been
> through this that I suspect my information on the politics is not
> useful any more (and anyway it was a .com domain not a .co.uk one).

Changing the tag holder is simple if both old and new ISPs cooperate.
Nominet have a straightforward procedure in case of dispute, but money
(£15) is involved. http://www.nominet.org.uk/TagHolders/TagChangeFaq/ for
the details.
--
Dave

* Dave Pickles wrote:

> Changing the tag holder is simple if both old and new ISPs cooperate.

yes, I know. But do you think BT will cooperate? Do you think they
are even capable of cooperation? That's the case I was thinking of.
When we did this (not with BT and not for a .co.uk domain) it was just
a matter of sending a fax on headed paper to NSI (as was) saying we
were the owner and asking them to change the delegation & contact
details. I suspect (and hope) it's a bit harder now!

--tim

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
Tim Bradshaw <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> * Martin wrote:
>
> > Do BT do sub-domains? And if they do, how do you get the DNS people to
> > update the records?
>
> I don't know. But the general answer is, I think, that what you should
> do as fast as you can is wrest control of the domain from them, and
> then either run it yourself or give it to some competent, small, DNS
> people to handle. Gradwell.com are competent DNS people though there
> are no doubt others.

Thanks for the info Tim.

This morning I finally got through to somebody who knew what they were
talking about!

They edited the DNS records while I was on the phone and were apologetic
about the useless information provided by Broadband Tech Support.

If any other business customers are facing similar problems they should
dial 0845 602 1960 rather than the usual tech support number.

--
Martin