BT and ISPs stonewalling on Broadband - advice please!!

My local exchange was broadband enabled in early October. I'd been campaigning
for this upgrade and placed an order months ago with AOL for broadband -
promised to be live by10th Oct.
By 10th Oct nothing heard so I contacted AOL who said I should wait 3 or 4 days
for the modem and filters to arrive. Nothing heard by early Nov so I assumed
AOL had mislaid the order and, having found them incompetent/totally unhelpful
in many other ways (including losing/blocking emails), I decided to leave them
and get BB somewhere else.
Order placed with Pipex early Nov, but 2 weeks later (17th Nov) Pipex told me
that BT had declared that my line (despite our location well inside the 5.5Km
distance from the exchange) was unsuitable for ADSL. (I later asked Pipex who
said it was because of excessive line loss or line noise - no mention of
distance from exchange being a problem).
BT customer service extremely unhelpful (to put it mildly - wash their hands of
the whole thing and say only contractually obliged to supply voice quality
line!).
I contacted BT's customer services (150) and they passed me on to faults (151)
asking whether anything can be done to make the line better (if BT's given me a
crap line I'd like them to make it better)!
Faults dept of BT has just tested my line and declared it perfectly OK for
broadband!
What's happening!!??
One engineer says it's OK today - no problems at all - and another (presumably)
has recently condemned it!!
Where do I turn next?
Faults engineer says I should approach BT Sales (150).
150 has already been totally stonewalling and unhelpful -saying nothing to do
with them and I can only find out more via my ISP.
ISP says it's in BT's hands and that it might be a good idea to place and order
directly with BT Broadband - when BT might be more 'helpful' - if BT Broadband
then says the line IS OK to come back to them (PIpex) and they'll take it up
with BT (discrimination against non-BT ISPS)?
What a mess!!
What does anybody advise (to cut the 'gordian knot' of stonewalling and
inefficiency on most sides)? (It seem as though AOL may have been told by BT
that the line is no good for BB and that AOL forgot to tell me)!
Many thanks for any useful comments.

On 20 Nov 2003 19:19:45 GMT, (PaulClarkeDenby) wrote:

>150 has already been totally stonewalling and unhelpful -saying nothing to do
>with them and I can only find out more via my ISP.

The situation isn't that BT is being deliberately unhelpful, but you're
just an "end user" and their customer in this case is the ISP, which then
sells the service on to you. So the order is from ISP to BT and BT is not
obliged to talk to you about your ISP's order, just as they wouldn't tell
me about some network service you had on your line.

>directly with BT Broadband - when BT might be more 'helpful' - if BT Broadband
>then says the line IS OK to come back to them (PIpex) and they'll take it up
>with BT (discrimination against non-BT ISPS)?

It's been commented on before - attempting to connect to Demon failed but
a request for BT Broadband "amazingly" was OK. Well, you're not first,
so go back to the ISP and see if they can get this ordered for you, as
the engineer says it is OK. I trust you took some note of his name!!

>What a mess!!

You still want ADSL, so ask the ISP(s) again. FWIW, I think they're all
happy to help, but if wires get crossed within BT, the ISPs are kept in
the dark almost as much as you... the smaller the ISP, perhaps the more
they'll chase, but having said that, I know people on Demon, Eclipse,
Freeserve, PlusNet, Zena dn AOL and none have been shouting about big
problems (though one does get lots of disconnections - converted barn
at the edge of town, so noisy/poor line, perhaps). Good luck. PGM

"Peter Morgan - 0870 432 9631" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news(E-Mail Removed) .net...
> >On 20 Nov 2003 19:19:45 GMT, (PaulClarkeDenby) wrote:
>
> >directly with BT Broadband - when BT might be more 'helpful' - if BT
Broadband
> >then says the line IS OK to come back to them (PIpex) and they'll take it
up
> >with BT (discrimination against non-BT ISPS)?
>
> It's been commented on before - attempting to connect to Demon failed but
> a request for BT Broadband "amazingly" was OK. Well, you're not first,
> so go back to the ISP and see if they can get this ordered for you, as
> the engineer says it is OK. I trust you took some note of his name!!

Sometimes it happens the other way too - with a BT ISP being told that a
line can't be enabled for ADSL and a different ISP finding they can.

> >What a mess!!
>
> You still want ADSL, so ask the ISP(s) again. FWIW, I think they're all
> happy to help, but if wires get crossed within BT, the ISPs are kept in
> the dark almost as much as you... the smaller the ISP, perhaps the more
> they'll chase, but having said that, I know people on Demon, Eclipse,
> Freeserve, PlusNet, Zena dn AOL and none have been shouting about big
> problems (though one does get lots of disconnections - converted barn
> at the edge of town, so noisy/poor line, perhaps). Good luck. PGM

As Peter says ask another ISP - a clued up/helpful one (i.e. not AOL) who
will be willing to put through a "manual order" for you with BT Wholesale.

This will ensure your line is retested again - the ISP can add notes to
these orders so they may be wiling to put down that a BT engineer has
previously said it should be ok etc

A manual order will stop BT Wholesale automatically rejecting the order.

Regards
Sunil

On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 21:14:04 -0000, "Sunil Sood"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>As Peter says ask another ISP - a clued up/helpful one (i.e. not AOL) who
>will be willing to put through a "manual order" for you with BT Wholesale.
And the best one for this is Fredom2Surf nothing is to much trouble
for them I am in no way connected with them except for being just an
extremely satisfied customer .
Grant .

Thanks, everyone, for your excellent and very useful advice!!!

> Order placed with Pipex early Nov, but 2 weeks later (17th Nov) Pipex told me
> that BT had declared that my line (despite our location well inside the 5.5Km
> distance from the exchange)

5.5km is the length of the cable to your house, not the physical distance of
your house from the exchange.

What actually gets assessed/measured is the signal loss on the line, not the
line length. But longer cables do have more loss.

Now days lines with a pre-installation loss greater than 60db are failed.

Try another ISP e.g. Zen and ask for a manual order to be put through.

Also try and find out if any of your neighbours have broadband.

Broadband connections via BT lines ares supplied by BT Wholesale who are very
unhelpful when it comes to discussing broadband problems. I dont think they
employ any staff whose job it is to help you in anyway.

Another option is to try and ask BT to install a new line which will support
ADSL.

See also www.adslguide.org.uk


Michael Chare

I had the same problem here in work.

Applied to Zen isp... failed.
Applied to BT connect.. Ok... so went ahead and got an activation date...
then rang them and cancelled.. went back to Zen.. all ok..

Zen where not impressed.Lol

Doz

"PaulClarkeDenby" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> My local exchange was broadband enabled in early October. I'd been
campaigning
> for this upgrade and placed an order months ago with AOL for broadband -
> promised to be live by10th Oct.
> By 10th Oct nothing heard so I contacted AOL who said I should wait 3 or 4
days
> for the modem and filters to arrive. Nothing heard by early Nov so I
assumed
> AOL had mislaid the order and, having found them incompetent/totally
unhelpful
> in many other ways (including losing/blocking emails), I decided to leave
them
> and get BB somewhere else.
> Order placed with Pipex early Nov, but 2 weeks later (17th Nov) Pipex told
me
> that BT had declared that my line (despite our location well inside the
5.5Km
> distance from the exchange) was unsuitable for ADSL. (I later asked Pipex
who
> said it was because of excessive line loss or line noise - no mention of
> distance from exchange being a problem).
> BT customer service extremely unhelpful (to put it mildly - wash their
hands of
> the whole thing and say only contractually obliged to supply voice quality
> line!).
> I contacted BT's customer services (150) and they passed me on to faults
(151)
> asking whether anything can be done to make the line better (if BT's given
me a
> crap line I'd like them to make it better)!
> Faults dept of BT has just tested my line and declared it perfectly OK for
> broadband!
> What's happening!!??
> One engineer says it's OK today - no problems at all - and another
(presumably)
> has recently condemned it!!
> Where do I turn next?
> Faults engineer says I should approach BT Sales (150).
> 150 has already been totally stonewalling and unhelpful -saying nothing to
do
> with them and I can only find out more via my ISP.
> ISP says it's in BT's hands and that it might be a good idea to place and
order
> directly with BT Broadband - when BT might be more 'helpful' - if BT
Broadband
> then says the line IS OK to come back to them (PIpex) and they'll take it
up
> with BT (discrimination against non-BT ISPS)?
> What a mess!!
> What does anybody advise (to cut the 'gordian knot' of stonewalling and
> inefficiency on most sides)? (It seem as though AOL may have been told by
BT
> that the line is no good for BB and that AOL forgot to tell me)!
> Many thanks for any useful comments.

"PaulClarkeDenby" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Thanks, everyone, for your excellent and very useful advice!!!

Put an order into BT Broadband. If it all goes through OK, complain to
OFTEL and they should get BT to allow you to move to another ISP for free.

Michael Chare <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> Order placed with Pipex early Nov, but 2 weeks later (17th Nov) Pipex told me
>> that BT had declared that my line (despite our location well inside the 5.5Km
>> distance from the exchange)
>
> 5.5km is the length of the cable to your house, not the physical distance of
> your house from the exchange.
>
> What actually gets assessed/measured is the signal loss on the line, not the
> line length. But longer cables do have more loss.
>
> Now days lines with a pre-installation loss greater than 60db are failed.

I believe 60db may not now be the limit.
Mine got installed, despite "whooshing" at 61db.

Oddly, my line loss dropped significantly (7db) a couple of days after
install, and the unavailable seconds went to 0 a day.
What's the limits for 1/2Mb?

"Ian Stirling" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:k3wvb.11476$(E-Mail Removed)...
> What's the limits for 1/2Mb?

41db if test carried out remotely from the exchange.
45db if the test is carried out at your end and the line has already been
enabled

Regards
Sunil