Bulldog BB - Any good?

Bulldog, is any good?
bulldog.co.uk

miav wrote:
> Bulldog, is any good?

There are mixed feelings. A friend of mine is on their
8000 kbps service (getting 7200 to the exchange and data
transfers at about 6600 kbps) but others complain of many
problems. Use http://groups.google.com/ to check this NG,
and http://www.adslguide.org/ for comments on the service.

On Sat, 28 Jan 2006 11:47:13 +0000, Peter M <us-(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>miav wrote:
>> Bulldog, is any good?
>
>There are mixed feelings. A friend of mine is on their
>8000 kbps service (getting 7200 to the exchange and data
>transfers at about 6600 kbps) but others complain of many
>problems. Use http://groups.google.com/ to check this NG,
>and http://www.adslguide.org/ for comments on the service.

I had no complaints with their broadband service. Speed was excellent.
They do not have a news server though, which rendered the account
pretty useless to me. I could find no one on their helpline to assist
when I had phone line prob's.

My phone was eventually sorted when I dialled their head office rather
than their call centre.

If you ever feel the need to give a bunch of retards and none English
speakers a bit of communications practice Bulldogs call centre is in
dire need!

HN

"miav" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...

> Bulldog, is any good?
> bulldog.co.uk

If the line works and you don't need them, then it's ok. But if you have a
problem, then may God help you!

I am on their 8Mbit service with their telephone line, installed around mid
December, and never had a problem... until this morning when the phone line
just went dead (and the broadband with it).
I called them, twice. They asked me many irrelevant questions and then said
that they would send an engineer to the exchange. My phone line is still
dead.

Fortunately I have another BT line that I rely on (attached to the same
exchange, it works perfectly), otherwise I would be completely isolated.

Motorcyclesaur wrote:
> "miav" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>
>> Bulldog, is any good?
>> bulldog.co.uk
>
> If the line works and you don't need them, then it's ok. But if you
> have a problem, then may God help you!
>
> I am on their 8Mbit service with their telephone line, installed
> around mid December, and never had a problem... until this morning
> when the phone line just went dead (and the broadband with it).
> I called them, twice. They asked me many irrelevant questions and
> then said that they would send an engineer to the exchange. My phone
> line is still dead.
>
> Fortunately I have another BT line that I rely on (attached to the
> same exchange, it works perfectly), otherwise I would be completely
> isolated.

May not be Bulldogs fault it could be a line problem so it's a
Openreach problem.

You have now hit the perenial problem with going with any LLU company,
as all seem to be very slow in flagging any problems up to BT & from
there to Openreach.

A chain is only as good as its weakest link & with Bulldog, BT &
Openreach you can take your pick...

"Kraftee" <kraftee@pleasedon'(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:43df8b21$0$1452$(E-Mail Removed)...

> May not be Bulldogs fault it could be a line problem so it's a Openreach
> problem.
>
> You have now hit the perenial problem with going with any LLU company, as
> all seem to be very slow in flagging any problems up to BT & from there to
> Openreach.
>
> A chain is only as good as its weakest link & with Bulldog, BT & Openreach
> you can take your pick...

You may be correct, but the bottom line is that whatever the cause it is
Bulldog who collects the money and doesn't provide good service.
I signed up with them knowing very well how bad their customer service is,
in fact I kept my old BT number on a BT line and never use the Bulldog phone
line (most of my phone traffic is VoIP anyway).

However, I have to say that things are improving somehow. Yesterday I called
them and their tech support managed to answer the phone four times within
about 10 seconds. Out of the four times, I could speak with them only twice
because one time the person who answered just didn't talk, and another time
he/she answered and than just hung up. But the other two times it was ok.
The competence of their representative is approximately zero, and all the
questions they ask you are just out of a handbook or a pass/fail test kind
of thing on a screen.

In summary: I called them yesterday morning, they opened a case and gave me
a ticket number. Then called them in the afternoon and - believe it or not -
they knew about my problem and the ticket number... and told me not to
panic. This morning the line was up again at about 10am and everything works
fine (touch wood).

Knowing Bulldog, I was prepared to be offline for about a week. Fortunately
I was wrong. They may get a "two" in customer service the next time I run a
speed test on the ADSL Guide website.

Kraftee <kraftee@pleasedon'(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
<snip>
> You have now hit the perenial problem with going with any LLU company,
> as all seem to be very slow in flagging any problems up to BT & from
> there to Openreach.
>
> A chain is only as good as its weakest link & with Bulldog, BT &
> Openreach you can take your pick...

Has the spitting off of openreach slowed down the BT being contacted -
engineer in hole in the ground time?

Or, is it just different names?

"Ian Stirling" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
"Has the spitting off of openreach slowed down the BT being contacted"

In theory it will eventually work like this:

Customers point of contact (as it should be now)
[Service Provider] (BT/BULLDOG/ALL THE LLU CO'S, ISP's ETC)
(It's important to note that BT will be a service provider)
The SP (be it LLU or not) will interface with ....

[Openreach]

Not the customer.

This is how it should be with broadband now. As an asside many people don't
report the broadband fault to their ISP/SP and as a result the line is
tested by openreach, no fault found, and closed off. The customer re-reports
and the merigoround continues until the customer does what they should do
and contacts their SP. However weeks pass whilst the customer works this out
and then they slate BT for taking too long!!! Thing is people slate BT but
the average service with many ISPs is so poor that the customer gives up
trying to get a hold of the ISP or a gives up with what they say and plumps
to call BT as it's easier and quicker. However, again the job fails to come
in right and the merigoround starts again. If you take the contact with
those responsible for the netwok out of the loop the customer has to use the
correct procedure and things (should) run smoother with less delays.

BT as an SP will be able to blame openreach for delays etc etc. I can see
that coming. Thankfully the engineering side of BT (when the job gets to the
right engineer with the correct skills profile to match the fault) is
reasonably good. It's BT as a company (answering phones and taking orders)
that fuck most things up. At least with openreach it will become apparant
who the fuckup is with.

The importance will be on making sure ALL faults are reported to the SP and
NOT to openreach. The facility for the EU to contact openreach directly will
probably be removed in any instance. This way BT as an SP can compete on a
level field and all LLU's, ISP's and Telco's will be treated equally. Thats
how I understood it at the meetings Ive been too. But there is a lot of BT
fog around it all......