Just come back from the Somme and a very nice few days away, doing some research and photography on the first world war, good food , wine etc...... to return to a bt broadband upgrade!
Not asked for, not required, email and internet down for more than 24 hours! Some upgrade!....
When I mention this to the customer services, that the speed is not 12mb anyway,! ....... let alone 20mb what I want is a stable, reliable connection which I pay a premium for.
What I have got is a Mumbai based, shit useless customer support! bunch of script readers, who have been outsourced, like Outreach ( flogged off) so some financial tosser can justify his excessive directors fees!
So remedy: Sky here I come, at least I will not have to pay for a crap broadband system. How is an upgrade no service! bt.......
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The broadband speeds are better and the service is normally good.
If you go with another broadband provider you will still be using the same phoneline.
She lives in a new build flat and the job is no drama but Sky have not even contacted British Telecom yet.
Having got it the speeds were poor.
That's why I suggested cable if it's available. It is faster.
Virgin have a mix of call centres home and abroad. You can talk to someone in this country if you persist.
Personally I've found Virgin's customer relations to be awful, and the internet connections inconsistent at best. I came back to uni at Christmas and for some reason the whole street's internet was max 2mb/s. finally stopped affecting me over 3 months later, and they gave us the equivalent of 1 months fees as compo. Still trying to argue for more, because for those 3 months u could barely do anything, not even watch a youtube video, so the fact that we paid for it at full price is ridiculous.
Give this a bit of thought Ken before you change, I have just moved from Bexleyheath where I had Virgin broadband via cable, the area I live in now does not have cable down the street so I opted for Sky Broadband, I was not inpressed with the speed I have and Sky explained that they use BT to provide their service and some of the speed is lost during the transfer.
Don't get me wrong its not bad but you could change and still find yourself on "BT" speed.
Good Luck
You have just confirmed why I had kept faith with BT up until now , despite paying what essentially is a fairly high price for what should be the premium IP .
The problem seems to be the fact that I use a mac. Three years ago it was the old issue of the inception of broadband, then when the hub came, and then the black hub at each stage there was a 'settling in period'
(With the mac you seem to get the usual upgrade/patch issues plus.) I cannot have cable because Bexley village is not connected. It is either sky, Virgin or talk talk.
I know about 'open reach' despite the bt logo etc, they were sold off/outsourced many moons ago, and they are now a hired gun!
My point is being a sky customer I can get a hell of a deal with sky and save probably over £200 a year than staying with BT. If BT are going to offer a crap Customer services with Foreign call centre staff. Why not have the same customer service with Sky or some such.
I do not mind paying a premium, but my issue is having done that what am I getting for my money!
If Virgin have installed fibre then that is worth a shout but hold your horses until BT Infinity rolls up in Bexley that is something special. The customer service side of things is an equal shower of shit whatever it is that has one of those departments so by moving suppliers you won't necessarily cure that ill.
Perhaps I should investigate a business account. As I do so much of my work on line I will have to investigate this. See if I can at least get a customer relations manager or something, at least someone who I can speak to, hopefully who is aware of the local exchange.
As I say I understand all provideers have downtime, what annoys me is a: not being informed before, and: b receiving a text message teling me the work was completed at 5.34 in the morning, when it had not been!.
More time reconfiguating the computer, switching the hub off and on etc. The call centre ( in India) had no idea as to what the resolution time would be, and were reading from a script. I do not blame them, they were just the poor guys manning the phones taking the flak from customers like me moaning. 16 hours later they confirmed there was a broadband problem. I was assured that I would receive a phone call or message on my mobile when the matter was resolved. I did not!
I noticed the broadband light had returned, but that the upgrading light was not on! had not been on so what is that about!........The vague, weekend , 48hour resolution, nobody to actually speak to that is UK based and hopefully can assure you!
Obviously the outsourcing of services in the Internet providers has been also meant there responsability and customer services!. Quite how the regulator thinks this is acceptable when HMG want you to fill in all manner of things online is baffling!
Getting a business account will not help.
The distance from the exchange is the real problem. This is what governs your speed. Until Openreach upgrade the lines you are stuck with problems.
BT and Macs is quite a problem. They sold my brother a support package which I then found didn't support Macs.
Shame that you're not on cable. Virgin do have Mac techies who can test your connections.
if you need a better connection it might be worth checking out satellite broadband. Google will bring up some suppliers.
Thanks for the info crusty54 so another possibility ends in a cul de sac.
Just had a very charming sweet asian lady on, understood the issues, gone away to see what can be done....... I will not hold my breath! Been down this road before a few times......
Must admit, could have done without this on my arrival back to the UK. Get the impression that communication was better in the war...... first world war that is.......
BT are up to something at the moment as my internet connection seems to disappear on quite a regular basis only to reconnect within a minute or two. My download speeds have gone up, but I don't think the Hub can take it...
The likes of BT, Sky, Talk Talk, Orange etc are fine for most people with decent lines, the main advantage being cost. It’s when you have a problem that it becomes a nightmare as the support offered is dismal and completely script driven (Having visited a Mumbai based support firm trying to pitch for our first line support business I can attest to this!)
In the last 18 months BT has been rolling out what it calls its 21st Century Network (ADSL2+ and latterly Fibre to the Cabinet), but in reality it has just created a whole new wave of problems, as does every BT “Upgrade”. Its understandable to some extent as BT’s network is simply vast so mistakes are bound to happen. It’s possible that part of your issues related to this ongoing process, or it could just be that they decided to upgrade the firmware on your home hub; it’s hard to tell from what you have said.
It’s a shame about the cable not being available, as from my experience (admittedly of the business product) its pretty good. Having looked at the exchange you mentioned Ken, there are options other than BT there, the most useful one being BE Unlimited (Owned by O2 at present). Whilst they go through BT exchanges, they use a process called Local Loop Unbundling which means that to a certain extent they are separate from BT, certainly at the core network level. We have had a fair amount of dealings with them and find them to have a really excellent network, a very stable and fast product and a proactive nature when it comes to fixing issues.
Their support is based in Bulgaria, but is actually quite good although inevitably you encounter some scripting. There is logic to this as most broadband issues are caused by a small handful of problems, the stats bear this out. I’m not sure about MAC support (We only support this to a limited extent ourselves, the reality is that Windows is the most common system) but a good internet connection should be plug and play bar the odd adjustment for E-Mail settings.
Of course, the reality is that not a single provider in the country, not even the likes of Virgin Media, can avoid using BT at some point. In the case of Virgin Media this may be limited to Exchange Sharing, core network points etc, but their presence is every where.
With your postcode I could look more specifically to see what type of speeds you should get and more importantly an idea of expected stability, whisper me this if you want.
can be cheaper too!!!!!!
Essentially O2 and BE are the same company (BE Developed and deployed the LLU network before O2/Telefonica purchased them in order to get into Broadband)
You need to be careful what package you choose if you go with O2 as their lower end prodcut is often just a resold BT ADSL Max product which wont help your situation, whereas BE don't do this, as yet.
Lot's of exchanges are being done at the moment check BT's website to see if your exchange is enabled
Only reason I ask is the 7 or 8 peoples homes I go to regularly,as soon as I arrive I'm already linked into their WiFi networks from previous visits.
My iPhone and Macbook instantly recognise where I am at every place except the home that has BT broadband.
I always have to do it manually and often even then,my iPhone refuses to join.
I'm with 02 at home. I pay the minimum - I think it's about £7 per month on top of my phone tariff,-it's always been fine- (nearly 3 years).