September 2014

I found out today that a customer who as been negotiating with the office landlords to get fibre installed to his office finally got the go ahead. He confirmed with with ….. wait for it …… BT. BT confirm a date for the hole diggers to arrive on site. The customer made sure that the car park was kept clear so the hole diggers would have a clear run at the weekend. He waited patiently for them to arrive, but sadly they didn’t. Not sure if it was BT or Carrilion that let the side down this time. Either way BT is in the mix.

Update:- The ISP has told the customer that the BT contractors arrived on site on a particular day. The provider was insistant that the contractors arrived but no one was there. When the customer told them that they were a security company and that neither their office CCTV or 24 hours guards had any evidence of a visit from the BT contractors, they didn’t know what to say. The customer is still waiting.

Now you might think by now that I had it in for BT, well yes I suppose so, seeing as most of the telecoms problems I have, do indeed involve BT. Anyway a customer needed a static IP address on the broadband connection to access a server. Their broadband is provided by BT. So I speak to them and order said static IP address and the lady I spoke to was very helpful and even gave me the static IP address that would be allocated. I updated the customers DNS records with a new A record to point to the new IP address, rebooted the router as they suggest (after waiting 24 Hours) and it didn’t work.

I checked the email then the lady sent through to confirm the transaction and this email also confirm the IP address we were to use. So I ring customer services and after 25 minutes on the phone the guy I was speaking to was struggling to find any details. From the chuntering I could hear on the line he was trying this system and that system, but could not find the IP address in question, so he suggested he would put the order through again. OK I said, will the IP address stay the same as I have updated the DNS records I say. Don’t know came the reply. OK, I said what will the IP address be. Oh I can’t tell you that you will have to wait to see what is allocated. Hang on a minute I say, the lady that I dealt with before gave me the IP address as we spoke on the phone, whats changed. Then he says, no problem, I’ve found it now.

In the meantime there was a link on the email from BT confirming the transaction and the IP address to allow me to track my order, so this I did and the order said completed, but the completed date was the 16th September, a whole 8 days in the future, clever BT. So I tell the guy on the phone and after he searched for more details, finally gave up and suggested I ring broadband tech support.

OK so another call this time to Tech Support and again, BT struggled to find any details of my static IP address on the system. Trying this, trying that until eventually the lady says. You will have to reboot the router again, perhaps do a factory reset first, and that was that.

Another reboot was all that was required in the end, but why did it take BT nearly an hour of my time to find information on their own systems. AAAARGGGHHH.

Well its been a while since my last post so here goes.

A customer is moving to a new warehouse and requires broadband for the staff. So I contact their telecoms company and order the service, typically allowing 2 weeks for the line and 2 weeks for the broadband. Any how I get a date for the installation which is today, the 2nd September 2014 between 1pm and 6pm. I have some IT work to do at the warehouse so busy myself there waiting for BT to arrive. Around 2pm I get a call from the customers head office about ¼ mile away to say that the BT engineer is waiting for me. Well this made me start thinking, anyway I say that the engineer needs to be at the warehouse can they direct him. I thought I would drive over to the entrance to the estate to ensure he doesn’t get lost, and the person sending him had drawn him a map. So I drive over and wait just inside the main gate. 10 minutes later (yes 10) I see the BT subcontractors van sail past, past the entrance to the estate off into the distance. Great!. So I continue to wait and he finally arrives and I lead him into the estate where the warehouse is located. The BT engineer proceeds to fit the BT socket and connect it up and turns to me and said this isn’t going to work. You are joking I said, whats the problem. Then it dawned on me. He had gone to the head office because that is the address and post code he had been given. Consequently the telephone number that had been allocated, had be allocated to the street box closest to the address and postcode he had been given, not to the street box closest to where the actual installation was to take place. He assured me that an engineer at the exchange can easily switch the number to the correct street box but he could not tell me how long it will take. So the customer has a nice new BT socket is the warehouse that currently has no telephone number. Lets see how long it takes to sort out.

Well here is an update, next available appointment from BT to fix the problem is 2 weeks on 23rd September, I don’t think so guys.

Also the Engineer in nice big black numbers wrote on the front of the socket the head office main number, not the number of the new line, oh joy.

Well after no reply to my email for 24 hours I rang the Telecoms company to ask about progress. “I am going to escalate the problem now that we have a date (23rd). If I cannot escalate to a date in the next seven days I will order a new line as we can get those installed in seven days”.

Bloody marvellous a new line installed quicker than a switch of the street box at the exchange, you couldn’t make it up.

Well on the 11th September I get an update after chasing the telecoms company for a progress report. BT had said they can install a new line on, yep, the 23rd September the same date they said they could sort out the originally installed line, and the reason for this delay. The address of the unit is not on their database so it will have to be surveyed and agreed before work can commence. Apparently the fact that the ware house has 7 BT underground cables running to the building and back to the street cabinet makes no difference, because the building does not exist on their database thats it, the job cannot be done any quicker. Holly crap, why do we have to put up with this crap from BT. Get you act together will you.

Well its been confirmed, the 23rd it is, sometime in the morning, well up to 13:00 which apparently is still the morning according to BT. I’m also told that the ADSL service will go live at the same time, but will have to wait until the 24th to get all the VOIP services configured and installed. Lets see whats happens.

Well the engineer arrived but got completely lost. He had driven up from Cardiff to do a job in Tewkesbury. He was from a BT subcontractor called Kelly’s. Eventually I had to drive out to meet him. So I tell the engineer that his colleague 3 weeks earlier had tagged a pair in the street cabinet indicating the pair he had tested and sure enough, this engineer confirmed that to be the case. But the MDF Number (I think that is correct) he had been given didn’t exist in the cab. So he has to ring BT support, not BT control, BT support and get through to an indian call centre after around 15 minutes on the line, the support guy on the end of the phone tells him that the circuit number he has been given goes direct to the exchange. Now previous cable length tests have indicated that the cable length is close on 7 to 10km from to the exchange, even though he is there with his head in a big green box, the support guy was insistent that the line goes direct to the exchange. If he need more details the engineer would have to speak to BT control, which he has not had to do in the past. So he has another colleague who is BT Exchange trained and he is on route to the same area for another job. My engineer calls him to see if they can work something out, he is then told that he has been given another 2 jobs on route and it will be later afternoon before he arrives. So my engineer rings support again, another 15 minutes in the queue he final gets a list of some potentially free lines that can be used, so he pairs up the cables. Now I have to wait to see if they can reroute the allocated number to the correct cabinet back at the exchange. Just for the record, the installation engineers are from a BT subcontractor not BT, so it looks like they have to deal with the same inefficient crap from BT in the same way as the customers do. WTF BT, this is a joke.

Well the subcontractors did manage to get me a line connected. Well done to them, now the telecoms company have to configure the VoIP and broadband services which they assure me will be done tomorrow. I hope so.

It is now 11:30am the day following the line installation. No sign of any engineers here to install the remaining services. I have emailed the company concerned at 11:00 am and have yet to get a reply. Another terse email sent. Still waiting on a reply to my first. Midland Communications, you are not doing yourself any favours. Finally I get a phone call to tell me that the engineer was only ever going to arrive after 2pm, totally contrary to the information I received from technical support. However they did in the end arrive  on site and I am pleased to say we now have a functioning internet and VoIP telephone service. A woeful reflection on BT again and lack of communication from both parties considering this order was raised on the 8th August 2014 and here we are on the 24th September 2014, a whole 7 weeks later.