BT Infinity & FTTx Discussion

pennywise said:
I don't really see how this will change anything considering literally every availability resource already states that "all dates are indicative and subject to change" or similar. The quarterly dates are place holders, plain and simple. If you know where your cabinet is (it's not too hard to get an idea if you take a quick walk around your area), checking to see whether any work is going on would give you an idea as to whether the date is actually accurate or just there to show you that your cabinet hasn't been forgotten about. If a RFS date was announced, missed, then taken away until a more accurate date could be published, people like this would literally **** themselves thinking that it's no longer going to be available and kick up an even bigger stink.

As it stands nothing has changed with any advertising so if your number is still giving a date of 30th September then this is the predicted RFS date and is the date from which you should be able to order FTTC. Of course, as the article (point C) (and pretty much every other existing resource already) states, this date is subject to change if any unforeseen delays occur. It would blow your mind if you knew some of the crazy things which caused these delays and might cause this "UrbanHaze" guy to think twice before throwing his rattle out of his pram.
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You're completely missing the point I'm afraid. If BT give a date and then miss it then fine. If they miss it again, understandable. Anything more than a 6 month delay brings into question the validity of the date in the first place.

The point is BT can't just continue to set the dates in what appears to be an arbitrary manner. 90% of your post is irrelevant for myself because:

a) the cabinet is down and has been for months
b) this small area in Peterborough is already half enabled they just 'forgot' the other half

The ASA agreed with the complainant. So your other points are a little irrelevant. I'm sure they would have considered similar arguments from BT.

I only took a contract out initially with BT because Infinity was due September 2011. Then December 2011 - ok fine. March 2012 - understandable. June 2012 - now this is becoming misleading. etc.
 
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Rusty0611 said:
You're completely missing the point I'm afraid. If BT give a date and then miss it then fine. If they miss it again, understandable. Anything more than a 6 month delay brings into question the validity of the date in the first place.

The point is BT can't just continue to set the dates in what appears to be an arbitrary manner. 90% of your post is irrelevant for myself because:

a) the cabinet is down and has been for months
b) this small area in Peterborough is already half enabled they just 'forgot' the other half

The ASA agreed with the complainant. So your other points are a little irrelevant. I'm sure they would have considered similar arguments from BT.

I only took a contract out initially with BT because Infinity was due September 2011. Then December 2011 - ok fine. March 2012 - understandable. June 2012 - now this is becoming misleading. etc.
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The ASA ruling only applies to adverts. If BT were to place an advert in your local paper saying Infinity will be available by a certain date, then BT would be expected to make Infinity due by that date.

However, if you're going onto BT's website and asking them, that's not an advert and BT are covered by their own small print.
 
@Tomsk: Did you even read the blog post I linked?


KIA said:
More fool you. :D
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Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I wish I had read more about it when I was looking originally. But I took BT at their word and I would have happily accepted 6 months delay as part and parcel if there was an end in sight. Unfortunately there isn't and I'm stuck on 7Mb which to be fair isn't the worst by any means. I just want a faster connection.

I work as a business analyst in a large scale IT migration project and while being different there are some similarities with the BT's rollout. If we had such poor communication on availability of services to our clients (direct an indirect) we'd be hearing about it for sure! Ha ha.
 
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Rusty0611 said:
@Tomsk: Did you even read the blog post I linked?
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Yes I did.
As far as I can remember, BT have NEVER put an actual date for Infinity availability on their home page or on any adverts elsewhere.

What I'm suggesting is that the ASA couldn't really do anything to BT, since the dates BT gave out were not adverts, but answers to information requests by potential customers. BT can (and probably will) continue giving unrealistic estimates and as long as they state more clearly that such dates are merely estimates, they will have satisfied the ASA.

I can't check what, if anything, BT have done since I waited until BT said I could actually get Infinity before I changed my ISP.
 
Rusty, I too believe there should not be a date in place at all if they know there is no chance of the cab being enabled

As you say one 3 month slip is understandable, 2 or 3 definitely begins to bring into question the validity of the date in the first place

I have been in contact with BT and openreach previously and their arrogance is outstanding. BT say they only know what openreach tell them and openreach just point blank refuse to deal with individuals.

If there is a problem with getting a cab enabled record it for what it is, is it a technical fault, is it planning, whatever, and give the customer some useful information that tells us things are moving forward.

It sure seems once exchanges are enabled the do the easy cabs close to the exchange and leave those furthest away (who would benefit from FTTC the most) in the wilderness because its too much work for them. Q the next week announcement 96 new exchanges will be enabled while there's hundreds that aren't even half finished......but hey it looks good
 
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gizmoy2k said:
Rusty, I too believe there should not be a date in place at all if they know there is no chance of the cab being enabled

As you say one 3 month slip is understandable, 2 or 3 definitely begins to bring into question the validity of the date in the first place

I have been in contact with BT and openreach previously and their arrogance is outstanding. BT say they only know what openreach tell them and openreach just point blank refuse to deal with individuals.
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You don't have a contract with Openreach though. If OR had to start fielding calls from Joe Public asking about RFS dates on individual lines, providers that do deal direct with OR would never get through to them...
 
gizmoy2k said:
Point being they don't tell the providers anything anyway other than "No just because"

Useless
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Not necessarily. As long as you go through the right channels, you can find out exact reasons with no problems whatsoever. It's just difficult for most ISPs to do this as the contact methods into Openreach are buried in documentation and processes stacked miles high...

rusty0611 said:
You're completely missing the point I'm afraid. If BT give a date and then miss it then fine. If they miss it again, understandable. Anything more than a 6 month delay brings into question the validity of the date in the first place.

The point is BT can't just continue to set the dates in what appears to be an arbitrary manner. 90% of your post is irrelevant for myself because:

a) the cabinet is down and has been for months
b) this small area in Peterborough is already half enabled they just 'forgot' the other half

The ASA agreed with the complainant. So your other points are a little irrelevant. I'm sure they would have considered similar arguments from BT.

I only took a contract out initially with BT because Infinity was due September 2011. Then December 2011 - ok fine. March 2012 - understandable. June 2012 - now this is becoming misleading. etc.
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To reiterate several parts of my original comment, if the date changed twice then disappeared completely, what then? I'm not trying to defend Openreach here (I absolutely despise having to deal with them) but the RFS dates they put down generally are accurate and are announced honestly (think about it - they're a business as well at the end of the day, it would be stupid for them to put down unattainable RFS dates just for the lols)... it's when the survey teams come out to perform in-depth reviews of the ducting/cabling for the cabs or when legal issues come into play that things start getting complicated and RFS dates start getting missed. It's in instances like these that dates start getting pushed back 6/9/12+ months and especially in instances with legal repercussions there is no way to tell when they will be ironed out. The dates are continually pushed back by Openreach to show that they are still working on getting the cabinet RFS and haven't forgotten about it. I personally would rather have a date that gets pushed back instead of no date at all as this would suggest to the common customer that Openreach have shelved their plans completely for that area.

Going back to this ASA sillyness, the dates on the telephone number checkers are already marked as subject to change, and no dates are mentioned in any advertisements as far as I'm aware. I can't see anything changing that'll be considered beneficial to anyone but if you feel that this ruling is a good thing then by all means celebrate.
 
#Chri5# said:
You don't have a contract with Openreach though. If OR had to start fielding calls from Joe Public asking about RFS dates on individual lines, providers that do deal direct with OR would never get through to them...
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Speaking from experience Providers don't always get through to Wholesale either. Think my record was 1hr 10 minutes on hold.

By the way ISP's dont always talk direct to Openreach. They normally talk to BT Wholesale, then BT Wholesale talk to BT Openreach. The latter being where the engineer control is. You can depending on your contract get updates direct from BT Openreach without going through BT Wholesale via the BT Openreach portal. It all depends on your contract. Eg Plusnet as they are owned by BT may have to go the Wholesale route. Also a lot of providers have access to BT Eco (unless its been replaced) which is another "portal" you can use to avoid ringing up to get info and log faults.

pennywise said:
Not necessarily. As long as you go through the right channels, you can find out exact reasons with no problems whatsoever. It's just difficult for most ISPs to do this as the contact methods into Openreach are buried in documentation and processes stacked miles high...
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Thats not quite true. 0800 number, option 1, option 3, remember it well, then wait for the call centre country lottery. This was for BT Wholesale we could never talk to BT Openreach direct. We could ring the engineers when onsite and they often called us. Most of the time they would turn up, do a test, then disappear without telling the customer onsite what they had done
 
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varkanoid said:
Thats not quite true. 0800 number, option 1, option 3, remember it well, then wait for the call centre country lottery.
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I meant more from an ISP point of view than a customer point of view, but I do admit it's difficult for customers to get through to the departments of ISPs that have access to this info. From what I've read on other forums (for BT at least), people seem to have a better time of it getting through to someone by sending emails instead of calling.
 
pennywise said:
I meant more from an ISP point of view than a customer point of view, but I do admit it's difficult for customers to get through to the departments of ISPs that have access to this info. From what I've read on other forums (for BT at least), people seem to have a better time of it getting through to someone by sending emails instead of calling.
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Think you misunderstood I used to work for a Business ISP (but did public too). The 0800 number was for ISP's to use and thats what I was explaining how simple it was and we were a tinpot one not a big player.
 
varkanoid said:
Think you misunderstood I used to work for a Business ISP (but did public too). The 0800 number was for ISP's to use and thats what I was explaining how simple it was and we were a tinpot one not a big player.
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Ah - sorry, that's the BT Wholesale number you were talking about! It definitely was a lottery back a few years ago. You can still get through to Swansea these days but only for very specific queries. They're a pleasure to deal with every single time... if only I could say the same about India :(
 
When we used to hit the Wales one we used to give a little "yes" when they answered and they always used to laugh.

although digressing from the topic a bit,
 
gizmoy2k said:
It sure seems once exchanges are enabled the do the easy cabs close to the exchange and leave those furthest away (who would benefit from FTTC the most) in the wilderness because its too much work for them. Q the next week announcement 96 new exchanges will be enabled while there's hundreds that aren't even half finished......but hey it looks good
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Yeah I do wonder how many people there are out there like me, exchange enabled for FTTC but no sign of it coming to my cab. There is no ADSL2, LLU or Cable at my address so FTTC would make a massive difference, approx 20x increase in speed.

Speaking of ADSL2 does anyone know if BT is still rolling this out?
 
Engineer just left - he couldn't have been nicer either. Quickly done too.



He says to expect the upload to get better as it settles in. The download is faster than BT predicted. The ping is a little worse because it goes through a switch.

:)
 
It isn't? I thought there was a 10 day period during which speeds wouldn't be optimal? Switches do affect latency, not by much - my main PC is behind two switches, although I don't think they add much.

72up and 4 down doesn't seem right though, they advertise it as up to 76 and up to 19 down. So if I'm getting near max up I should get near max down - around 18.

I'll see what it's like in a week.
 
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