Re: [OT] B****** Telecom (Again!)

["Ian Lowe" <ian@xxxxxxx>]

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Mark McCall" <mark@xxxxxxx>
>To: <ukha_d@xxxxxxx>
>Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2001 10:54 AM
>Subject: Re: [ukha_d] [OT] B****** Telecom (Again!)
>

>It's OpenWorld Ian.
>
>Can you believe these guys!
>
>M.

unfortunately, yes.

The Saga we just endured on our Home Highway line was apalling, and only
just (we think) resolved.
Here's an example of BT in action:

We have a Home Highway installation, with three numbers 324,364 and 794
being PSTN1, PSTN2, and DIGITAL respectively.

324 was the original analog number, and the one we use as the home phone
number.
On this line, we have BT Answer, 1571 message service.

364 is our business number, printed on all our stationery, business cards
etc.
On this line, we have call divert, so the phone is diverted to my mobile
when I am out of the office.

794 is used purely for Internet Access.

On a Monday morning, One of our customers reported that they kept getting
Number Unobtainable when they called me (on the 364 number) We did some
tests, and sure enough, the 364 line was giving the NU tone if both
channels
were in use. (I mailed the list about this)

I called BT 150 to report this as a fault. Whenever the word
"highway" was
mentioned, the 150 staff shooed me off to another number, the Highway
Helpdesk. On the helpdesk, I explained the problem, and the initial contact
was unable to help. She passed me to "an engineer". I didn't get
this guys
name, which turns out to be the biggest mistake of the entire affair.

He stated:
"This is normal behaviour for Highway"
"PSTN2 always delivers the NU Tone if both channels are in use"
"The only solution for you is to swap the PSTN numbers around, so that
364
becomes PSTN1"
"In order to swap the numbers, you must be a Business Highway
customer"

All of these statements are complete bollocks, as I have now been informed
by several people within customer care, engineering, provisioning and the
exchange.

So, having had to redial sales, I explained the requriement, and *why* this
was being done. No-one picked up that this was not correct, and the order
was placed.

On Friday morning, the analog phones went dead.

I called residential faults, and reported the problem. they stated that
works were in progress, and should be completed later in the day.

I called again at 3pm, to be told that there was no record of the fault,
and
that I was a business customer, so why was I phoning Residential? I
re-submitted the fault with Business faults, and was called at 4:45 by an
engineer who said he was just going to resolve the situation. at 4:50, the
Digital line died too.

I called back, but by the time I got through the moron/menu system there
was
no one there. please call back during office hours!

We had no service at all for saturday, or sunday, then on monday morning,
the ISDN line came back. It took until 3pm on Monday, and somewhere around
twenty quids worth of mobile calls to get the lines sorted.

At the end of Monday, we had no network services, both PSTN numbers in
their
new locations (PSTN1=364, PSTN2=324) and the ISDN was back.

On Tuesday morning, the numbers swapped back to their original locations
and
the network services reappeared, but in the wrong place, so 324 now had a
divert, and 364 had answer. Also, each line reported that "the service
requested is nto available on this line"

Our own testing showed that we were not getting inbound calls to 364, and
324 was going straight to the answer service, which we couldnt access.

It took till about 4 pm on tuesday, until I finally found the "one
guy" in
the ISDN Helpdesk who figured out what was wrong. We had a
"phantom" number
807 remaining from the switchover procedure still connected to the line. He
resolved the number problems, swapped the lines back round, and generally
made things right...

Except for network services, which swapped lines again the next morning. In
a deeper confusion, Business fault now had no record of the 364 number,
instead having the phantom 807 number. We got this resolved, and then the
analog lines died again. It took an hour or so before they came back, This
time with all of the network services on 324. Later that day (Wednesday)
the
services *finally* got where they were going.

Touch wood, one week later, we still have all of our phones, ISDN and
network services in place.

BT in the meantime, have sent me a chopped down rainforest of
confirmations,
bills, refunds, warnings etc..

I am *not* impressed.

Ian.