To wonder why it takes BT 3 weeks to connect broadband

[Orangeanddemons]

We had to fond temporary accomodation very rapidly. When we told BT about the move, they said it would take 3 weeks to connect us.

Now, I would class broadband as almost a utility. When you move house, all the water, electic eyc are in place ready for use.

We can only get an open zone hotspot at the bottom of the stairs....

[MrsWinnibago]

It took them 5 to connect us when we moved. 3 isn't bad...they have a terrible record and on radio 4 recently they interviewed people who've been waiting more than a year! BT have been warned now by Ofcom that they're not doing well enough.

[Orangeanddemons]

Have they now? That's interesting. 5 weeks. That's appalling. But why does it take them so long?

[MrsWinnibago]

Orange on the radio the representative said it was simply bad management and too much work! They are taking on more staff apparently

[ViviPru]

Whatever you do don't phone up the customer service support. Unless you want to waste an entire day and lose every shred of emotional stability you may have had. I LOATHE BT

[Dontstepinthecowpat]

Agree with Vivi, we have just had 12 weeks of arguing with them. The delay in connection was bad enough but they booked SIX appointments with six hour slots and failed to appear for any of them, my blood was boiling

[kittykarate]

The main problem is BT OpenReach who do the connections for most broadband providers are not customer facing so they just seem to work to their own little schedule. They don't seem to have enough staff, or enough 'go' about them. Unfortunately unless you can go via a cable provider like Virgin you can't avoid OpenReach, and they seem to provide sucky service regardless of if you have BT broadband or Sky

www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/26/ofcom_sets_repair_deadlines_for_bt_openreach/

[Andrewofgg]

Because they are too busy trying and failing to run a piss-up in a brewery?

[Golferman]

Just upgraded to new fibre optic BB and they came within four days.

[OberonTheHopeful]

I've worked with BT a fair bit over the years. I think one of their problems is that their different divisions don't communicate well with each other.

[yoshipoppet]

Took them 4 months to connect us, I'd have been thrilled with 3 weeks.

[ViviPru]

It gives me the rage that there's nothing you can do as in many areas you have no choice. We can't vote with our feet and take our custom elsewhere. They are the singular WORST company for customer service I have ever encountered.

[CatThiefKeith]

Many factors, including the fact that the copper network is disintegrating after 3/4 years of total neglect thanks to a performance measurement system called ipop.

Run by a computer not a person, ipop allocated a time to each engineer per job, with no consideration for any issues that would crop up. This in turn lead to engineers doing one of two things...

A) bodge it, keep your ipop score at a n acceptable level and be deemed as efficient or

B) continue to take a bit of pride in your job, do it properly, remake a cable joint if necessary, get the old ladies phone line up and running even if it takes 4 hours longer than ipop says it should, then get performance managed out of the business and sacked after 10 years service. (That'd be dh then)

Sadly dh was one of many (who were all on old, decent contracts ) that have been replaced by poorly trained engineers on 8k less than dh earned. In fact they are on the same money dh was on as an apprentice, 12 years ago, so I am not surprised that they're not knocking their plums out to get the jobs done.

Bt are utter cunts.

[PurpleSwift]

they set a lot of people up you know...they have backlogs and waiting lists etc.

[mumatron]

We gave up trying after 6 months. 3 weeks would have been fantastic. They still send me a monthly emails reminding me to log in and look at my bills. I give up trying to get them to stop.

The call centre staff blatantly lied so many times. I will never go back to them. Ever.

[Sallyingforth]

It took Virgin 22 hours to connect me to a 120Mb service!

[amroc18]

BT: worst customer service EVER. I will leave them as soon as my contract ends. Had nothing but hard work and painful phone calls with them over the last 6 months

[Orangeanddemons]

They are just twats. We have no choice over provider really. Virgin don't do super fast where we are, I'm fact we can't get virgin(which also pisses me off, WHY isn't it available nationally?). We want super fast broadband, so BT Infinity (well named ) is all there is

[mummymeister]

we have a BT business line. we have been waiting since the 18th May for the line to be sorted out with BT even refusing to divert business calls for us. today, the BT man came and said that someone at the exchange had messed up our line, taken him all day but it seems to be sorted. almost 2 months worth of business lost. thanks bt you are so much better now you are a private company than you were as a nationalised industry.

[Lesleythegiraffe]

It took them 4 weeks to connect my broadband and landline even though I was taking over the same phone number as previous occupant.

I asked them if they could do it quicker as I had been in hospital and needed a phone for emergencies as my mobile doesn't get a good signal in my house but they wouldn't.

I asked them for the date for the connection so I could arrange for someone to be in and they said they did it remotely!!

Why on earth it takes so long I have no idea.