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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To Expect a Decent broadband service from BT????

25 replies

SpookyMadMummy · 15/02/2007 19:48

ok.
I have had 6 months of broadband trouble and BT seem to think our equipment in the home is at fault. We have moved the broadband box off an extension so my desktop now has no internet and I have had a BT engineer, a SKY engineer and been on the phone to BT no end of times about it....

Tonight I have had to spend another half hour on the phone, been disconnected and had to be called back by them..

Am I being unreasonable to expect a good service for my £26.99 a month??

Btw anyone know of a decent provider???

OP posts:

brandy7 · 15/02/2007 19:54

oh wow,i swapped from crappy talktalk to go back to b.t

ive not had any trouble yet, been back with them for 5months.

hope you get sorted out soon

charliecat · 15/02/2007 19:56

Is this with a bt homehub? Ours is crap. Was fine till we swopped to the HH.

TheArmadillo · 15/02/2007 19:58

ime you are unreasonable to expect any decent service from BT (at least in their opinion).

Try ntl/telewest instead (they don't go through bt lines - install their own).

BT = shite at sorting things out if there is a problem.

Original poster

SpookyMadMummy · 15/02/2007 20:00

yes it is the home hub.... piece of crap methinks.... They have 24 hours to sort it out or I am taking both phone and internet elsewhere

OP posts:

BassMama · 15/02/2007 20:13

Oh i have the exact same problem - got the BT home hub thing and i HATE it! It keeps not working, and I can get my laptop connected but my PC wont for some reason and last time i called to complain, They somehow cut my phone off?! I had to call back to a foreign (indian i think) call centre and they had NO concept of my scottish accent (although i stupidly kept saying aye which really confused them..) anyway was on the ohone for 45 minutes and it cost me £14 on my mobile bill.

They are truly awful! so afraid i am no help but i do sympathise!!

Original poster

SpookyMadMummy · 15/02/2007 20:23

pmsl bassmama... yeah they were foreign alright.... seems there is no decent customer service left in this country...

OP posts:

MegaLegs · 15/02/2007 20:26

Have you tried switching it off and on again? Sorry that sounds flippant but we have had probs with our BT broadband too. Havn't got the homehub but some nights our connection is lousy and I keep losing it for 30/40 secs (usually when playing isketch!!)

We are currently lookin fora new provider too.

Original poster

SpookyMadMummy · 15/02/2007 20:28

switched it off and on.... disconnected and reconnected everything... only thing I haven't done is take the damn thing out into the garden and set light to it!

and I am sorely tempted.....

OP posts:

MegaLegs · 15/02/2007 20:31

It is SO infuriating isn't it when you just can't make it work. Is the homehub for going wireless then?

GreedyGecko · 15/02/2007 20:37

Not sure about the homehub, as i'm normal BT boradband, but I spent the 1st 4mths unable to get online very often. They said Sky was causing the problems . In the end I took out the microfilter & it's been working perfectly since. Although don't take the microfilters out of SKy boxes if you have multiroom as they'll charge you seperate subscriptions.

Original poster

SpookyMadMummy · 15/02/2007 20:47

yes home hub was marketed as the best thing since sliced bread for wireless broadband,...

err its not... its crap

OP posts:

TLV · 15/02/2007 21:21

makes me laugh - British Telecom and the call centre is in India, we have bt broadband (don't know what the home hub is tho) and we have had problems and it gets sorted for a while and then happens again however we have somehow worked our way round it without calling them

Molecule · 15/02/2007 21:21

I was going to start a very similar thread, having had multiple problems with BT broadband. It went off last May, 4 weeks later an engineer eventually came out and admitted that our near neighbour had the same problem. Managed to rectify it, then it failed mid September. It took till the end of November for BT to finally allow an engineer to come out and only after I'd complained to every department I could find. This engineer said the main problem was an underground line fault and to ring the line dept next time it happened. This I did in January when it started to fail again, but the line engineer reckoned on that day there was no fault and I would be charged for the call out. A broadband engineer came out yesterday, and again confirmed that it was generally a line problem, but when I spoke to the line people they again said they could not find a fault and would be charged for any call out.

I've no idea where I go from here other than change suppliers. What I really hate is being kept on the phone for at least 20 minutes whenever I ring the call centre, even though they now know (my account must be flagged with a stroppy woman logo) not to ask me to connect to the master socket/restart the router/check the micro-filter etc.

Anyone have any experience of Zen? or any other suppliers? We are fairly rural so I can't see any company laying lines to us, they will have to use the existing BT lines

GreedyGecko · 15/02/2007 21:33

Molecule, when we moved in, our line was terrible (normal phone, didn't have broadband then). I phoned & complained to BT, it was getting almost impossible to hear anything other than crackles on the line. They ran a line test, said there was nothing wrong with it. I insisted there was & that I wanted an engineer out. They told me I'd be charged as there was no fault on the line. Engineer came out the following day, said he was shocked we could use the phone at all because the line was almost completely shot away. He also said that the line tests that they do over the phone very rarely show up a fault.

Molecule · 15/02/2007 21:49

That's one of our problems GreedyGecko, when the broadband starts to fail we always have a crackly line. The last two broadband engineers have both said its a line problem, and run extensive tests, the one who was here yesterday spent more than 2 hours testing every conceivable line, and pinpointed it to be from a pole to the end of the lane. But the line fault engineer who came out in January reckoned he couldn't find a fault, and of course the day he came out the line was clear, but since then we've hardly been able to hear anyone on the phone.

The broadband engineer was supposed to be putting a report in, so I shall phone them tomorrow to see if they are going to act on it.

Just thinking about BT stresses me now.

pucca · 15/02/2007 21:54

My mum has had no end of trouble with BT, absolute wa**ers!

They are also saying it is a prob on the line, then they say no it is the broadband, she never gets to speak to the same person twice and seems to keep getting a call centre in India where no one can speak english.

Original poster

SpookyMadMummy · 16/02/2007 14:14

Well I have just had a call from BT
The lines have been in the test jack overnight...
Apparently I need a new master socket so I have to get a BT engineer out again

OP posts:

Stargazer · 16/02/2007 14:25

Hello Spooky - don't get me started on BT broadband. When we moved to North Wales we knew that we were unlikely to have a connection speed like the one we had in Londaon (8MB at the time), but we checked and we told that we'd get a speed of 2MB. So we bought the house and moved in - then it all started. It took over two months for them to finally sort it out (after numerous phone calls to the helpdesk and getting on firstname terms with most of the local BT engineers) - and we now have a speed of ½MB!!! It's not brilliant, but we just about cope. Oh yes, we complained about the problems and got a discount of £100 - which helped.

It might be a case that you don't have a strong enough signal from the BT line - that was our problem, but BT put in a special filter and it now works. Switching to a different provider wouldn't make any difference to our speed here - it's the BT lines that all the companies have to use. Don't know if any of that helps. But I do understand - in your shoes I'd be furious.

sideways · 16/02/2007 14:28

My BT broadband keeps cutting out.

Their reason given: it is not very reliable when it rains . I'd better move to the desert then.

Original poster

SpookyMadMummy · 16/02/2007 14:35

Pmsl at moving to the desert sideways!!
Our broadband speed is 5MB apparently.... when we originally signed up for it we were told it was the best/most reliable and all that cobblers.... still thinking of switching...

OP posts:

Original poster

SpookyMadMummy · 18/02/2007 17:02

Grrrr! The saga goes on and on
The phone service went again today and the broadband too,....
I phoned BT again and asked them about replacing my master socket and I have just had to justify why I am doing it! grrrrrrrrrrr!

OP posts:

Catbabymummy · 18/02/2007 17:09

Yes you are totally unreasonable
Had BT when we first had Broadband, a bloody nightmare. We are with Tiscali, TBH their not much better. Can't really recommend either Pipex or TalkTalk. Going to have a look around for a different provider once our current contract runs out...

detoxdiva · 18/02/2007 17:13

Not unreasonable at all ....our homehub is crap too - the internet connection often cuts out and the hub phone will just switch itself off mid-phone call.

Original poster

SpookyMadMummy · 16/03/2007 16:54

update... I have once again had 2 days of internet troubles with them again... I get grovelling people on the end of the phone who want my custom but who seem totally unable to resolve this. It has made my mind up I am looking for a new provider.

OP posts:

flimmsy · 05/07/2024 21:05

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