[Stuart]

My own experience of BT was just as much fun. I already have a BT line, so upgrading it to ADSL *should* have been simple. Be initiated the upgrade, then BT put a stop on it because of an item of incompatible hardware on the line.

They would not tell Be the problem, so I got a message from Be to contact BT.

This, I did. I called several times and ended up speaking to India everytime. A couple of times, they told me there wasn't a problem. Once, the operatator tried to put me through to BT's Wholesale ISP because he didn't understand that Be was an LLU provider. I did point this out, and he put me through anyway. Of course, I am not an ISP< so BT Wholesale wouldn't help.

Eventually, I just phoned again, got through to an Operator in the UK (Scotland, judging by his accent). He looked up my records, found I wasn't down as having phone sockets on their records and, after confirming that we had had the sockets for a few years (and, in fact, BT had replaced the master twice), he amended the records and Be were able to carry on.

TBH, it seems as though it is just pot luck who you get through to. I suspect that BT use their Indian call centres as an overflow when the UK call centres are busy.