Quote:
Originally Posted by Kushan
I've said it before and I'll say it again, for all Virgin's faults, their tech support is miles ahead of OpenReach.
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openreach actually use the fault system as a cash cow.
They been playing cat and mouse with isp's for years.
Initially it was just charges for not been in.
Then it was you get charged if a fault found with your router/lan cables etc. Of course the engineer would always check this stuff first 'before' checking the BT side. So aaisp always told customers to hide all their lan equipment making it impossible for the engineer to find fault.
Then it became you got charged if the engineer could not find a fault, so basically they dont have to prove isnt a fault, they just have to not find a fault.
However these charges would never stand up in court so all one has to do is is make a threat of legal challenge and BT will drop the charges in a second. Engineer visits done by the BT exec office by default will have all charges waived.
There is also rumours abound that this is why by default on FTTC services the stats are hidden on the modem's, openreach just want to hide the information from the end user so the end user has less ammo to say its a fault, and also why speed estimates are very low. My view is if someone orders FTTC and they get the same as their estimate, they probably have a fault or extreme crosstalk, a fault free line will be way above the estimate. However BT retail now reveal some of the stats on the home hub 5.
On another forum I am a member off a BT engineer posts there, his point is that his remit is only to do a quality pair test, if it fails, do something about it, if it passes its not openreach's remit to do anything, apparently the engineers are trained to not check things like noise margin and error rates (even tho they do). I asked him who's remit is it when the line is faulty but passes the pair quality test, I got no answer.
This pair quality test will pass many dodgy lines tho, software will do what you tell it to do.
What I try to tell people is that what openreach's contract is with the isp is completely irrelevant to the consumer, the consumer's contract is with the retail isp. So eg. openreach contract with BT retail may be specifically that they only have to do quality pair test and if it passes the visit is charged. However BT retail's contract with me states if BT find no fault I 'may' be charged. That is extremely vague. A court of law would expect BT to do extensive checks to 'prove' there is no fault, A software test designed to pass faulty lines is not extensive checks and hence why BT will always back down when pressed on the fees.
Luckily for customers, FTTC lines are not as bad as ADSL lines in general as they have much lower average attenuation, yes is some serious crosstalk issues but the average FTTC line still syncs way higher than the average ADSL line and on average is much more stable.
Also to point out with me having to do 20 router reboots, I got BT retail as my isp, I am aware they got an india call centre, someone can easily choose someone like plusnet or zen who have uk based support. Most customers wont even be ringing tech support.