BTO have mucked me around so badly in the past that I'm changing my ADSL ISP. Come the end of the year I'll be signed up with Freedom to surf. If only so that I'll be able to get a little bit of useful advice in the event of trouble. And not have to wait hours to get though to their help lines.
On Tuesday 20 November 2001 BT suffered network wide trouble when all their exchanges in the London area failed. This affected thousands of business and home users. No more than those using BTOpenworld. All Central London ADSL nodes had been paralysed.
BT published no information about the outage. I had to find out by looking up the
www.adslguide.org.uk website from a PC in the office. The news page said that BTO estimated the outage to be cured by lunchtime, that day. When I got home my machine wasn�t cured. Though maybe it would be all right by the morning.
Wednesday morning came but my Internet was still down. I had to call their 0845 number and got through to the support line. There was a �Special Message� on the line that said,
�If you have an ADSL router; unplug the router for up to three minutes before attempting to reattach to the Internet. If you have a USB, ADSL modem; please unplug the modem, restart your machine and reattach the modem.�
Dutifully, I followed the procedure in the message. I had tried it previously but was sure that BTO would ask me to do it again before they spoke to me properly. Not too surprisingly, as it hadn�t solved the problem yesterday, it didn�t today.
This first test out the way I called support line again. Listened to the �Special Message� again and waited for a member of their support team to answer. The line went dead. Okay, I�m calling at 11:30pm; maybe the line is only open during office hours. I�ll leave it till Wednesday.
Wednesday at work I dialled in from the hands free phone on my office desk. I listened to the �Special Message� again and waited for a member of the support team. I waited for more than half an hour, while I got on with my normal work. Just before I gave up hope a lovely woman answered. She established who I was and what my problem was before asking the killer question,
�Are you at you�re computer now?�
Well actually no, I can�t be. You only have a work hours phone support line. If I call when I�m at home, in front of the computer then your lines are dead. But I�ve used these support lines before and I�ve come up with the solution. I�m at work at the moment, sadly 3 zones away from my PC, but I�ve left it on with my ADSL modem plugged in.
�I�m sorry sir, but we�re not able to offer you support unless you�re at your machine.� �It is a 24hr phone support line though. You shouldn�t have any problems calling in when you get in tonight.�
Oh, maybe there�s a different, out of hours, phone number?
�No, call the same number.�
But I tried to get though last night and the line just went dead.
�Oh��
�Occasionally when there are too many people calling in at the same time our system can�t handle the calls. Instead of taking the call and keeping people waiting for hours it just goes dead. Where you calling at a peek time?�
I wonder what the nations favourite time to complain to BTO about their crap service is?
�Try calling at 10pm, that�s out quietest period.�
Quieter than 11:30pm?
�Can I give you a reference number again, so you don�t have to repeat the problem?�
Thanks.
Get home (about 10pm anyway) call the support line again. Listened to �Special Message� again. Waited for a member of the support team. Line went dead. Must be peek period still; I�ll give them ten minutes before I try again. Make a cup of tea and sit down in front of my PC. Call the support line again. Listened to �Special Message� again. Waited for a member of the support team again. Line went dead again. Hmmm. I really need to go to bed soon. Oh well I suppose I could do my expenses for the month. One hour later: call the support line again. Listened to �Special Message� again. Waited for a member of the support team again. Line was ringing. Wahoo! Now I just need to wait for someone to answer. Alas I don�t have the hands free but not to worry it can�t be that long a wait at midnight. Waited. Try waiting for half an hour without removing the phone from your ear while you listen to the same pointless, quiet little tune. I�d liken the experience to having your ear super glued to the speaker in an elevator at a shopping mall.
Finally, some spotty little school leaver answered.
�Hello, my name is Glen. You�re through to the BTOpenworld support group.�
No really! I was wondering who I�d been on hold to!
�Can I have you�re user name or you�re ADSL phone number?�
Oh my God! It�s a human being!
After I�d stopped sarcastically enquiring about when the music was going to be released on CD, I gave him my user name and the reference number. His response was astonishing.
�Can you turn your computer off and then back on again please?�
Oh dear.
I�ve done that already; I still can�t attach.
�What version of drivers are you using?�
They are latest ones. Actually I�m not certain they are the latest once, some could have come out this week I�ll check the internet now shall I?
Okay I hadn�t quite finished being sarcastic.
Oh no, I can�t! I haven�t had ADSL since Monday night.
�Can you try uninstalling the ADSL modem and reinstalling for me?�
No I can�t. Or more to the point, I won�t. Everything worked fine right up until your network crashed on Tuesday. There�s nothing wrong with my modem or my computer. There is however, something wrong with your exchange.
�Okay sir, I�m going to have to pass this over to our engineers. You can expect a call from them when they have identified the problem.�
Having worked for a news-feed company for a few years now. I�ve gleaned a bit of background knowledge on how these systems work. After hearing him say �them� my curiosity got the better of me.
I take it you�re engineering group is an outsourced company then?
�Oh yes.� He chirped proudly. �They are very good. They�re the same people who support AOL.�
I gulped audibly and hung up. In the world of ISPs there are few companies I hold in more contempt than AOL: mainly because of their software. One of the few things Windows has always done well is the dial up networking application. AOL software disables this and all networking facilities by installing its own version. For the beginner this means that no other ISP will work on that PC after AOL has been installed. Maybe their engineering group is better. Maybe.
Thursday and Friday come and go. Still there�s no phone call. I decide, on Saturday, to give the support number a call again. Check they are still on the case.
I call the support line again and listened to the �Special Message� again. I wait for a member of their support team again. Much to my surprise I�m answered almost immediately by a female voice, though I�m not able to catch her name. I divulge my user name and reference number again and inform her I�m just calling for an update.
�Oh yes sir, we�ve found a fault with our system.�
Good. So you�ll be fixing it then?
�Well we need to know when you�re going to be available for an engineer to attend your site?�
But the fault is with your exchange. Why do I need to have an engineer in my house?
�Its just a precaution. About 90% of problems don�t even need a site visit.�
Fine, just get the engineer to fix the problem at the exchange then. How does right now suit you?
�We can�t organise visits at weekends.�
Not a problem, I�m working a 7am till 3pm shift next week. Book one in for four.
�Ah.�
Ah?
�Well we only have slots available from 9am through till 3pm, Monday to Friday.�
Oh. Has this not struck you as a slightly odd policy? I mean the only way that a home user would be at home during these times is if he was on holiday, on a night shift or unemployed. You can�t really believe that all your home users are willing to meet your engineers is to take holiday leave, work through the hours of darkness or become unemployed?
�Err.�
Okay, how about this. Using your own statistics how about I book an engineer for 9am Monday morning. I�m not going to be in but there�s a fairly slim chance the engineer with actually need to visit my house. That way if the problem can be fixed at the exchange then there�s a 90% chance I�ll have an Internet connection when I get home. If however, it can�t be fixed at the exchange we�ll start making arrangements at that time for a site visit.
�We can�t do that sir. If the call requires a site visit we�ll be forced to book another engineer our own expense.�
And I care, why? Frankly BTO have been completely **** about this. There service is crap. I�ve had to speak to three different people to get the call to this stage. I�m still without my ADSL connection after four and a half days and due to my, not entirely abnormal, working hours you can�t arrange for my systems to be fixed until early next year?
�Give me a minute sir. and I�ll try and find someone that might understand your logic to listen to your sob story.�
Was I just insulted then?
Shortly she returned and explained that there are a few areas in Britain that have engineers available after 3pm. She would pass my call over and I was to expect a call later. Maybe I would be one of the lucky ones. Maybe
As it transpired I did get a call back a few minutes later and have arranged for a visit to be made on Tuesday at 3:30pm. It will mean skulking out of work early but that�s got to be better than loosing some of my Christmas holiday.
