Hi all,
Have been a long time BT customer. We have a guest house, which had its own phone line, and around 5 or 6 years ago we were offered internet for this line.
We already have fibre in the house, but the guest house had its own copper phone and broadband connection installed when we were offered it.
The guest house would consistently get around 13mbps download speed and between 2-4mbps upload.
It was in regular use as an office, however at the beginning of the year it would intermittently cut out and the internet would switch off, typically in the middle of an important email or conference call.
So we phoned BT to speak to them about this and see if something could be done. We were well aware that it was not possible for this internet connection to be upgraded to fibre, for various reasons, which we have previously ectensively explored.
But on the phone the person at BT customer services, disregarded all of these objections and convinced us that we were simply ill-informed and we could have fibre in the guest house. Furthermore this upgrade would actually bring our overall bill down by £20 per quarter. Brilliant we thought.
This seemed odd in the days leading up to the "internet installation" when I asked follow up questions, as BT kept saying there was no fibre modem being installed as part of the work they were planning on doing. But these questions were given vague answers as if the answer would be far too complicated for a mere customer to understand, and so I let them get on believing they had things squared up correctly.
Long story short, the job had been actioned by BT as on their system they were looking at the account for the main house, which said there was already fibre broadband available at that property.
BT cut off the copper internet to the guest house, and it's now been three months without internet.
We phoned many times trying to explain this, and it took five phone calls - with many hours on hold - before this error was understood and acknowledged by BT. Furthermore every complaint we open regarding this issue has been systematically closed a day later with nothing being resolved.
By the time they actually understood it was too late. BT came back with all sorts of confusing reasons over the past few months as to why the internet could not be turned back on.
At one point we were told we would not be able to get internet in the guest house unless we registered it as a separate domicile - which seemed completely absurd, as we would then be paying council tax on what is a glorified shed.
After much persistence and of 23.5hours on the phone to BT we eventually managed to get high enough up the ladder to a manager who said they would rectify the issue.
Cut to today, we have just had the internet finally restored, but the internet speed is at a crawl; 2mbps down, 0.08mbps up.
It is too slow to use it for zoom meetings (as when someone needs to have a business call its where we wish to go and use the internet, as the phone line also doesn't interfere with the main house phone line if calls need to be made.)
We phoned BT today, and were told they did not know why this was. After another gruelling few hours we were told the issue is that we were on ADSL1 (the hub's log show's we're connected via Modulation:G.992.1(DMT) )
and we needed to be moved onto ADSL2+. We spent another two hours on hold being transfered to the connections department, only to be told connections can't run the (i want to say SLS or SSi test) needed, and we spent another 45 minutes being transfered back to the fault department, only for them to answer the phone with no knowledge of what was going on for us, and to as us what the issue was.
Eventually the fault department came back with that the original line is no longer there, a temporary line has had to be installed, and this line can get only a minimum of 1mbps and maximum of 3mbps down.
We have also been told we've been put on a new contract from the day the internet came back up online.
Nobody seems to know if this temporary line is going to be replaced at any point, or if our internet speeds will every get faster than this.
A big issue here is not knowing what to ask BT in order to ascertain our position, how to accurately explain what is going on when we phone up, and what can be done from our end to try and get answers.
What we want to know ideally is; if BT took us off the copper broadband, then that copper line has been ripped up, or sold off, then this whole scenario is moot - we may as well give up and start contacting other companies who will be willing to hook the internet back up in exchange for a contract with them.
If the 'temporary line' is going to at some point be made permanent, or if we're on a profile that's slowing our internet speed, that's a different matter - but we're not having much luck getting that information from the helpdesk.
Any advice, or suggestions relating to our position would be greatly appreciated.
Hub log: https://pastebin.pl/view/fcd21ed7
