back to article BT Openreach boss wants you to know that deep down, they care

BT's Openreach is today releasing a service dashboard for customers in an attempt to be more transparent about its “performance issues” over areas such as missed appointments. Chief exec of Openreach Clive Selley said in a call that missed appointments by BT were down by one-third compared with last May. "I'm confident we …

  1. wolfetone Silver badge

    I want BT Openreach to know that deep down, we know they're full of shit.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      ROFL

      Re: 'I want BT Openreach to know that deep down, we know they're full of shit.'

      BT Openreach want you to know they know :) and deep down could not give a $$%^ !!!

      They do thank OFCOM for the 'Get out of Jail Free card' though !!! :) :)

  2. Tom 7

    Openreach want you to know that deep down

    there's all this water getting in making the lines noisy. They would replace it with fibre with would work out cheaper after a couple of years but the think they can get the government to pay for it.

    1. WonkoTheSane
      Windows

      Re: Openreach want you to know that deep down

      "think they can get the government to pay for it."

      AND get all that copper weighed in!

  3. a_mu

    10 Mb/s

    is that UP TO 10 Mb/s...

    I'd be very happy with a constant 10 Mb/s up and down,

    as opposed to so variable..

    1. Martin Gregorie

      Re: 10 Mb/s

      That will be a 250% speed increase I'm due, then, and it would be really nice if latency (actual as opposed to the Sam Knows fiction) didn't go sky-high most evenings.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

  4. xeroks

    and in other news

    Openretch (you know been reading el reg comments for too long when you start giving companies abusive nicknames) still don't have a way of letting us know what works and upgrades they have scheduled, and no way of us influencing that schedule.

    e.g.:

    WHEN WILL YOU UPGRADE MY CABINET TO FTTC?

    MY NEEDS ARE MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THAN THOSE OTHER PEOPLE, DO MINE FIRST.

    1. wyatt

      Re: and in other news

      Maybe they don't have a schedule? I was talking to a company yesterday who run their support desk via post it notes on a white board.. crapness is everywhere!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: and in other news

      you know been reading el reg comments for too long when you start giving companies abusive nicknames

      Or OhCan'tReach as they're known around these 'ere parts.

      1. hplasm
        Devil

        Re: and in other news

        Opencrotch- for obvious reasons once you have dealt with them via BT central...

  5. Blitheringeejit
    FAIL

    Muppets

    I looked at our local coverage map, as linked from the new Openreach site. It noted these caveats:

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    *Important information about the map

    Please note that not all premises in an exchange area will get access to fibre based broadband.

    Not all premises served by a fibre enabled cabinet will get a speed enhancement.

    Not all cabinets in an exchange area will be fibre enabled.

    All information, including forecast dates, is only indicative.

    Planned coverage for all areas is subject to survey and may be subject to change.

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Which basically means they don't promise that anything will get better even if they do finally get around to updating up your cabinet. If it was shit before, chances are it will still be shit. If not more shit, according to an Openreach engineer I asked about it. He said that if you already have slow broadband because of a long copper last-hop (>3Km), it will probably sync even slower after they fibre the cabinet.

    Their site also says:

    "If you are unsure of which cabinet you are connected to, follow this link and enter your landline telephone number to find out. "

    The link is to

    http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/ADSLChecker.TelephoneNumberOutput

    The response at the time of writing is a 404.

    So clearly we're not connected to anything. At all. And never will be.

    Muppets.

    <Please can we have a Muppet icon??>

    1. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: Muppets

      Well I have a rather different experience...

      Whilst yes it is irritating that BT Openreach don't currently provide FTTC to some post codes (that I have an interest in). What is even more irritating are the comparison sites!

      A few months back, someone commented that one area now has fibre - as they had seen the poster on the new cabinet next to the old BT street cabinet. However, the BT Wholesale/Openreach checker even now indicates no fibre...

      A visit to the new cabinet revealed it had been installed by an alt (WarwickNet), a short telephone conversation later and it looks like we'll be doing business. However, none (okay, I've only tried: moneysupermarket, uswitch, broadbandchoices, broadbandgenie, broadband, broadbandspeedchecker, cable...) of the comparison sites (residential and business) list this ISP and where they do offer fibre in their comparison results, a visit to the ISP's own website and use of their checker reveals the comparison result to be false.

      So it would seem that you do need to periodically physically check your area's street cabinets, as otherwise you may unknowingly be missing out, particularly if you are in an area where the street cabinet serves a large number of business premises...

    2. N2

      Re: Muppets

      You've not seen The Muppets in 3D?

      Absolutely hilarious, so good I had to see it twice.

      Seems unfair to comapre BTO to Muppets to me.

  6. Chloe Cresswell Silver badge

    Good day to say this.

    Nice to see BTO saying this.

    Pitty it was on our 2nd appointment day for a pstn install.

    Last thursday the engineer didn't show, and reported that we refused access to the site.

    Security have no record of the engineer even showing up at the site.

    Today I got an sms at 0709 saying an engineer will be allocated.

    0906 I got an sms saying an engineer called Malcom was allocated, and his phone number was included and that he would ring me before work started.

    At 0927, I got an SMS to say the engineer was enroute.

    At 1011, I got an email from my provider to say the engineer had canceled the appointment.

    Chasing it, "the engineer wasn't provided contact details to call".Job has my number in the notes, ISP could ring me on it, Openreach could SMS me on it, but the engineer apparently can't use a telephone.

    And we've been charged £60 a call out for "missed appointments"

    1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

      Re: Good day to say this.

      We have problems with our un-staffed sites. We give BT instructions that before they set-off for site, they are to call us so we can meet them there.

      They turn up, find no-one around, ring some random number and bugger off when they can't kind anyone. And then have the check to claim we refused them entry.

      Later on, when we (finally) met up with the engineer, we ask them if they read the notes on the call about contacting us, and get told "Oh, I never read the notes"

      They're absolute muppets. No, that's not fair on the Muppets...

      1. Chloe Cresswell Silver badge

        Re: Good day to say this.

        The first engineer canceled the job with "Unable to find site".

        Site in question is roughly 3 acres in size.

        As to muppets:

        Muppets are entertaining, and do what they claim to.

        Therefore there can be no comparison to most BTo engineers :)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Good day to say this.

          >Therefore there can be no comparison to most BTo engineers :)

          Is there still such a thing? They all got canned in my neck of the woods, apparently they wanted sick-pay, pensions and stuff - OpenReach's engineering work is contracted out to MJ Quinn.

          They seem to work on the basis of having large numbers of badly trained idiots breaking stuff randomly - followed up by a weary bearded guy a couple of days later, who shakes his head then fixes the fault in 30 seconds. I've seen this multiple times across the region. 80% sure it's the same weary bearded guy too - if he's hit by a bus you can scratch out half of the 'Northern Power House'.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: Good day to say this.

            "They seem to work on the basis of having large numbers of badly trained idiots breaking stuff randomly"

            And the faster you want fibre roll-out to happen the more staff have to be brought in and the less training they'll get.

  7. N2

    I think

    BT Openreach care about emtying wallets

  8. Paul

    How about BT stop jacking up line rental and using the money to sell their broadband cheaply and pay for sports deals, and thus make their competitors less competitive and bolster their own services?

    1. NeilPost Silver badge

      Line Rental costs are regulated by Ofcom.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @NeilPost

        "Line Rental costs are regulated by Ofcom"

        Aww stop it - enough my sides are splittin'

        Oh that's soo funny.

        I'm assuming that you are aware that you have just said that BT's line rental costs are regulated by BT?

        'cause that's all that OFCON (sorry Freudian slip - I meant to say OFCOM) are just yet another glove puppet department of BT set up to silence the naive and uninformed.

  9. tin 2

    careful what you wish for....

    As the saying goes: BT are utter shite but everyone else is even worse.

    Don't believe for a sec any of these other wretched fuckers calling for the breakup of whatever's left of BT actually want to provide you with a better service! they just want to keep more of your £30 odd quid a month for their shareholders and directors.

    It needs fixing but this is not the way.

    1. NeilPost Silver badge

      Re: careful what you wish for....

      Quite. See Royal Mail/TNT Post/WHISTL/UK Mail or Railtrack/Network Rail.

  10. inmypjs Silver badge

    Complete and utter assholes

    Technically incompetent and abusive of their cabinet and copper monopoly to the fullest extent Ofcom allow (which is a lot because Ofcom are useless assholes as well).

    It is incredible how they have managed to keep themselves unaccountable, providing shit service to their ISP customers who don't care because they know their customers will get the same shit service from any other ISP.

    I had an update today in my 7 month and counting dispute with an ISP. I will be on the phone to Ofcom yet again tomorrow telling them what a complete and utter pack of fucking useless toss pot wanking assholes openreach are. Won't do any good short term but they do listen and log complaints.

    Spliting openreach from the BT group isn't going to do anything useful. Ofcom need to put openreach's balls in a vice and accept and investigate complaints from end users instead of letting openreach insulate itself with ISPs who have no reason to give a shit either.

    1. Commswonk

      Re: Complete and utter assholes

      Ofcom need to put openreach's balls in a vice and accept and investigate complaints from end users instead of letting openreach insulate itself with ISPs who have no reason to give a shit either.

      Sorry; that is tosh. I am not trying to claim that OR is blameless but if you buy your service from a Sue, Grabbit, and Run ISP (apologies to Private Eye!) then your contract is with S, G, & R, not Openreach. The fact that S, G, & R buys in a service at wholesale rates from BT means that S, G, & R has to provide you with after - sales support; that is the deal. If you don't like it buy direct from BT as a retail customer; then you can complain to BT if your service is substandard.

      Thinking about it even retail customers don't deal with OR; they (OK I'm one of them!) deal with BT, who in turn deals with OR if that is what is needed.

      1. NeilPost Silver badge

        Re: Complete and utter assholes

        You have absolutely no understanding of what you are talkiing about.

        Purchase of wholesale service from Openreach to BT Retail/Consumer, Vodafone, Sky, Talk talk etc is regulated by Ofcom's undertakings agreement with BT on fair and equivalent treatment. Openreach is effectively and actively internally firewalled within BT Group.

        You caan't talk directly to an engineer because of this.

  11. Blitheringeejit
    WTF?

    @Commswonk

    That's how it's SUPPOSED to work. How it works in practice is very different - in order to resell OR services, you have to use their systems, comply with their processes, and now even use their recommendations for routers. But their systems and processes are not fit for purpose (see all comments above about OR engineer callouts, my experience has been much the same), so it's impossible for the reseller to give anything resembling decent customer service.

    BT Retail and OR are supposed to be separate, that was the condition of their (barely) regulated inheritance of the network following the initial privatisation. \But what this actually means is that if you can get a better service from OR by going through BT Retail, BT is in breach of its commitment to give all OR resellers a level playing field.

    Of course no-one in their right mind would have set up this situation in the first place, as it's so ripe for abuse. OR should have been separated from BT at birth. But it was done by politicians, who are by definition not in their right mind, and were probably having a seat kept warm for them on the BT board in return for rolling out this nonsense of a regulatory structure.

    I'm not sure how long you've been a comms wonk, but you clearly haven't spent as many years and as much mental energy dealing with the nightmare that is BT as most of us here.

    1. Commswonk

      Re: @Commswonk

      There are other sorts of "comms" you know!

      As chance would have it my dealings with the GPO / BT predate the existence of the internet, never mind broadband, and FWIW those dealings were not as an employee. Those dealings were but a small part of my life in "comms".

      If BT is tilting the playing field then indeed it must be held to account for it, but it still has to be via your own ISP; it is buying wholesale and then retailing it (with a mark up) so it (your ISP) has to act as an intermediary between you (the customer) and whoever actually provides the circuit, in most cases BT, for any shortcomings in performance. Your ISP sold you a specified QoS and if you are not getting it then it is your ISP that has to be the point of contact. If your ISP still cannot provide the level of service that is being paid for then it is the ISP that has breached the contract, not BT.

      Unfocussed rants rarely achieve their intended goal, and the original post to which I responded looked very much like one.

      1. inmypjs Silver badge

        Re: @Commswonk

        " but it still has to be via your own ISP"

        Not really comprehending the issue are you. BT were given a monopoly. A reason why Ofcom exists is to make sure BT do not abuse that monopoly.

        BT Openreach are abusing that monopoly providing poor service for good money. End users are the only ones to suffer the poor service. ISPs just pass on Openreach's poor service knowing their customers won't get better from any other ISP.

        Ofcom need to accept and investigate complaints from end users to be aware of abuse and do their job. Who else is going to tell them?

        1. NeilPost Silver badge

          Re: @Commswonk

          How is this any different to your Energy Supplier, Tesco, Amazon, Financial Services for stuff or services they sell to you.

    2. NeilPost Silver badge

      Re: @Commswonk

      Railttrack, Transco, National Grid etc...... v's Train operators, energy suppliers etc.

  12. Bruno de Florence
    Thumb Down

    Deep Down

    Openreach engineer claimed he could not access the cabinet in my street in order to connect me for FTTC (with Sky) owing to works and various impediments. My street is a small crescent in central London, and having surveyed it, I could not see what he claimed to have seen. Result: no Net for me since 14 Sept 2016 (old ADSL disconnected, new fibre NOT connected).

    I want the engineer's privates parts to stuff them deep down his throat !!!

    1. NeilPost Silver badge

      Re: Deep Down

      Perhaps it was impediments the other end, in the exchange when the FTTC will split off into Sky's equipment (in Sky enabled area's only).

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They care?

    After waiting 3 months to get my service moved away from OpenReach (yeah I know they're still there in the background) I'd say they "care" in a similar way that people claim to care when they are the agitator in an abusive controlling relationship.

  14. jasons74

    Playing with figures is not really improving your service

    I recently had exactly this happen to me, where BT/Openreach completely failed to show, On the subsequent visit from the tech, I noticed his job log, although several times they had not showed or cancelled, the report showed as "Client not available" or words to that effect. This is clear proof that when they miss appointments they don't always record the true reason. Lies, wrapped up in more lies and even more lies to justify the lies.

  15. Martin Summers Silver badge

    Quote 12k for a excess construction charges for a leased line. One year later with no leased line and some precast chambers built to show for it. Decide you botched the first survey, quote 29k and tell customer either pay that or cancellation charges. Oh and let a 3k BDUK voucher expire in the process. No Openreach you don't bloody care and you never will until you're split off from BT. No way of complaint either unless you lawyer up as Ofcom couldn't give a toss about business.

  16. jamiefly

    degraded line....

    BTO have recently changed the profile on my line reducing the FTTC speeds from 77/17 to 43/7 and don't see it as being a problem as the speeds are now within their new quoted estimates.. take about moving the goal posts ... WTF

  17. NeilPost Silver badge

    Trying to be fair, anyone with a brain needs to take a look at Akami's State of the Internet.

    We do pretty well in the group of our direct peers like France and Germany, better than remote peers like Spain/Italy. Strangely, the much lauded South Korea and Japan where fibre to the door is everywhere, worryingly are not that far ahead of the UK in avarage Internet Speeds - the bollocks about this in the media/from vested interests and the reality seems oddly and grossly out of alignment with reality.

    https://www.akamai.com/uk/en/multimedia/documents/state-of-the-internet/akamai-state-of-the-internet-report-q1-2016.pdf

    1. inmypjs Silver badge

      "look at Akami's State of the Internet"

      I don't see that document contains any of the metrics in Openreach's new dashboard - irrelevant.

  18. tstaddon

    The problem with the ISPs taking ownership of the communication with the ISP is that it overlooks the problem that not only are Openreach ruddy useless at communication, or even prioritising their own workloads, meeting their own SLAs etc - they don't care about the ISP's SLAs either. So quite often issues drag on forever not because the ISP's doing nothing, but because the ISP simply cannot get Openreach to do their job.

    In the past I've had BTOR stall an internet provision by 3 months because of a work order they failed to action a whole year earlier - a failure to deliver that ensured all properties connected to the same cabinet incapable of getting any internet at all - you'd never guess what their solution was. Put it this way - they instructed BT Retail to tell any customers registering for broadband off that street cabinet that they all lived in a notspot and couldn't get it. Fortunately for me, I was with a different ISP at the time and they knew different, and they supported me when I called bollox on Openreach's bull. Reported it to the CS director of BT, and within a week the engineers were doing the job they'd ignored for over 15 months.

    Currently experiencing 3 weeks of no internet after a house move where BTOR swears blind they've already activated FTTC to my line and not fouled it up, but an availability check on the BTOR systems tells me my West Yorkshire phone number is connected to a cabinet near to its exchange in a rural town in Scotland, and multiple known-working test devices at my end are telling me there is no VDSL or DSL chatter detectable at all on the line. I managed to collar an Openreach engineer at the cabinet, and I got the usual "don't know anything at all about that side of the business guv, nothing on my job sheet here" brush-off.

  19. Jayne Ellis

    I THINK Bt open reach manager's and BIGWIG BOSSES need to learn how to treat their staff, please could someone recommend a fuck-off SOLICITOR to sue the twat arsehole who don't give a shit how they treat long standing trusted skilled engineer s, my part is going mad due to the constant, what I would call bullying, disaplinaries, pips managed coaching...by a manager who can't even do the job, needs improvement, honestly I just wish there was someone who can help and advise my partner and help him cope with the misery this company is putting him through, suicide would not surprise me ....yes it's that bad and has been now for about 7years, but he fights on, we have kids mortgage bills etc to pay so he feels he has to put up with the MISERY they put him through to keep the security, if anyone can advise hear the shit open reach has put my poor fella through perhaps you could get in touch with me at the weekend or evening s, P's if you work for the UNION DONT BOTHER..... THE UNION HAVE PROVED THEMSELVES TO BE USLESS

    HELP NEEDED JAYNE

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