O
old.LoJiK
Guest
Forgive me if this is a little wordy but I just wanted to get this crap off my chest 
I think its fair to say that BT generally have a bad reputation. Of course its common for large companies such as BT, Microsoft etc to become unpopular with the masses, but in BT's case I really think this is deserved. This is an account of my recent attempt to have ADSL installed at my home.
I already have 2 home highway installations at my property, 1 for business and one for my own private use. I reckon that makes me a pretty good residential customer to BT. Having read as much as I could about ADSL I opted to have a whole new line installed and keep my private ISDN for back up in the short term. I booked the new line and within 3 days the BT engineer arrived to install it. not bad so far. Before the BT engineer had done a thing i told him that I intended to use the line for ADSL and asked whether that be a problem for the installation. He clearly understod what I meant and told me it was fine and proceeded to install the new line. After he left however all was not good. The line quality was awful with a very echoy hollow noise during calls. I called the fault dpertment and they sent round another engineer. He immediately told me that the bad line was probably because the new line had actually been installed on a dax.
For the uninformed a dax is a line that is shared with another line for varying reasons. In my case probably due to limited incoming services. The problem with a dax line however is that its useless for almost any kind of internet connection, and certainly unusable for ADSL. The installaing engineer would have known this, and he also knew my requirment for ADSL but neglected to inform me. He basically lied to me. BT themselves hid behind the small print which says that they only guarantee lines for voice communications and not data and also flatly refused to take my new line off the dax (the fault engineer went into great length with me about various alternatives to the dax that were possible for me). After much complaining and sabre rattling they have at least finally relenented and will be sending an enginner to take the line away and refund me my connection fees of around £100.00
My next option is to downgrade my ISDN line to a normal line and then have the ADSL installed onto that. However again BT refuse to guarantee that this new line will be usable for ADSL, or even that it wont be put on a dax after taking away the ISDN. They suggest I speak to the engineer when he arrives to carry out the downgrade and ask him not to put it on a dax (sound familiar?) but as you can imagine my confidence in BT installation engineers is somewhat low.
So heres the rub. As a previously good BT customer I'm being asked to trust to blind chance if I want to have ADSL. If I have the ISDN cancelled I will have to pay the remaining line rental charges on the contract (about 5 months) and even then they wont promise what I will be left with will be a dedicated line ( un dax'd). The risk is entirely mine and if I do get the ISDN taken away only to find they give me another crap basic line I will be screwed. There is no recourse in this situation as BT have made abundantly clear to me today, and they will hide behind the small print only guaranteeing lines for voice to the bitter end.
I really think this is an outrageous state of affairs. Broadband in much of the UK is a joke, and consumers are being made to play some kind of BT Lotto if they want to go with ADSL. There is no risk to BT, they will get your money either way, and although cable companies do offer alternatives for some, for many it is just not an option.
As a gamer I find ISDN becoming less and less usable for online gaming so I have little option but to take my chances. The irony of it is though is that in the end BT have lost themsleves money here. If they had simply taken the new line off a dax as I wanted they would have had 2 home highways and an extra standard line charged to my address. After this fiasco though they will now only have 1 home highway and 1 standard line. Muppets!
I think its fair to say that BT generally have a bad reputation. Of course its common for large companies such as BT, Microsoft etc to become unpopular with the masses, but in BT's case I really think this is deserved. This is an account of my recent attempt to have ADSL installed at my home.I already have 2 home highway installations at my property, 1 for business and one for my own private use. I reckon that makes me a pretty good residential customer to BT. Having read as much as I could about ADSL I opted to have a whole new line installed and keep my private ISDN for back up in the short term. I booked the new line and within 3 days the BT engineer arrived to install it. not bad so far. Before the BT engineer had done a thing i told him that I intended to use the line for ADSL and asked whether that be a problem for the installation. He clearly understod what I meant and told me it was fine and proceeded to install the new line. After he left however all was not good. The line quality was awful with a very echoy hollow noise during calls. I called the fault dpertment and they sent round another engineer. He immediately told me that the bad line was probably because the new line had actually been installed on a dax.
For the uninformed a dax is a line that is shared with another line for varying reasons. In my case probably due to limited incoming services. The problem with a dax line however is that its useless for almost any kind of internet connection, and certainly unusable for ADSL. The installaing engineer would have known this, and he also knew my requirment for ADSL but neglected to inform me. He basically lied to me. BT themselves hid behind the small print which says that they only guarantee lines for voice communications and not data and also flatly refused to take my new line off the dax (the fault engineer went into great length with me about various alternatives to the dax that were possible for me). After much complaining and sabre rattling they have at least finally relenented and will be sending an enginner to take the line away and refund me my connection fees of around £100.00
My next option is to downgrade my ISDN line to a normal line and then have the ADSL installed onto that. However again BT refuse to guarantee that this new line will be usable for ADSL, or even that it wont be put on a dax after taking away the ISDN. They suggest I speak to the engineer when he arrives to carry out the downgrade and ask him not to put it on a dax (sound familiar?) but as you can imagine my confidence in BT installation engineers is somewhat low.
So heres the rub. As a previously good BT customer I'm being asked to trust to blind chance if I want to have ADSL. If I have the ISDN cancelled I will have to pay the remaining line rental charges on the contract (about 5 months) and even then they wont promise what I will be left with will be a dedicated line ( un dax'd). The risk is entirely mine and if I do get the ISDN taken away only to find they give me another crap basic line I will be screwed. There is no recourse in this situation as BT have made abundantly clear to me today, and they will hide behind the small print only guaranteeing lines for voice to the bitter end.
I really think this is an outrageous state of affairs. Broadband in much of the UK is a joke, and consumers are being made to play some kind of BT Lotto if they want to go with ADSL. There is no risk to BT, they will get your money either way, and although cable companies do offer alternatives for some, for many it is just not an option.
As a gamer I find ISDN becoming less and less usable for online gaming so I have little option but to take my chances. The irony of it is though is that in the end BT have lost themsleves money here. If they had simply taken the new line off a dax as I wanted they would have had 2 home highways and an extra standard line charged to my address. After this fiasco though they will now only have 1 home highway and 1 standard line. Muppets!