topic Re: Failure to Deliver - What Options Do I Have? in Archive

Failure to Deliver - What Options Do I Have?

briesmith — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 10:01:44 GMT

I had to close my offices last June and switch to working from home. This was a difficult time but I managed it OK except for one small detail concerning internet access.

My previous offices had high speed connectivity while my home has only 20Mbs (and that's a laugh) ADSL2 which is extremely variable and offers only a maximum (on a good day) of about 9Mbs anyway (ie less than 50% of what I am paying for - what other business would be allowed to do this?).

I put up with that - remaining with external hosting services in the interim - because BT promised BT Infinity availability for end of March 2012.

I registered my interest and waited for the months to roll by. 31 March came and went but without any contact from BT about how to switch to the new service. I therefore contacted the sales office only to be told that the delivery date was now end of June.

Today, 1 July, I repeated the process only to find that it is now 30 September 2012 and I am a) absolutely furious and b) at my wits end as to what I can do about it.

I know we are insignificant and no one gives a toss about us but as small businessses we must have someone whose job it is to speak up on our behalf? BT are the monopoly supplier; no other company can offer high speed broadband access until BT do the necessary engineering work from their exchange to their cabinet in the street.

Given that, I find it teeth grindingly unacceptable that they can simply put key, vital dates back with no obligation on them, firstly, not to and, secondly, without having to consult with their frustrated clients if and when they (rarely) have to.

As it is I am buggered; up the Swanee with no canoe and only totally incompetent paddlers.

And in case you are wondering I live in Radlett, a largish town less than 20 miles from the centre of London.

Where do I go to complain and to see whether there is, in fact, anything I can do about it?

Re: Failure to Deliver - What Options Do I Have?

MHC — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 00:46:15 GMT

@briesmith wrote:

My previous offices had high speed connectivity while my home has only 20Mbs (and that's a laugh) ADSL2 which is extremely variable and offers only a maximum (on a good day) of about 9Mbs anyway (ie less than 50% of what I am paying for - what other business would be allowed to do this?).

No, you are getting what you paid for.

Your contract is for an UP TO 20Mbps service - and 9Mbps ceretainly comes within that.

Is it BTs fault that you decided to live in the house you chose? You could have bought one nearer teh exchange and then received 18-20Mbps.

Just think about your Road Fund Licence - you pay that top be allowed to use the roads. A motorway is normally a 70 MPH road, but suddenly when there is heavy traffic, you can only go at 20 MPH, or if it is teh M25 when those monitoring teh road decide that revenue is needed teh variable speed limit drops to 50MPH - in both cases you have not got what you paid for - but you cannot complain.

Re: Failure to Deliver - What Options Do I Have?

DaveA — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 09:21:03 GMT

Hi,

Unfortunately the dates given for things like upgrades to exchanges are only estimates. There could be any number of reasons why they are put back, although multiple delays like that seem to be unusual.

As far as your location is concerned, you have to bear in mind that it costs a lot to upgrade an exchange, and if yours is quite small then the viability of it is lower. In the end it comes down to money in most cases, and how many people are going to end up buying the service is a very important factor.

I did a check on your exchange, and to be honest you're quite lucky if you're getting fibre as soon as they say. According to Sam Knows (http://www.samknows.com/broadband) you have over 1000 less homes and a hundred less businesses that the exchange I'm on, and we don't have a date until some time in 2013.

Dave

Re: Failure to Deliver - What Options Do I Have?

briesmith — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 10:58:31 GMT

MHC you are no guru. You are a troll and like all trolls a complete pain in the arse.

The logic of your answer says BT's marketeers should say up to a trillion, million, gazillion megabits (but in your case, dear subscriber, 5).

If you've nothing to offer except smug, patronising, unhelpful chaff why don't you push off and annoy someone else.

I came onto this forum - which I would stress is for business people, not silly ones like you - for sensible advice.

The moderators should stamp on people like you; you just bring this forum into disrepute.

Re: Failure to Deliver - What Options Do I Have?

briesmith — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 11:04:41 GMT

Dave

How can a large organisation give dates which are just estimates? Drawing up plans is a massively complex and expensive administrative task. Changing them costs even more.

What you are saying doesn't chime with my business experience. Plans involving 1000s of people, suppliers, equipment procurement and delivery cannot be based on estimates.

What we are talking about here is a simple failure of management to deliver a project on time and as a monopoly supplier it shouldn’t be open to BT to simply say, “sorry, can’t do it”

My prospects and those of any number of other small businesses must be taken out of the hands of BT somehow. Their failure to perform holds this country back and has gone on too long.

This is a global business we are talking about after all; not the local shoe repairers.

Re: Failure to Deliver - What Options Do I Have?

MHC — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 12:55:46 GMT

If anyone brings the forum into disrepute, it is people such as you.

I cannot be bother to answer your post, except to say that I have more experience in the communications industry, including DSL than you will ever have. I have probably forgotten more about communication services that you will ever know.

Re: Failure to Deliver - What Options Do I Have?

DaveA — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 14:50:21 GMT

Right could we all calm down please? I don't want to have to wield the ban-hammer here, but I will if I have to.

Regarding the 'flame war' we've just had:

@MHC

In this instance no, as it is a first offence. But if it continues then I will take action. (Note: Answer to PM) However, please do not rise to the bait, as I don't want to have to sanction you too.

@briesmith

If you post in that vein again then I will have to consider at least a temporary ban. While you are perfectly entitled to your opinion, please keep it polite and to the point on the public forum.

---

Regarding the point of the thread:

@briesmith

All ADSL services are provided as 'up to x Mb', not just those of BT. Because of the nature of the service there is no way of saying what speed a line will manage, or guaranteeing that it will maintain that speed.

Also while you might like to think that everything should always go perfectly well, unfortunately it doesn't. As you say it probably costs more to delay than to complete, but it doesn't stop delays from happening.

In the words of the university lecturer that ran my course relating to project management: "Estimate the maximum you think you need to complete it. Then double it."

Yes it does hurt when you are on the receiving end of a delay, but it is a fact of life. I can only apologise on behalf of BT if that delay is our fault, although it is possible that it isn't. (Kensington and Chelsea anyone?)

Now if you have any problems with the speed of your connection then I would advise contacting the Helpdesk, although I would also advise checking the Sam Knows website to get an idea of what speed you should be getting. The main factor in determining the speed of broadband is the distance you are from the exchange, and sites like this can give you a rough idea of this.

Dave

Re: Failure to Deliver - What Options Do I Have?

briesmith — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 16:58:23 GMT

Dave

While I appreciate your reply none of what you say changes anything.

If your university project management course suggested a doubling of time estimates then I am sure the courses the BT planners went on made the same recommendation.

Delays in projects do happen (I have worked in IT all my adult life) but twice? And without any contact or consultation?

This demonstrates a Barclays/Ryanair like disdain for the customer. These dates are important and it shouldn't be open to companies like BT to simply and unilaterally change them without any regard for the businesses which have incorporated them into their own planning.

That it can and does happen shows only that the BT culture hasn't really moved on from the bad old pre-privatisation days.

Turning to the ADSL quoted speed issue; I repeat that I continue to be amazed that the regulator/advertising standards people allow BT to get away with these claims.

It would be fairer to quote minimum speeds with an assurance that most users will get better.

It would be just as fair to quote average speeds.

It would also be appropriate to use the same physics they use to calculate the maximum theoretical speed to work out the most likely speed. (BT knows how far everyone is from their exchange after all).

The only thing that isn't fair, that is dishonest, is to quote the maximum theoretical speed when the only subscriber who could get that performance would be a squatter in the telephone exchange.

Re: Failure to Deliver - What Options Do I Have?

mydearcosmo — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 00:48:02 GMT

Is there an option where you can change the subscription you purchased to a much lower plan rate?

Re: Failure to Deliver - What Options Do I Have?

raymondbacon — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 17:05:19 GMT

I do have Infinity, compared to ADSL it was 12mb rather than 1mb, which was amazing. After a year at 12mb, it's now on 8mb and they say that is acceptable and nothing they can do. I have another line from TalkTalk, going to get that converted to fibre and see what I get. It;s called Infinity because that is how long you spend trying to get it fixed. I expect if BT are responsible for the olympics it will be a disaster. The UK will just get left behind because of a lack of investment.

Re: Failure to Deliver - What Options Do I Have?

DaveA — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 09:55:49 GMT

@briesmith wrote:

Dave

While I appreciate your reply none of what you say changes anything.

If your university project management course suggested a doubling of time estimates then I am sure the courses the BT planners went on made the same recommendation.

Delays in projects do happen (I have worked in IT all my adult life) but twice? And without any contact or consultation?

This demonstrates a Barclays/Ryanair like disdain for the customer. These dates are important and it shouldn't be open to companies like BT to simply and unilaterally change them without any regard for the businesses which have incorporated them into their own planning.

That it can and does happen shows only that the BT culture hasn't really moved on from the bad old pre-privatisation days.

Turning to the ADSL quoted speed issue; I repeat that I continue to be amazed that the regulator/advertising standards people allow BT to get away with these claims.

It would be fairer to quote minimum speeds with an assurance that most users will get better.

It would be just as fair to quote average speeds.

It would also be appropriate to use the same physics they use to calculate the maximum theoretical speed to work out the most likely speed. (BT knows how far everyone is from their exchange after all).

The only thing that isn't fair, that is dishonest, is to quote the maximum theoretical speed when the only subscriber who could get that performance would be a squatter in the telephone exchange.

Hi,

In my opinion, rather than anything to do with BT, quoting the maximum possible speed as an 'up to' is the only fair way of doing it.

Let's look at the two other ways you suggest.

1. Quote minumum speed.

Well than that would be a case of saying "Hi, buy our broadband. You can get at least 256 Kb per second, possibly more!!"

For the purposes of what counts as broadband you would have to go that low, because there is no way of guaranteeing a minimum speed.

2. Quote the average speed.

Firstly, let me ask you this - the average of what and where? The UK average, where anyone who is in a population centre will get above this, and everyone in the sticks will get below it, and still complain anyway? Or the average of an area, where it might be a tiny bit more accurate, but probably not.

Also how would you suggest that this information is gathered and maintained? Parts of the network in the sticks would grind to a halt if ISPs had to check every day, or possibly even more often, to see what every single phone line in the country should be getting as a speed.

And who would be the arbiter of this information? Who would gather it? Who would collate it? Who would store it?

As you can see you started off with Mission Impossible, and ended up with Mission Impossible stuck in Pandora's Box, with Doctor Who tagging along for good measure. I'm not trying to be flippant by the way, just finding an easy way of analogising this.

And finally I'd like to answer your quote:

"Delays in projects do happen (I have worked in IT all my adult life) but twice?"

Is there some sort of limit of the number of delays that can happen? Life isn't like that, and neither is project management. Delays, hiccups, accidents, changes of plan, lack of funding, changes of budgetary needs, changes of business needs, lack of staff, lack of resources... need I go on? Any and all of these can and do happen in any project, and none of them are mutually exclusive or unique in occurrence, whether it be one run by BT or anyone else.

I am really sorry that this has caused you bother, but BT does try very hard, despite the statements otherwise by people who don't like BT, and sometimes it goes wrong and sometimes more than once for the same group of people.

Hopefully at some stage it will go right, and everyone will be happy.

Dave

Re: Failure to Deliver - What Options Do I Have?

gouledw — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 18:55:43 GMT

If I may add my pennies worth. the 'up to' speed, is possibly the best thing to describe it as. I mean my line for example, you would expect at 9km long not to be even able to recieve broadband. and the speed estimate for our line is only 1mb, whereas we can happily run at just about 3meg on a 3dB margin and a stable connection. i call that brilliant. thats why its brilliant at 'up to'. if you were to say that your line could support no more than 1meg, then bt would have to cap it at 1mb, whats the point in that when you have plenty of scope for excess speeds? by giving it as 'up to' it gives both cp and consumer a level playing field to be disappointed or happy.

Re: Failure to Deliver - What Options Do I Have?

firionicable — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 02:10:19 GMT

I agree with that. Better yet, if you are giving details which includes up to, you may want to provide the maximum capacity you want with your connection. This way, you won't going to be disappointed with the outcome if they manage to make it to its maximum level.

Re: Failure to Deliver - What Options Do I Have?

briesmith — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 13:50:14 GMT

No one gets the quoted speed. That is the top and bottom of it and my entire reason for banging on about it.

If a sizable minority did, or 1 in 2 people, or a majority even, then it could be a defensible position to quote theoretical maximums. But, I repeat, no one gets this speed. It isn't theoretical so much as mythical.

As for how BT would get the statistics necessary to be honest with their speed predictions; are you saying [Dave] that they aren't collecting the data you list?

Turning back to the failure to deliver Infinity on time - twice - I find it incredible that any reasonable person would advance the excuses for project failure I read in some of the replies to my post.

We are not talking about the local operatic society, or the WRVS. We are talking about a massive company that makes its living from planning and delivering infrastructure and associated services. Planning and delivery capabilities it tries to sell to other companies; incredibly.

They should not fail and they definitely shouldn't fail twice. If and when they do there should be penalties - financial and in terms of careers for those responsible - to be paid.

BT are the only game in town. The UK's monopoly supplier; there isn't anyone else. They should be forced to do better. As it is they are just like the banks; arrogant, oblivious to criticism and totally impervious to market forces.

Individual consumers like me suffer because of this but more importantly, BT condemns the UK and its entire economy to additonal costs and failure in the race to be competitive internationally.

Their failure to support a micro business in Radlett is a motif for what they are doing to the country as a whole.

Re: Failure to Deliver - What Options Do I Have?

MHC — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 15:26:45 GMT

@briesmith wrote:
No one gets the quoted speed. That is the top and bottom of it and my entire reason for banging on about it.

I am on an 40/2 service which is advertised as UPTO 38 Mbps service and I get that speed.

I have colleagues and friends on an upto 78Mbps service and they achieve 77 to 79 Mbps.

QED

Re: Failure to Deliver - What Options Do I Have?

DaveA — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 12:49:28 GMT

Hi,

There is an entire system devoted to determining line speeds, but my point is that using this system to try and gather hour by hour data of things like the average speed for the entire country would be ludicrous and pointless. Each line has its own characteristics, and no two physical lines are the same.

I would be curious to know where the information for your comment comes from:

"No one gets the quoted speed. That is the top and bottom of it and my entire reason for banging on about it."

Also you do know that BT is actually heavily regulated, and has been for many years? I admit that BT isn't perfect (no-one is), but many decisions about what it can and can't do are made by the regulators, which counters your statement:

"BT are the only game in town. The UK's monopoly supplier; there isn't anyone else. They should be forced to do better. As it is they are just like the banks; arrogant, oblivious to criticism and totally impervious to market forces.

Individual consumers like me suffer because of this but more importantly, BT condemns the UK and its entire economy to additional costs and failure in the race to be competitive internationally.

Their failure to support a micro business in Radlett is a motif for what they are doing to the country as a whole."

The fact is that the 'BT monopoly' only exists in part these days, and only because it takes vast sums of money and resources for other companies to create new infrastructure. Take a look at Virgin for example. They have taken over every cable compant iin the country, barring Hull, and are now the biggest supplier of fibre broadband in certain areas.

They have, however, (as far as I'm aware, and as a normal member of the public here) not dug a single trench since they finished their acquisitions. A friend of mine used to live 10 yards from the end of a fibre cable in his street. He was told by Virgin that he simply wouldn't get it. Ever.

BT is spending 2.5 billion pounds on the current network upgrades, and will probably end up spending a lot more. Because of this the whole country (or just about) will eventually be on the 21st Century Network. But this takes time and money, and there will be delays.

It is entirely possible that someone has been punished for delays in provision, but that is something neither you nor I will ever find out about.

As far as the issue of your broadband provision is concerned, on behalf of BT all I can do is apologise for the delay, and advise you to keep an eye out for updates, bearing in mind that any date given is an estimate.

Dave