{"id":2776,"date":"2010-02-21T19:10:04","date_gmt":"2010-02-21T19:10:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=2776"},"modified":"2011-02-06T18:20:49","modified_gmt":"2011-02-06T18:20:49","slug":"an-open-letter-to-bt-broadband","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=2776","title":{"rendered":"An open letter to BT Broadband"},"content":{"rendered":"

*edit added on 6th February 2011 – one year later – below*<\/p>\n

Dear BT Broadband,<\/p>\n

1. When I called you last week and said I wanted to switch from BT to VirginMedia you asked why I was considering this change.<\/p>\n

2. I replied that VirginMedia are offering a similar TV package and the same Broadband speed that you say you are delivering, for less money than you are charging me. I went on to say that BT has never come close to achieving the speed you actually say you are giving me.<\/p>\n

3. Your customer service operator asked what kind of speed I was getting and when I replied 3Mb on a good day and 500Kb on a bad day, he actually sounded shocked.<\/p>\n

4. Your customer service operator gave me a URI for BT’s own speed checker and suggested that I run it once a day for a few days and then call the 24 hour technical department with my results.<\/p>\n

5. This evening, after running the speed checker for the fourth time this week I called your 24 hour technical department.<\/p>\n

6. The engineer listened to the results, said he would run some tests and would call me back.<\/p>\n

7. Within a few minutes he called back to say that he had tested the line, that he found no faults and that I should be getting between 8Mb – 10Mb.<\/p>\n

8. I said that there clearly *was* a problem, because not only was I getting significantly less than either of those speeds, on the very best day of the week just elapsed, BT could not deliver even *half* of the lower figure that BT said I should be getting and, on the worst day of the week, BT could only manage a pathetic 518Kb.<\/p>\n

9. Your engineer was adamant there was nothing wrong. He then had the sheer effrontery to suggest that the problem lay with my laptop.<\/p>\n

10. I questioned this. Your engineer went on to blame my antivirus software.<\/p>\n

11. When I replied that the laptop I was using for the speed test was a brand new installation and was only running a browser and had no antivirus software, your engineer then switched to blaming the distance from the WiFi hub.<\/p>\n

12. I explained that the WiFi hub is 1.8m away from the laptop and in clear line of sight with no obstructing obstacles.<\/p>\n

13. Your engineer then changed course again, but this time to a dead end by saying that as there was no problem he was unable to help further.<\/p>\n

14. I explained, as patiently as I could, that there obviously *was* a problem because he had said I should be receiving 8Mb – 10Mb and I was actually getting less than 4Mb. Therefore there was a problem, QED.<\/p>\n

15. I also explained that as he – as part of BT – was saying I should be getting 8Mb – 10Mb and yet BT’s own speed test was telling me I was getting less than 4Mb, there was also an internal problem – when two components in BTs technical infrastructure (him and the BT speed test) were reporting such conflicting results.<\/p>\n

16. I explained that I wanted to escalate the issue.<\/p>\n

17. Your engineer said the only way of escalating the issue was of BT sending an engineer out to test the line, but that would be chargeable to me.<\/p>\n

18. I refused to accept that idea and said that I wanted to escalate the issue here and now and wanted to know what your technician was going to do about my request.<\/p>\n

19. He said he would have a word with his supervisor and would put me on hold for a couple of minutes.<\/p>\n

20. Less than 60 seconds later I was cut off.<\/p>\n

21. Given paragraphs 1. 2. 8. 9. 15 and 20, please explain why I should stay with BT and continue to receive a second-rate service which is costing more money than VirginMedia, and why should I accept being treated as if I am either a child or an idiot?<\/p>\n

22. So here, below, is a screenshot of just one of the Broadband speedcheckers, the results, I feel, are very clearly displayed:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

*edited 6th February 2011 – one year later*<\/em>
\n<\/strong>
\nA year on and we have continued to have enormous issues with our BT Broadband and BT Vision.<\/p>\n

We have suffered unexplained, unannounced total service outages from a few hours to several days.<\/p>\n

We have suffered service drops down from 8Mbs download and 1Mbs upload, to 12Kbs download and nothing on the upload.<\/p>\n

BT have done their best to fix these problems.<\/p>\n

They’ve told us – three times on different occasions, months apart from each other – that the problem has been fixed.<\/p>\n

Last week we had three more drops to download speeds which are measured in double-digit Kbs.<\/p>\n

So next week, on 10th February 2011, we are leaving BT – because, you know, a year off piss-poor service is long enough to endure, right? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

*edit added on 6th February 2011 – one year later – below* Dear BT Broadband, 1. When I called you last week and said I<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2776\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}