{"id":3277,"date":"2010-05-28T15:19:09","date_gmt":"2010-05-28T14:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=3277"},"modified":"2012-04-27T15:35:29","modified_gmt":"2012-04-27T14:35:29","slug":"bt-outage-01993-exchange-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=3277","title":{"rendered":"BT outage, 01993 exchange (part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wednesday 26th May 2010, 5.40am<\/strong>
\nI try to load web-pages, run an FTP session and access BT’s own NNTP server. All of these functions fail.<\/p>\n

I call the BT Broadband hell-desk and ask for status update on the outage. The call centre operator put me on hold, then came back a couple of minutes later to say that yes, there was an outage last night but it\u2019s been fixed.<\/p>\n

I explain that if it had been fixed I wouldn\u2019t be calling for an update. I also explain that I am experiencing the same issues as last night.<\/p>\n

The Broadband hell-desk operator makes me undertake the same, well-worn set of processes that I was forced to undertake last night: delete and recreate the network connection from my laptop to the hub and use a cable to the hub. We go on to perform a hard reset on the hub, to reset the factory settings on the hub and to reset the IP Catalog on the laptop. We then perform a firewall disable on the hub. All of these processes change nothing. I am still unable to access any web-pages.<\/p>\n

I advance my theory that last night\u2019s outage has not been fixed.<\/p>\n

The call centre operator says he will escalate the problem and that he will call me back in half an hour.<\/p>\n

Disturbingly, the call-centre operator does not tell me to reinstate the hub firewall, but I do that anyway.<\/p>\n

Just for fun I decided to fire up Sophie\u2019s laptop. It failed to connect to the internet too. I knew it would, but I\u2019ve been staring down the barrel of BT\u2019s failure for so many hours that I\u2019m starting to doubt my own sanity.<\/p>\n

Two and a half hours later I decide to call the BT Vision call-centre. My logic is simple: the BT Broadband hell-desk has not called me back and BT Vision is down too, so why don\u2019t I give it a go?<\/p>\n

How happy do I feel when the automated greeting message invites me to use the self-service help function on the website at bt.com? Not happy at all.<\/p>\n

After sitting in a queue for an acceptable period of time, I speak to a nice lady called Doreen in the BT Vision call-centre.<\/p>\n

Doreen had me jump through a range of low-level hoops that included swapping cables from port to port, reversing cables, rebooting the BT Vision box and pressing \u2018pause\u2019 on the BT Vision handset.<\/p>\n

None of these things fixed the problem, so we rebooted the hub (again!) and then we restored the factory settings on the BT Vision box.<\/p>\n

\u2018That\u2019s going to take some time,\u2019 said Doreen. \u2018You need to call us back when it has reset, if you still have the same problems.\u2019<\/p>\n

Time passes<\/strong><\/em>
\nA couple of hours later I reverted to calling the BT Broadband hell-desk and asked for an update on our continuing issues.<\/p>\n

A very ebullient young lady listened to my problem, checked my details and came back like a rocket to say that yes, BT have been getting calls from other customers in the 01993 area. She confirmed there was a known issue and that the engineers were working on the problem. She also said it could take them up to 48 hours to fix the problem.<\/p>\n

What is interesting is that the major issue that all of my to-ing and fro-ing and faffing about and an aggregated span of time on the telephone to BT that runs in to hours has exposed, is a significant failing within the customer service divisions of BT.<\/p>\n

Why was only the last person I spoke to immediately aware of the outage? It is not a new development, I\u2019ve been speaking to BT about it since 7pm yesterday evening and I\u2019m sure that I\u2019m not the only BT customer in the 01993 area who started talking to BT nineteen hours ago.<\/p>\n

More time passes<\/strong><\/em>
\nJust for good measure I called the BT Vision call-centre to let them know that resetting the factory defaults on my BT Vision box had not succeeded.<\/p>\n

Even more time passes<\/strong><\/em>
\nTwenty-four hours after the outage started, I called BT\u2019s Broadband hell-desk again.<\/p>\n

This time the call-centre operator said that there was no service outage. He performed a line-check which, like all of the other line-checks that BT has carried out over the last 24 hours, indicated that there was no problem.<\/p>\n

The call-centre logic went like this: I am able to connect to my hub. My hub says it is connected to the internet. The call-centre can look down the line and see my laptop. Therefore everything is working fine!<\/p>\n

Yay!<\/p>\n

Except that I am unable to access any web-page, can not run FTP, can not access BT\u2019s own NNT server and my BT Vision service does not work.<\/p>\n

This call-centre operator was patronising and argumentative. He guided me through a couple of basic ping tests for an IP range that returned 3 out of the 4 pings.<\/p>\n

This result, he insisted, clearly demonstrated that the problem was with my web-browser. While he was being so dogmatically insistent I opened sessions with Internet Explorer, Chrome and Safari and tried to access Google, BBC News, Apple and CNN on all of them.<\/p>\n

Everything failed.<\/p>\n

The call-centre operator\u2019s response was to tell me that the problem was obviously with my laptop as (and I quote) \u2018there are no known issues affecting my area\u2019.<\/p>\n

I offered to fire up both of the other two laptops in the house but he said it would be a common fault with my equipment.<\/p>\n

This guy was unhelpful to the point of being bellicose, argumentative and belligerent.<\/p>\n

As soon as we ended our conversation I called the BT Vision call-centre where the person on the far end at least listened to my story (after the last call to the BT Broadband hell-desk, this, at least, was a result!).<\/p>\n

She put me on hold for three or four minutes and then came back to say that there was a known issue in my area. A number of customers appeared to be able to connect to the internet but were not able to access any web-pages and, as a result, were not being able to access the BT Vision service.<\/p>\n

She said that the engineers were looking at the known issue but it could take some hours before they had resolved it.<\/p>\n

At 10pm – 27 hours after the as-yet unresolved service outage first occurred – and it is time for bed.<\/p>\n

I am exhausted by my repeated attempts of trying to get this service issue resolved.<\/p>\n

I feel weary and battered to the point of near-submission at the general unhelpfulness and, latterly, complete intransigence of BT Broadband\u2019s hell-desk staff.<\/p>\n

I ask myself this question, \u2018Why am I still with BT? Why haven\u2019t I migrated to a different service provider?\u2019<\/p>\n

For some reason, I am unable to provide an answer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wednesday 26th May 2010, 5.40am I try to load web-pages, run an FTP session and access BT’s own NNTP server. All of these functions fail.<\/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-3277","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\/3277","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=3277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3277\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}