This observer has heard one or two gurns around town about the new BT upgrades to Broadband that are being rolled out in Nairn just now. We've had a couple of posts on old threads and here they are.
Nairn tells the Gurn on this previous post: "I've had BT Infinity installed for a week. In that time it worked for two days. New BT router and and now a BT engineer to call tomorrow to try and fix the problems.
Pretty poor service for a business line, and I too have heard of others with problems since BT installed the new fibre in Nairn
Sometimes it just doesn't pay to be first, and as for their technical support line...":
Tez Watson also commented yesterday: "Since May 1st when BT upgraded my tariff to 20Mb broadband the service has been appallingly bad. Having to restart router up to twenty times a day which in my business is a nightmare. Unable to collect/ send large files, use online banking, check email, etc.
Another heavy duty user nearby has identical problems yet BT insist it's my equipment."
How is it for you, did you upgrade and are you delighted or otherwise?
UPDATE from Nairn (slightly techie but may help if you have any problems:
"Just to add to my comment. According to the technical helpline (the one I ring is based in Alness) BT applied a patch last Sunday which caused 'issues'
The procedure for the TH is to run through a crib sheet to see if they can fix your problem, if not they email BT wholesale who are in charge of the engineers etc. They seemed keen to blame my new BT router and sent out a new one from Newcastle which despite assurances takes two days not one to reach Nairn
Once you have the new router and Infinity still doesn't work the Alness TH then email/eChat with BT wholesale and another line test is made. If this fails then, and only only then will you get an onsite visit from a BT engineer
On average calls to the TH took 30 minutes to get through, so if you are a business be prepared for tying up a phone line. TH never rings you back, if you want a progress update you have to ring them. The Infinity TH work from 8am - 8pm, outwith those hours you get put through to a general team who deal with all BT issues, but the good news is they seem to have the same crib sheet
In my own case I suspect I have a poor quality line which means the connection drops. When this happens I have a problem authenticating with my account details, but found I could connect through the BT test account, and then enter my details for a connection (brief!)
My 1st router had a habit of losing my user settings such as DHCP etc, I'm waiting to see if the same is for the 2nd one
I've heard from two people who's ordinary Broadband became unusable (slow) after BT switched on Infinity. BT fixed this by sending them new routers
I'm really not sure of the extent of the problems BT have in Nairn. The Gurn isn't a forum for BT but perhaps if you, or if you know someone with BT issues they could contact the Gurn or post here."
UPDATE from Nairn (slightly techie but may help if you have any problems:
"Just to add to my comment. According to the technical helpline (the one I ring is based in Alness) BT applied a patch last Sunday which caused 'issues'
The procedure for the TH is to run through a crib sheet to see if they can fix your problem, if not they email BT wholesale who are in charge of the engineers etc. They seemed keen to blame my new BT router and sent out a new one from Newcastle which despite assurances takes two days not one to reach Nairn
Once you have the new router and Infinity still doesn't work the Alness TH then email/eChat with BT wholesale and another line test is made. If this fails then, and only only then will you get an onsite visit from a BT engineer
On average calls to the TH took 30 minutes to get through, so if you are a business be prepared for tying up a phone line. TH never rings you back, if you want a progress update you have to ring them. The Infinity TH work from 8am - 8pm, outwith those hours you get put through to a general team who deal with all BT issues, but the good news is they seem to have the same crib sheet
In my own case I suspect I have a poor quality line which means the connection drops. When this happens I have a problem authenticating with my account details, but found I could connect through the BT test account, and then enter my details for a connection (brief!)
My 1st router had a habit of losing my user settings such as DHCP etc, I'm waiting to see if the same is for the 2nd one
I've heard from two people who's ordinary Broadband became unusable (slow) after BT switched on Infinity. BT fixed this by sending them new routers
I'm really not sure of the extent of the problems BT have in Nairn. The Gurn isn't a forum for BT but perhaps if you, or if you know someone with BT issues they could contact the Gurn or post here."
Over the last three years we've had one major outage each year with our BT business broadband. Worst incident took the nearly a fortnight to sort.
ReplyDeleteWe changed routers, filters, cables and even computers, before they would send an engineer out, each time the phrase " it's not your equipment2 was used, after they'd run their tests.
Fault at the exchange each time. Last engineer was left shaking his head at some of the work that had been done there.
Personally, while it's fine to shout about ultra high speed broadband and how much it will benefit the economy, I think all the companies would be better advised to increase service reliability at slower speeds first...but of course that doesn't look good as a TV advert.
Update
ReplyDeleteAfter several hours of fiddling the BT engineer left this afternoon with the problem unresolved. In fairness he was a wires man not versed in network settings etc
We've discovered that the problem we have is very simple, our user name and password won't authenticate at times. BT have declared this a problem for a few folk in Nairn, and over there weekend they will apply several patches at exchange level to try and resolve this issue.
Meanwhile if we do have a problem we can ring the TH to obtain a new password, and on Monday we have the option to downgrade to ADSL2 if the issue hasn't been solved
I'm afraid I get the impression that BT are in way over their depth with Infinity and lack the infrastructure to either roll it out properly or support end users in an acceptable way
We've managed (just) to get buy with a USB Broadband dongle and a smart phone as alternatives. If your business depends on Broadband take a deep breath before you commit to Infinity
Another update
ReplyDeleteWe've now had three engineer visits (last one Saturday morning), two new BT modems, and three BT routers
The good news is we now have 'a' service but it drops every so often. Speed is half what it was when installed. We now have a BT 'Customer Champion'. Sounds great but just means you speak with the same person when you ring the help desk.
I know a little about networks :) but the biggest problem is no-one listens and just replaces equipment/sends engineers. Shocking service, BT seem to have gone down the pan
I got the TalkTalk version of Infinity and no issues so far. Installation we quick and easy (although I had done all the prep work of moving my main phone socket). Getting 55/15Mbit/s down/up which is great. Only been running a few days, so don't know what speed things will settle at.
ReplyDeleteNo issues with authentication as others have complained about, but I guess being on the TalkTalk backbone from the exchange onwards means I miss out on that joy.
Would recommend TalkTalk to other Nairnites.