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[Ronski]

Openreach organise the engineers,  surely they (OR) know what services they have on a line.

[Dray]

If they know then why the advice not to mention broadband?

[Ronski]

Come on Dray,  most people on here know that if you have a fault on your line and it's affecting the voice side then you need to report it as voice fault as it will almost certainly fix the broadband side of things, and it's much easier to get a voice fault fixed.

[Chrysalis]

its openreach policy ronski, to treat both services separately on faults.

is it stupid? yes
only openreach know why they handle it like this.

[WWWombat]

IMO it is more to do with getting past the guardians of the gates of hell (aka first line support at the ISP). There are less hurdles to jump for voice-service faults.

As for Openreach might know if you have fibre-based broadband on the line, but perhaps not exchange-based broadband. And they can certainly only affect DLM on FTTC, not on any of the exchange-based services.

Also IMO, it isn't particularly stupid to treat the two services separately ... so long as the "coping mechanism" on one service (aka DLM) will properly "cope" with faults that get fixed on the other service ... but this is what it turns out to be not so proficient at.

[broadstairs]

Well TT have said there is nothing they can do to get BT to reset or affect DLM in any way. I am not going to accept this and will try to pressure them. As for the engineer he knew I had FTTC but he said I am not allowed to do anything as it was reported as a voice fault. This is complete and utter crap. BT know they have fixed a fault and as sucxh should without question put the line back in the state it was in prior to the fault happening. I am not going to let this go and will make a nuisance of my self with TT initially. If that gets nowhere I will see what OFCOM says. If I now moved service provider my line would be set back to a vanilla line which is what without question BT should do when they fix a fault. Doing it this way just makes a mockery of BT, they are being allowed to take no responsibility for anything supplied to the end user. I think that TT are in breach of contract if they do not take action as I have evidence my line was capable of much better speeds etc even before the fault got so bad.

Stuart

[broadstairs]

I have decided initially to ask TT for an explanation as to why this was reported as a phone only fault when I explicitly told them I had a broadband fault. They can be in no doubt whatsoever that the fault was reported as a broadband one, they were the ones who asked about a noisy phone line, which it was slightly but perfectly usable, the broadband was not working within spec and dropping frequently. My understanding was that had a broadband trained guy attended he would have been able to reset the line once he fixed the fault.

Once I have that explanation I will take things forward.

Stuart

[William Grimsley]

Will be interesting to see what response you get, Stuart. Good luck.

[broadstairs]

The response from TT ;

The broadband shares the same line as the phone services.  If there is any noise on the line this can and does impact the broadband, so the line issue has to be addressed, This will require a line engineer and if line tests fail then this is the type of engineer that BT will dispatch.

BT broadband engineers no longer perform DLM resets as standard, as a recent change to the way their system works means that the system will set the max obtainable rate based on line conditions, so in essence will reset itself usually within 24 - 48 hrs of a fault being cleared.  As mentioned, if the speed of the line then falls within what BT consider to be the acceptable speed range for this particular line, then there is considered to be no fault and no further action would be taken.

So as far as TT are concerned they did what was required by BT to report a fault. Now if true that BTOR have two sets of guys one line trained and one BB trained then this is just daft, it makes no sense at all from either a common sense point of view or a business point of view. I would be interested if Black Sheep know whether or not this is true. I can understand a progression through training which might mean that guys start as a line engineer and progress to broadband but to be honest the other way round makes no sense as line conditions can and do affect broadband but not always does it adversely affect voice and as such I believe broadband engineers should be doing line tests otherwise how would they fix a fault? The other issue is that if broadband guys need a line guy to sort that what's the betting a second appointment would be required leading to even more dissatisfaction?

We know from others here that lines remain in a lower speed state for ages after a fault fix which is leading to the lowering of satisfaction with BTOR.

I just think this is becoming an untenable situation where the end user has a contract with the ISP but no coome back against BT as the supplier to the ISP, plus it seems that the ISPs don't have any come back against BT either which in my view renders any contract to supply broadband impossible to enforce and therefore worthless.

Stuart

[WWWombat]

I can understand a progression through training which might mean that guys start as a line engineer and progress to broadband

Now imagine a career path where the guy started as a line engineer a decade before anyone invented broadband. There was no way to train in broadband techniques at the time... and some remain unconcerned about such training.

Don't worry about how BT support individuals through their careers ... just stick to your line.

[broadstairs]

It was just an observation about training... I fought many such battles during my time working trying to get bean counters and managers to understand what was needed.

My main concern is the way things currently operate and whether or not I will be able to get it sorted.

Stuart

[WWWombat]

The problem appears to stem, not from training of engineers but from four problems ... almost orthogonal problems.

The first is that Openreach want faults to be reported, and handled, as either voice or data, not both, where demarcation is decided prior to any technical investigation, let alone impact assessment or resolution.

The second is an insistence that a DLM reset can only happen within a fault labelled as broadband, even when an engineer can see that a voice fix has impacted broadband performance.

These two combine to ensure that broadband connection can be left suboptimal, needlessly, because of simplistic administrative labeling.

The way around this problem is to order a separate broadband job. The third problem then turns up - Openreach are unwilling to take this on when the suboptimal operation still meets minimum standards.

No problem if DLM was seen to recover at some reasonable point in time. Leaving it to automation is a good answer. The fourth problem is that automation isn't doing the job here. The premise behind problems 2 and 3 - that DLM automation will recover - is turning out to be a false one. IMO banding is just too sticky right now.

[broadstairs]

That sums it up perfectly, unfortunately that does not solve the issue or enhance ORs reputation. Very short sighted in my view.

In future I shall insist on both being reported and see where it gets me. For now the only way to try to get this resolved if in a few more days DLM has not recovered the line will be I think to complain to the CEO's office at TT once again as their community staff will not do anything.

Stuart

[Ronski]

Why not go straight to the OR CEO, pointing out the short comings and problems it causes.

[Chrysalis]

IMO it is more to do with getting past the guardians of the gates of hell (aka first line support at the ISP). There are less hurdles to jump for voice-service faults.

As for Openreach might know if you have fibre-based broadband on the line, but perhaps not exchange-based broadband. And they can certainly only affect DLM on FTTC, not on any of the exchange-based services.

Also IMO, it isn't particularly stupid to treat the two services separately ... so long as the "coping mechanism" on one service (aka DLM) will properly "cope" with faults that get fixed on the other service ... but this is what it turns out to be not so proficient at.

which is what I meant really, they are 2 separate services and will have separate fault systems, the issue I have is where they forcefully draw a hard line not allowing a fault team to deal with faults on the other side if they related.