Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => Broadband Technology => Topic started by: Weaver on August 05, 2016, 07:19:04 AM
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Does anyone have any experience with BTW "enhanced care"? (Or whatever it's called - BTOR's priority fault repair service.) Tis resold by umpteen ISPs.
See, for example:
http://aa.net.uk/broadband-care.html
I wonder if it can really save your bacon in the event of some minor or major disaster.
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Perhaps I'm the only one daft enough to pay £12 per month per line for it. (+ VAT?)
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We have it on a few of our lines, think it's a 4 hour SLA (we've never actually had to use it!)
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Would they really come out that quick ? Who's your ISP, btw ?
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I've no idea what the ISP's various 'Enhanced care' products are called/classed, but we have to react to what OR class a 'Total Care' product within 4hrs ......... and do. The compensation costs are astronomic.
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£12pm per line? Wow?
Here's the Openreach price list for various care levels, though all annual prices. Not sure what each one means though...
https://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/pricing/loadProductPriceDetails.do?data=o1GUUZA4oSGmoXU5lc%2BgZQD265It6W32TNnfEUU7w1FZ6rNZujnCs99NbIKJZPD9hXYmiijxH6wr%0ACQm97GZMyQ%3D%3D
Incidentally ... do all 3 of your lines need to be on an enhanced care? Is it really the full "triple-speed" access that needs the improved repair?
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@BlackSheep - pretty impressive. I hate to think what the four hour service would cost? Maybe only available to business users? In any case Andrews and Arnold don't have 24-hour customer service on an official basis, so you probably couldn't get your fault report in within four hours never mind BT.
Coming back to the service I've signed up for, presumably a resold BT service, see
http://aa.net.uk/broadband-care.html
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@WWombat - about your ‘wow’, is that wow cheap or wow expensive? ;D
Good point. I don't need the Enhanced Care thing on all three of the lines, I originally had it on just one line, then I had problems with the wrong line (Sod's law) and turned it on on that second line as well. Meant to cancel it after a month or so but haven't got round to doing it yet, in any case there is a cancellation fee. So I have it on two lines at the moment.
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@BlackSheep - pretty impressive. I hate to think what the four hour service would cost? Maybe only available to business users? In any case Andrews and Arnold don't have 24-hour customer service on an official basis, so you probably couldn't get your fault report in within four hours never mind BT.
Coming back to the service I've signed up for, presumably a resold BT service, see
http://aa.net.uk/broadband-care.html
It's the same timescales as for a 'Damage report', Weaver .................... maybe report your line damaged and unsafe, to get someone out within 4hrs ;) ;D ;D
#pleasepeopledon't
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I didn't know that. So I'm on a possibly 20 hour deal starting from whenever and no guarantees really. I’m interested because it's total chaos here if there is a very bad outage like storm or lightning damage and I don't want to be waiting days. I rely on the Internet so much: I use it to summon help often and it's my sole source of entertainment. I need to keep occupied, some distraction.
The 3G and even 2G networks will go out if there is a big problem so can't always rely on them as back up. Certainly the mobile networks go down when there is a lightning storm or a power cut, both EE and Three. Wish the Scottish Government would force the operators to put in a fat UPS and failover generators at these public safety-critical sites.
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@WWombat - about your ‘wow’, is that wow cheap or wow expensive? ;D
Wow - in the expensive way.
More from the comparison to that price list from Openreach. I don't know which two care levels are used by A&A, but the annual cost varies between £6.32 and £54.32 ... and the highest price (service level 4) is the 6-hour response. I'd guess the upgrade is from 2 to 3.
There's some mark-up being added by BTW and/or AAISP.
For comparison, Pulse8 seem to charge a £6pm fee for their "enhanced line care" service, which is explicitly defined as service level 3 (£43+vat pa in the Openreach price list). In fact, Pulse8 seem to offer line rental in three service levels altogether: two packages at £13.00pm (with service level 1) and £13.80pm (with service level 2), and the £6pm SL3 as a bolt-on.
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NB I have a dim / vague memory of another ISP using the term ‘Enhanced Care’, might have been Demon, as I was with Demon for many years, then Zen also on another line, and most recently AA about six years ago.
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This document
https://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/serviceproducts/serviceharmonisation/serviceharmonisation/downloads/Maintenance%20Options%20Overview.ppt
mentions the term ‘Enhanced Care’, but for LLU. Perhaps the AA website is using terms inspired by quite old BT terminology. The website doesn't get updated often enough, stuff can sit around for years referring to matters that are evidently outdated. Need a web geek and an editor to keep gnawing away at it for them.
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I notice that that document is really old, October 2010, so perhaps it's no longer relevant. But it keeps talking about "LLU Enhanced Care" as an older service which has been replaced by something with a different name.
I noticed also mentions of
“Enhanced care (Chronically sick and disabled)”
“Chronically sick & disabled, blue light and priority care faults should be mapped to SH Level 4”
Sounds helpful, wonder how that works, but I thought this was a BT Retail thing for POTS not Internet access service.
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I think there might be a bit of confusion going on in this thread (or I am the one getting confused!) due to so many products having so many SLAs with similar sounding names!
There are various SLA's offered by Ovenreach which cover PTSN line faults -as laid out here (https://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/serviceproducts/serviceharmonisation/serviceharmonisation/downloads/SML_fact_sheet_web_vers_phme_61163_2011_09.pdf) - the highest SLA (Level 4) targets a 6 hour resolution time.
Then, there is a separate ‘Enhanced Care’ product which covers broadband issues. It is what A&A, Zen, Plusnet etc all also resell. It aims for someone to initially respond in 3 hours and to solve a broadband issue within 20 hours (but this is not guaranteed). For some reason, I have a vague memory that its actually a BT Wholesale offering not a Openreach one..
Edit: If keeping in touch is important, the best combination is probably a PSTN voice service with an Openreach Level 4 SLA - but obviously its not something A&A offer. I know A&A don't supply voice lines but don't know why they don't seem to offer the enhanced PSTN SLAs to their customers.
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Thank god for @gt94sss2 !
;D ;D ;D
You're right, I'm totally confused myself, and have probably been reading outdated or inappropriate docs linked to earlier? And I'm not sure whether that stuff I referenced earlier is in fact about POTS or DSL or just physical lines and don't care about the usage or what ?
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This document
https://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/serviceproducts/serviceharmonisation/serviceharmonisation/downloads/Maintenance%20Options%20Overview.ppt
mentions the term ‘Enhanced Care’, but for LLU. Perhaps the AA website is using terms inspired by quite old BT terminology. The website doesn't get updated often enough, stuff can sit around for years referring to matters that are evidently outdated. Need a web geek and an editor to keep gnawing away at it for them.
Good document. As the AAISP website talks in terms of 40-hour and 20-hour times, it probably does indeed reference that old terminology. From page 32, it looks like AAISP's "Enhanced Care" is an LLU provision, and maps onto the service-level 3 "EoNHWD Mon-Sun" (which I interpret to be "End of Next Half Working Day", and meets the spirit of SL3 from @gt94's linked document)
Sounds helpful, wonder how that works, but I thought this was a BT Retail thing for POTS not Internet access service.
I guess if BT Retail want the service for their customers, it has to be a service provided by "their suppliers". But even if Openreach supply it, it doesn't mean every CP/ISP has to make use of it.
Finding what Openreach offers seems to have been relativelky easy. Finding what BTW offers is harder ... but that might not apply if AAISP have gone for LLU for your line.
And I'm not sure whether that stuff I referenced earlier is in fact about POTS or DSL or just physical lines and don't care about the usage or what ?
I guess the answer can be seen in the problem that @RevK has: Openreach provide the physical path to meet SIN 349 for voice calls (so presumably the service levels apply to maintenance to that standard), but then adds the extra SFI service for speeding-up broadband-only fixes (as mentioned in @gt94's doc) ... leaving aside @RevK's issue with BTW passing on the cost of this.
The question for you (and AAISP) is whether their "Enhanced Care" adds something to enhance broadband (eg via SFI), or is the main focus on the underlying POTS capability?
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Then, there is a separate ‘Enhanced Care’ product which covers broadband issues. It is what A&A, Zen, Plusnet etc all also resell.
Aha, got it! Many, many thanks. Someone who knows. I see, for example, Zen has wrapped BT’s service inside their own support service offering and mentions £12 per month somewhere iirc.
> It aims for someone to initially respond in 3 hours and to solve a broadband issue within 20 hours (but this is not guaranteed).
That's really good to know. Not guaranteed is not so good, a bit of a pig in a poke then. You're paying lots of money, but you don't know what you're truly getting for it. ??? >:(
> For some reason, I have a vague memory that it’s actually a BT Wholesale offering not a Openreach one..
Does anyone have a reference, or link?
That's where I've been going wrong, I should have been looking at BT Wholesale not BT Openreach - that's what confused me. So your ISP buys something from Wholesale? Makes sense.
> If keeping in touch is important, the best combination is probably a PSTN voice service with an Openreach Level 4 SLA - but obviously its not something A&A offer. I know A&A don't supply voice lines but don't know why they don't seem to offer the enhanced PSTN SLAs to their customers.
Quite right, AA used to half-allow POTS for free in one direction or something, or you could pay your line rental to someone else and get POTS from them, like I used to ages ago. (BT Retail POTS). But now they really don't encourage having POTs although they don't make you pay line rental to them always, everyone is going VoIP. I started paying my line rental to AA instead of to BT Retail ages ago, because I couldn't face dealing with BT at all.
Would the enhanced (top?) SLAs be any use for DSL faults though?
AA don't do official guaranteed 24 hour support, unlike Zen say, so maybe the fast BT SLAs would be no use as AA don't guarantee to get back to you in time. They're just too small.
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Would they really come out that quick ? Who's your ISP, btw ?
Sorry for the late reply!
ISP is Spitfire, but as I mentioned I don't think we've ever had to use it so I'm not sure how soon they'd be out, just within 4 hours I guess!
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@Mark07 - good deal! Btw, just so I understand: Is that to fix phone only, or DSL as well?
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@gt94sss2 Actually a proper explanation of what AA now offers with regard to POTS is here:
http://www.revk.uk/2015/03/naked-dsl.html (http://www.revk.uk/2015/03/naked-dsl.html)
AA is now rather more flexible than I thought, as regards POTS, they'll set it up in various ways as you want. Existing customers still have their phone service unchanged.
Removed the duplicate - Roseway
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And guess what, the second line on which I have Enhanced Care is failing (speculation: poss in the exchange, by the look of it). ;D
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@Mark07 - good deal! Btw, just so I understand: Is that to fix phone only, or DSL as well?
From the looks of it, it covers any fault on that line, so I suspect voice or DSL :)
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feel for you Weaver, long line adsl is brutal in terms of reliability, been there myself.
My old adsl line was only ever stable when it had SRA, all the rest of the times it was a joke reliability wise.
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I'm glad I have three lines, I rely on the network so much, use it to summon help every day, besides 3G which doesn't always work in a house with six-foot thick stone walls. And I feel I have some backup from the proven Rottweilers at AA whenever necessary. And entertainment from the internet keeps me from going mad, provides welcome distraction. I don't spend money down the pub or on restaurants constantly any more, I just give it all to RevK.
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Referring to
https://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/serviceproducts/serviceharmonisation/serviceharmonisation/downloads/servicemaintenancelevelsfactsheet.pdf
If that document refers to me, since I need ‘broadband’ faults fixed, not just ‘PSTN faults’, then I wonder if I'm more like Level2 or Level Business 2 Plus, as AA say I will be ‘prioritised’ by BT ?
http://aa.net.uk/broadband-care.html
The problem is that AA might or might not be dealing with OpenReach directly, they might have to go through BTW for some or all faults, and I don't know if BTW rewrites the service offerings and presents something different to AA.
I know it's supposed to be 20 hours, not guaranteed, from who-knows-what start time? Of course you have to get hold of AA, e.g. by SMS if you want a chance of getting through to someone out of hours (although reporting an MSO will wake someone up apparently). Then they have to have a chance of sorting it themselves, and then they report it to BTx at some point. BT clearly accept reports 24/7. So perhaps the clock starts then?
AA also say that I'm supposed to be prioritised by BTx. Which is the bit I'm really interested in, because in the case of some local disaster, as I might have said earlier, I'd like to be really near to the front of the huge queue.
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The document you linked to refers to Openreach WLR ie phone line and/or LLU and GEA FTTC. AAISP will buy WLR direct from Openreach
For the broadband element its different, as for non LLU its provided by BTw so you need to check out this document (https://www.btwholesale.com/assets/documents/Product_Documentation/CSP_WBC_Feb_2015_Issue_9.pdf).
I dont know which level AAISP's enhanced care transpires to (either class 4 or 14) for that you'd have to ask them.
Standard care for everyone else is
Operates during BT Normal Working Hours as defined below. BT will
clear the fault within 40 clock hours of receipt of the fault report,
excluding any allowable parked time.
BT Normal Working Hours - For the reporting of faults, 24 hours a day,
seven days a week (including UK Public and Bank holidays). For
engineering visits by BT to a site, 0800-1700 Monday to Saturday
(excluding Regional Public and Bank Holidays).
Where an engineering visit as defined above is required, Sundays and
regional Public and Bank Holidays will not be included as part of any ontime
repair measurement.
Yet another reason for splitting off Retail rather than Openreach. Stupid, stupid buying some aspects from one company and others from elsewhere. As I keep saying it would be far better to merge Openreach and BTw so that all ISPs have an equal footing and buy from one place rather than faffing around. The LLU SPs dont care as they deal direct with Openreach whatever. Its only more complicated for the non-LLU based SPs.
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All these fix times seem miles from reality, my experience is normally needing half a dozen or so visits to get something done, with a week or more between each visit, the fix time will be way above what is quoted in here.
Of course there is exceptions, I remember when I was on a entanet reseller I think was called falcon, the owner rupert managed to get a sunday engineer visit for a fault I reported friday evening. That engineer fixed the issue, but it was a voice issue not broadband which BT have a better track record on.
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Perhaps in BT's version of reality, turning up on site and then leaving equates to ‘fix’. And there's no guarantee in there anyway, no real SLA, no compensation for breaking the time limits, which after all customers are paying extra for, and there's always the chance of BT blowing all their responsibilities off using the “Matters Beyond Our Reasonable Control” clause, of which they are the judge and jury. This isn't just a rant against BT, as some of it is understandable, but some isn't, and there isn't enough choice for customers and ISPs, in that there need to be some much stronger guarantees available as an extra-cost option for those businesses that need it.
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Even if, in some fantasy far-off future, I ever were to be able to get much faster internet, e.g. FTTC, I still wouldn't be happy relying on one line. (Mind you with FTTP, having two lines would presumably give me no reliability advantage as the exchange-related equipment would be a single point of failure, seeing as I can't use two independent carriers here.)
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>> Mind you with FTTP, having two lines would presumably give me no reliability advantage as the exchange-related
The cab would be the single point of failure - say if someone smashed a van into it , but then again I suppose similar could happen with a PCP.
Openreach have emergency mobile fftc cabs that can be put in place if its going to take a while to sort properly. (ronski posted some photos last year from one near him when a RTA obliterated the cab)
Once at the exchange you can still get redundancy by using an LLU supplier who will have their own backhaul... so in that respect it's similar to ADSL.
Although on that point the 'exchange' may not be your local one and instead a larger headend exchange.
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Yeah for true redundancy you need to pick alternate means of delivery.
In my case I use FTTC primarily, but if it goes down I have 4G as a backup. Completely different techs. I also have the option of VM cable as a third means of delivery.
I am considering a second FTTC line, the main thing holding me back is I might be moving within a few months, so obviously would be bad to commit with that in mind, but if I do get an extra FTTC line then it would be on a different wholesale privder probably talktalk business, but as kitz said I would still be going to the same cabinet and exchange.