well today went quite badly
- around 3:40pm the sky engineer called to give me a "heads up" (warning) about the BT Broadband Engineer saying he already spoke to him and been arguing with him on the phone, I asked what was up? and he said he was giving him the old
"we dont guarantee speeds over the network / what he is getting is good for his area" shebang - but he told him I have had 18Mb for years and now have 10-11Mb because of noise/interference on the line, explained the whole thing - he said he was very argumentative and dismissive about it all and had a bit of an attitude, so he called me to let me know so that if he refuses to do anything or fobs me off that I was just to keep calm and let him get on with it and they will get a sky engineer out with another BT engineer later... oh dear I thought!!
20 minutes later he arrived and he had a right chip on his shoulder and a stinking attitude problem, he was very condesending
and rude, I dont want anyone to think that Iam slagging off ALL BT OR Broadband Engineers here mind...
because Iam not, just this one... so if any BTo staff are reading this please dont hate me
anyway,I was glad the sky engineer warned me, our lass couldnt believe his attitude like..and she was only there about 50% of the time, I showed him my graphs etc but he just kept shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head, I mentioned the fluctuating upstream attenuation and he replied with "it always goes up & down, what is it 1.3Mb?" ...lol... I said "no, this is the attenuation, it should be a static figure so it indicates a physical problem somewhere.." his reply was
"pffft!!! you know more than me mate..!!" ...
Again he went on about my connection being fine and they dont guarantee speed etc etc blah blah..., he just didnt want to do it! , so I said to him I can understand that you dont guarantee speed from a wholesale point of view, but when the customer has had 18Mb for years previous and a fault has caused the connection to drop to 11Mb and sky are paying BT for someone to come out too fix it...why cant they do that or even try?, I cant see what the problem is? - his reply was "well... we may never get your speed back...thats what the problem is?"...with a assertive look on his face , after that I just gave up all hope.
he proceeded to test in the phone port of my filtered faceplate, I asked him if he wanted me to remove it..he said "why?" .. I said "because its a filtered faceplate and thats the phone port, it will filter the broadband out" - he said "I know its a filtered faceplate" with smirk on his face and then he shook his head, he then unplugged the JDSU and got a posi driver and removed it himself...
he tested the ADSL on the JDSU and said "see? your lines clean.." and he started to shove stuff back in his bag.. he showed me the result, it said 11Mbps 100% capacity - I told him they all said that on previous visits because thats the sync rate inclusive of the noise on the line... he sorta huffed & sighed, I could tell he was miffed and letting me know about it - so he said I will test the pair, I said it will probably pass cos all other engineers pair quality tests did... he said quietly under his breath "well there no noise on your line then is there"... he knew I had to be nicey nicey and took full advantage of it, think he was looking for excuse to fall out and leave, Im starting too wonder if my case if hot topic in the local BTo bait cabin at lunch times...lol.. slagging me off and he's one of them. or he is a supervisor / senior engineer who is pally with the Manager who has expressed his dis-like to my case because im sucking them dry of engineer time?? I just cant fathom the reason for this attitude from him and the fact BOTH Broadband Engineers refused to diagnose the problem? I know both were here at 4pm on a Friday..!! so probably chomping at the bit too get away - pee'd off cos GOT to work late cos some snotty kid wants faster broadband!!
Anyway, I tried to break the ice and change it to a more friendly atmosphere by offering him a cuppa but he refused, so we sat in silence while he performed tests and scribbled in his notebook , the end result was that there was wideband noise on the line
(oh, I thought he said it was clean?...lol) , he said the reading
(whatever it was) should be -50 to -60db and mine was -34db which indicated a problem , he said he was running over his shift already (4:20pm?) and he would continue with it tomorrow, or if not tomorrow it would be monday or tuesday
(bank holiday?) - I told him it all started when I was switched over to SVBN but he said makes no difference because its only a jumper thats removed that diverts the phone signal from BT to SKY (still a physical change though? - ive said all along I think it could be sky's telephony ISAM) - he asked if I know what a main frame was? I said I know off the MDF yes, he asked if I knew what one looked like? I asid ive seen pictures yes.. then he smiled and asked what I done for a living? and I said I work in IT fixing PC's etc offering support?- he smirked, nodded his head and rolled his eyes with raised eye brows as he looked away and said "ahh right!! -" laughed then began to explain the wiring from the MDF etc - im not good at explaining these things but if you had seen him doing it; it was as if to imply "right..so you know nothing about it then!!" - he had said some other things which were rude too.. like saying he was gunna test what sky were outputting at the exchange, I told him it was on 20Mb profile, he condescendingly said (and said it s-l-o-w-l-y with a funny look on his face) "i MEANT down in the exchange...ON SITE!" - you had too see it too understand what I mean, our lass couldnt believe it like, she says I should complain... his whole attitude stunk and Im at a loss as too why? maybe he had real beef with the sky engineer or just hates sky full stop? hates his job? I just dunno...
Anyway, the sky engineer called me back and said this sort of thing happens daily for sky, that BTo keep letting them down because the broadband engineers dont want to do the work or dont have the skills/training to do so and he is arguing the toss with BTo Managers day in and day out- he says he spends a lot of time instructing the Broadband Engineers (over the phone) at jobs they should be able to do and that most of the time when SNS Engineers are called out it turns out too be a fault/problem on BT's loop that they should have addressed. He said the director of SNS was in the office and he was going to present my case to him as yet another example of BTo letting them down because it needs addressing, he said he will check the notes on Tuesday to see what he does...but he says he thinks he will just sign the job off and if he does then they will book a Sky Networking Engineer out with another BT Broadband Engineer who will allow the SNS Engineer access to all parts of the loop ....and hopefully it will get sorted then.
again this not a stab at BTopenreach or its engineers , the previous 6 i have had here were nice enough, even the last broadband engineer was a nice lad, just couldnt/wouldnt do the job... but this one left an impression. so BS & co.. pleeeeaaasssee dont hate me lol
Iam just telling you all what happened today
TUNE IN NEXT WEEK FOLKS!!!