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[waltergmw]

Gentlefolk,

I was yesterday mildly encouraged with a small improvement in the BT fault finding labyrinth. I thought it might be worth recording here to ease the sometimes traumatic experiences of others, although having access to perhaps a friend's working broadband does help.

I had a plea for help from a disgruntled Ewhurstian with a BT broadband service who had just returned from holiday to find the dreaded flashing broadband light on the modem i.e. no modem synchronisation. (Yes he had power-reset his modem to no avail.)

Here is the list of actions in order to tackle the problem from a remote location:-

1.  Record the faulty phone number, an alternative phone number, the BT broadband account number and the name and address of the account holder. (In my case then check my connections to other Ewhurst users are all on-line using LogMeIn)

2.  Go to https://www.bt.com/consumerFaultTracking/public/faults/tracking.do?pageId=2&s_cid=con_FURL_faults
and select Phone, check my line now. Now enter the faulty phone number and select no, not using line now. Verify that the answer is "No fault found". You need to say this to Savita in my case.

3.  Go to http://status.zen.co.uk/broadband/ and enter the faulty phone number and check for service outages (and in this case find work on the 21CN Metro Area).

4.  Call the BT broadband helpline 0800 111 4567 answering all the questions including entering the faulty phone number. Be prepared to tell Savita the phone number yet again as well as the user's details. Tell Savita that you have a SSFP or an integral filter faceplate with two sockets or an NTE5 etc. as appropriate. Tell Savita that you are using your own modem and that the modem light is flashing indicating no synchronisation with the exchange. (This avoids any questions about the modem connections  etc., including the fact that this is a BT business hub on a domestic service.)

5.  Give Savita an alternate phone number to contact the user and say yes you won't use the phone line for 30 minutes and say goodbye to the ever-so-polite Savita.

Then wait for the very happy and relieved end user to sing your praises !

The improvement I've noticed is that the BT culture has become a little more flexible and Savindra is prepared to listen and jump steps in her script.

Kind regards,
Walter

[waltergmw]

Gentlefolk,

A rather surprising result has ensued since the difficulties mentioned above. I consulted my records of this recent BT service on a 21CN line and discovered on 8th August it achieved a bRAS of 911 Kbps on a line with a recorded line length of a mere 6588 m.

After the hiatus I measured the bRAS on 29th August at a surprising 1396 Kbps but immagine my surprise to see that it is still holding that faster rate as of today 31 August 2011. We're not aware of any local works so I can only assume that some other blockage has now been removed but it would be nice to know what has changed. It is unlikely that a noise source has been removed as another (Plusnet) service at only 7117 m (i.e. + 529 m) on the same cable has remained constant. Needless to say I shall remain in broody mode to see whether I'm being too optimistic !

Kind regards,
Walter