back to article BT: Consumers and cost cutting save the day

Cost cutting and 88,000 new broadband punters helped BT bank more profits in calendar Q3, although revenues went in the opposite direction as all divisions outside of the consumer wing reported declining fortunes. The former comms state monopoly turned over £4.38bn of sales in the quarter ended September, down two per cent …

  1. Bloodbeastterror

    88,000 more victims...

    I couldn't get rid of this shambling bunch of incompetents fast enough. I ordered online, got the confirmation email with all the details, then phoned two weeks later to ask how it was going and they had no record of my order. Started all over again on the phone, pre-paid my line rental for a year, next thing they were taking monthly direct debits - yes, sure enough, they'd lost my prepayment as well.

    I wish these 88k more luck than I had...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 88,000 more victims...

      Unfortunately the alternative mainstream providers are equally shambolic and incompetent. After BT, Pipex/Tiscali/Talk Talk, Sky in swift succession even BT were looking good again!

      1. Dave559 Silver badge

        Re: 88,000 more victims...

        There are still a few smaller, friendlier, better service providers out there. I use Zen for both phone and broadband (I have heard good things about AAISP as well). They are not the cheapest, but I'm generally happy with their service, and, unlike BT, they don't seem to have an annoying habit of randomly and byzantinely recalculating *already-paid* bills and attempting to make you cough up unjustifiable extra payments. While Openreach are, I am sure, lovely hard-working (and under-appreciated) people who keep the spice flowing, BT Retail are certainly the House Harkonnen counterparts in this operation..

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      Re: 88,000 more victims...

      Well I've had infinity for 2 years now, been rock solid. Never had an issue and they have been great, although they seemed shocked when I said I had no interest in football or rugby (I guess the fact I'm male MUST mean I like one of the the two). I still get crap telling me what I missing out on (nothing).

      Orange were shit.

      O2 were ok but sold out to the spawn of Satan.

      So I looked around for high speed connectivity and there was errrrr BT. No one else can be bothered to invest in our area, so I happily gave them my money.

  2. Only me!
    Devil

    Walked away

    Yep BT walked away from "low margin" deals.......I would like to know what they consider low margin.

    It might also tell local government, just how much they have been paying for a far from perfect service.

    Note I am been very kind in that statement to say the least!

  3. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. James 100

      Re: Praising BT does feel wrong somehow but

      Mine went a step further - after the sixth visit, the fault was finally tracked to a bad bit of BT backbone 60 miles away after escalating from Openreach to TSOps. I know there are very, very few ISPs who are willing or indeed able to chase and escalate faults that far, but AAISP just don't give up on faults, whatever it takes - even, in this case, escalating all the way to Adastral Park and arguing publicly with BT about fault thresholds and handling. (BT denied there was a fault, but did eventually fix it: rather inconsistent, but the right outcome in the end!)

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. Vic

        Re: Praising BT does feel wrong somehow but

        AAISP just don't give up on faults

        I'm going to praise AAISP as well.

        I've had one bit of snarkiness from them (to which I responded, as I'm sure you can guess). But when I thought they were port-blocking a few weeks back (and got quite stroppy about it), they kept their cool (after I hadn't), and helped me diagnose the problem. It ended up being a DDoS...

        There are downsides to switching to AAISP - e.g. it's the first time I've had metered data for many years - but I'm very pleased I switched.

        Vic.

    2. kmac499

      Re: Praising BT does feel wrong somehow but

      I was with Demon for years. Eventually I had to leave as promise after promise of a FTTC Infinity style service failed to materialise as C&W then Vodafone bought it.

      I can virtually see the Green Cabinet from our house (if you climb the chimney and swing about like King Kong). The Open Reach Guy was quick and efficient; 18 months on and the connection has been pretty solid after a slight initial glitch due to old external cable on the house.

      But I am dreading the day I need to talk to customer services..

  4. Uberseehandel

    Poor Customer Service - Lousy Performance

    I have subscribed to the the best service available in my area, its called Infinity 2. That is 80 Mbits down and 20 Mbits up, unlimited usage.

    For the first couple of months, I measured line speeds several times a day, and recorded them. Better than 80% of the time my maximum download speed was 40-45 Mbits/sec, but from time to time, I did achieve over 70 Mbit/sec. I carried out a statistical analysis on my measurements and it was quite clear that my download speed was being clipped by BT, the standard deviation in my download speeds was disproportionately less than the standard deviation in upload speeds.

    I emailed BT and asked that they look into this and have a qualified engineer contact me (MIEEE or equivalent).

    All I have received since is a request to grade them on the effectiveness of their response.

    I would switch to a lesser service, in accord with the performance I actually receive, but, Infinity 1 has a monthly download load limit, which I exceed..

    In practical terms, the performance is much less than the 40-45 Mbit/sec that speedtest shows. When I download from the BBC iPlayer site, I used to get over 2 Mbyte/sec, now I rarely exceed 750 K byte/sec.

    I am not a happy camper.

    1. Bunbury

      Re: Poor Customer Service - Lousy Performance

      80 up do down is the maximum speed the technology will handle on any line. For yours you'll have had an estimate of what your line can support when you bought it. Sounds from what you say that that is 70plus Mbps. When you do your speed tests, make sure you're followed the guidance on their site as to how to do it properly.

      Typically, you should find that the line will give you your 70+ in quiet times but will slow down to your 40--45 in the evenings due to network congestion. Unclear why your performance feels less than that - might be a number of factors. Not sure email is the best mechanism for reporting this sort of thing as it really needs a bit of interaction to sort out.

      1. Uberseehandel

        Re: Poor Customer Service - Lousy Performance

        Bunbury

        You are doing the equivalent of teaching your Grandmother to suck eggs. Of course I make sure I carry out the speed tests properly, I do know what I am doing - asking to talk to a BT engineer who is MIEEE or equivalently qualified, ought to have flagged that fact up to you.

        There is a problem at the exchange, or between the exchange and the local cabinet or in the cabinet itself. There is a strong correlation between visits by an engineer/installer (the installers are not engineers) and my experiencing 70Mb/s plus download speeds. Which may last for up to a day at a time.

        What appears to be happening is that working on the local cabinet resets the error control systems, and my connection operates at over 70 Mb/s. Usually within the next 24 hours, the maximum download speed is reset to around 45 Mb/s, no change to upload speeds. Statistical analysis indcates that the download speeds are artificially regulated and are not capacity limited (up to about 75Mb/s as far as I can measure), the SD value for the much slower uploads, is much greater than the SD for the capped downloads. This is what I have been able to deduce from my analysis.

        My emails are being ignored, I would just like BT to do a decent job, but Based on dealing with BT engineers in projects around the world, I am not surprised.

        Please don't ladle out corporate twaddle, it is not helpful, I have measured decent throughput at what are generally regarded as busy times and downloaded at over 2.5MB/sec from BBC iPlayer.

        I am paying for a premium service, it is not unreasonable to expect the equipment involved in delivering that serive to be properly installed, maintained and adjusted

        1. Bunbury

          Re: Poor Customer Service - Lousy Performance

          I'm sorry if I came across as ladling out corporate twaddle, I was only trying to help.

          It's difficult to know through this medium that you know what you are doing (i.e. you know, but I don't) and even knowledgeable engineers get caught out by hidden issues.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Poor Customer Service - Lousy Performance

      I take you are aware that the source also has speed limit? If everyone want to watch iPlayer at the same time, they also will have trouble sending the data?

      1. Tom 7

        Re: Poor Customer Service - Lousy Performance

        I'm 6 miles from the exchange - and also the cabinet so the recent FFTC conversion makes no difference. I used to get 2.4M/440k now after FFTC 1.7M/440k. It rained a couple of days ago so it was 440k/440k. A web line test said there was no problem - instantly. A second did the same. A passive phone plugged into the 'test' socket I could barely hear the options to get through to report a problem. When I finally get through to India the noise level drops to a point where I can hear things reasonably. He does a line test and rings back to say he cant find a problem - the noise is down to acceptable for a conversation and the line kicks up to 1M/440k. I used to be able to get a line check run without human intervention and this normally resets the equipment and dries out the wet joints a bit but now I have an hour of faffing about to get things working. And a couple of visits a year for them to swap over to a slightly less wet pair.

        I'm with BT now - because they are so much cheaper and there's 1/2 hour not wasted talking to a middle man but I can only say they are shit shit shit.

  5. Paul IT

    Small increase in punters

    There's nothing but a sinking ship here from BT gaining 3000 new customers (88,000 - 85,000), that's less than 9 day - the sales team must be piss bored.

    When will OpenReach be brought back under Government control and outsourced properly with 5 year contracts to the anyone but BT?

    If the franchise of OpenReach was done properly, Aluminium & Copper lines would have been ripped up 20 years ago and every one would be on Gigabit home connections.

    BT you have had your time.

    1. Bunbury

      Re: Small increase in punters

      I fear you may have confused the two numbers. Start with x lines on which there are y broadband services. End with x-85000 lines on which there are y+88000 broadband services. 88000 is the NET growth in broadband lines i.e. addtitions less losses.

    2. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
      WTF?

      Re: Small increase in punters

      If the franchise of OpenReach was done properly, Aluminium & Copper lines would have been ripped up 20 years ago and every one would be on Gigabit home connections.

      And whose money would you want to spend on such a pointless exercise? Almost nobody in the UK needs even 100Mbit/s at home, let alone a GBit/s. Sure, some people might want GBit speeds, but they also want to pay peanuts for them, while expecting "somebody else" (taxpayers?) to cough up the subsidies.

      Then, of course, you'd need a TBit/s backbone to support it, or some people would be whinging that their 1 GBit/s connection slows right down to only 500Mbit/s in the evening, and it isn't fair. boohoo.

      1. Bunbury

        Re: Small increase in punters

        I'm not sure what version of "done properly" would have achieved that in 1994. Firstly, Openreach was only established in 2006, so the dates don't work. But of course there were predecessors. OK, let's say the government did this in 1994:

        - it somehow foces BT to spend ten billion pounds to do this, and gets through the legal challenge by passing primary legislation.

        - BT cannot sustain the cost, goes into receivership and the government has to rescue to keep the country going.

        - every other infrastructure provider sees this coming and takes their investment away. Firesales in the power, water, etc industries. Major economic damage.

        - meanwhile, an engineering solution is put in. Fibre to the home, 1994 style. it provides telephony, and a 2Mbps line system. Sorry, did you want it upgradeable? Can't do that because the standards don't exist.

        - every front garden in the country is dug up - via the compulsory order introduced by the primary legislation. Holes drilled in every front wall. Don't want it? You have no option.

        - all the roads are dug up. The councils have no say due to primary legislation. Lots of traffic jams.

        I think it's a little easier to ask for these things than to do them.

        -

        1. TheOtherHobbes

          Re: Small increase in punters

          >- every other infrastructure provider sees this coming and takes their investment away. Firesales in the power, water, etc industries. Major economic damage.

          As opposed to the major economic damage caused by bandit-like profiteering, an endemic culture of contempt towards consumers, investment still funded in part by government hand-outs, and monopolistic price gouging - which has been one of the main drivers of national inflation for the last five years or so?

          Apart from that, it's all working splendidly.

        2. Paul IT

          Re: Small increase in punters

          Bunbury - I see your point but other utilities such as Water and Electricity (and Network Rail & Highways Agency) have done major nation improvements and are enthusiastic about spending the taxpayers (alibi home bills) money.

          BT were kicked until they were forced to setup FTTC - whereas some other nations were already 5-10 years ahead with broadband equivalent internet access.

          Hardly pioneering more like protectionism.

          I just think the OpenReach operation should be franchised off and competed like the train operators are to open access internet for all.

          1. Bunbury

            Re: Small increase in punters

            It might just be me but I don't see that much actual improvement in water, electrity and rail but I do see significant real term price rises from those sectors. And the product delivered is largely the same. For example train rolling stock has improved but journey times have not; electricity hasn't really changed at all at the retail level. The cost of telecomms has generally come down in real terms quite a bit (500kbps service in 2000 was £39.99 a month), though of course it should do being electronics mostly.

            BT have a real problem with network investment in that there is always a risk that the unsuccessful technologies lose them money but the successful ones they have to share with other operators. Sharing at what price is the key concern. So yes, there was a lot of pressure to introduce fibre, but it's a profit driven company, not a government department. I seem to recall that the FTTC rollout plan was announced as £2.5Bn, funded by the company. The government £530m is to fill in the cracks really.

      2. Paul IT

        Re: Small increase in punters

        Thanks for the down votes - I would have thought everyone would like faster broadband.

        Phil O' - That's what exactly Managing Directors said when BT brought out ISDN - why do we need to so much bandwidth when 56K is enough.

        Similar to what BT stated at the HoL committee on broadband speeds in 2011 when BT was encouraged to rollout 2Mb to every neighbourhood.

        Where would Amazon / Tesno shopping be now if those MD's had the popular view that 56K was fast enough!!

        If the speeds were faster - there would be a lot more consumer businesses on line.

        The economy would be stronger and more people in work.

        For those who do not have access to Cable, I cannot see why you need a copper line to have fibre. It makes no sense. Even in new build houses, they are laying copper WHYWHYWHY - Just put the f'king fibre to the new houses. This is an example of BT gone wrong.

        BT are putting up line prices not because they are more expensive to maintain, but because people and businesses are making less land line calls. If BT can't cope with providing a national infrastructure suitable for this century, then give someone else an opportunity to improve this nation.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Small increase in punters

          "Even in new build houses, they are laying copper WHYWHYWHY - Just put the f'king fibre to the new houses. This is an example of BT gone wrong."

          BT don't do the network build on new housing estates, the developer does it.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Small increase in punters

      "If the franchise of OpenReach was done properly, Aluminium & Copper lines would have been ripped up 20 years ago and every one would be on Gigabit home connections."

      How so - would putting the business under someone else's ownership create a magic money tree?

      Interestingly there was a flurry of last mile optic network roll-out around 20 years ago. Technology has moved on and those networks are now obsolete and the people connected by them can't even get basic broadband, needing a copper connection added - just ask anyone who lives in the housing estates around Milton Keynes.

  6. Uberseehandel

    Bunbury

    thats OK

  7. Lee D Silver badge

    OpenReach failing?

    Not got anything to do with the leased fibre line my employer bought through them, which they spent six months doing nothing about. Then turned up on site with two men who drilled a hole. Literally one hole. Even phoning their boss to check that was correct. The next guy ran a fibre tubing following the existing telegraph lines and left it dangling on the first building it hit, some dozens of metres from the point of actual installation.

    Then a month of shouting later another guy came and ran some fibre tubing but only brought half as much as was needed. So left three hodge-podge parts of tubing he had leftover in the van to try to get to where they needed to go. Then a month later another guy came, looked at it, and realised they weren't able to join it back on the main street anyway. Then the re were promises, promises, promises and arguments and before long our November order which had become an April install was into September with nothing more than a piece of plastic tubing and a hole to show for it, with promises it might be ready for the next November.

    At that point, we phoned up and cancelled the order. The next week an OpenReach guy was asking for access to the site. We told them where to go.

    Their competitors? Currently digging a 200m trench to get to us, with guaranteed December delivery, faster speeds, cheaper prices and constant contact.

    I wouldn't mind but I work for private schools. I can't imagine that's a bad class of customer to have for an always-on Internet connection - several hundred high-paying pupils all wanting to show video online, totally dead connections overnight, and a gigabit fibre that we can ramp up the speed on any time we have the money.

    OpenReach was a farce. It cost them a couple of other school's too as we spread the word. A year taken to drill a hole and push a pipe through it, and they didn't realise they never had space enough to fit the fibre anyway.

  8. JamesPond

    At least you've got BT

    In Hull, we've got Karoo (Kingston Comms) and...er...no competition = monopoly = really crap service, 1.10Mbps on the best day! So just be thankful Virgin et al are keeping BT honest!

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