http://usp.net/bt2017

Recap of the Overall Story  (As at  16:00 September 14th)

In 2003 we moved into this location where the -previous owner had an underground cable from the pole in the lane providing a telephone service and an ISDN service.

We swapped the ISDN for an ADSL service provided by Entanet, which delivered about 3-4 Mbit in those days.

However, we needed more bandwidth for things like VOIP phone services, and added 4 more Entanet ADSL services on BT exchange lines over the next 3-4 years. These were delivered by multiple overhead drop cables from a telegraph pole about 230 feet away - and fixed the fascia of the house as illustrated below.

In 2012 - for as much resilience as possible when BT/Openreach are the monopoly provider of circuits -  we got a TalkTalk VDSL service  (80Mbit down/20 up) that included the phone line (provided and serviced by BT - now Openreach)  - and we then upgraded one of the Entanet ADSL2 services to VDSL.

We then ceased all but one BT Business line (carrying the Entanet service)  as the bandwidth of one VDSL circuit was more than enough to replace 5 regular ADLS2 services.

I thought it would be a good idea to remove the no-longer required lines - which also appeared to be radiating the Radio interference typically associated with VDSL services, as well as straining the cable anchorage on the fascia board.

When the inevitable happened and the fascia was pulled off, the focus was on trying to reuse the original underground cable. Which worked for a while, but since the Openreach Engineer charged with sorting out the physical line problems is not allowed to deal with Entanet and/or TalkTalk broadband issues. So  I have had to call both TalkTalk and Enta to try and organise further Openreach engineer visits to address these problems - which did not exist before the work on the fascia-pulling cables was done.

Not forgetting that all the time, there appears to have been local exchange and cabinet work going on that might have added to the number of variables involved. Nobody knows, all I know it the broadband service has been crippled since the start of the work today.

Bottom line - I have lost at least two full days (and counting) to dealing with this problem. I am weary of BT/OR threatening me with costs for wasting their time!

Here is the 56 minute call to BT support on 0843 5047163 that cost £6.17 (11p/minute)  - and just hear how much time is wasted on hold, and how bad the volume levels are at times. For a telephone company this is unacceptable:

Prior to this chargeable call,  a 30 minute call was made to 150 - the free BT fault reporting service. Who told me to call OpenReach and gave me the premium rate number but did not warn it would cost 11p a minute...

The rerouting of the BT/Openreach lines following the takedown of the overhead lines meant the inevitable disruption of the circuit for the TalkTalk VDSL service. As the connections were tested, the service went up and down about 10 times - but at the point at which the Openreach engineer left, it was working "after a fashion" with 5Mbit down (should be 70MBit) and 18MBit up.  A few hours later it has settled at 5MBit up and down. Meantime the service delivered on the BT line had been through a number of further ups and downs (bearing out the suggestion that the local box and exchange was being "configured".

This is where the full absurdity of the present Ofcom directed process becomes more apparent.

The Open Reach engineer sent to resolve the matter of the lines pulling the fascia off the house was commissioned by BT - the provider the basic telephone line - which coincidentally is used by Entanet to deliver their VDSL internet service that is presently delivering...

The engineer is not allowed by the "rules" that determine the separation of Openreach (whose vans bear the slogan ("A BT Group Company") from BT to do anything else but deal with the BT plain phone service. Had he fixed the BT phone line so that it worked as a phone line, but the Entanet DSL had not performed, he was powerless to do anything about it.

So the fact that the TalkTalk service was not working - but the BT plain old telephone service (POTS) was OK - meant it was outside his remit to get involved. And apart from suggesting it might return to normal once the local exchange work had settled down, there was nothing he could do but go to his next job.

I called the BT Business fault line (0800  800154 ) and quoted the job number I had been given (1-103108625) and explained the situation.

Incidentally, the volume levels when talking to BT and Openreach call centres is always very low - so I have tediously processed this recording to try and normalize. You will hear that the BT/OR phone service also has a loud hum. For telecoms companies, this is not a great example of how to do it .

Here is the 21 minute call to BT support which confirms the asinine process that customers are expected to go through to resolve any telecom issues in which any part of BT and or Openreach is involved.  Congratulations politicians and Ofcom for making an already bad situation, much worse.

Anyway, I called TalkTalk.

Could things get much worse..? Off course they could!

The first call I made to TT was cut short when BT called me back on another line.

When I called back, the first thing the callbot in the call centre wanted to do was run the standard  test on my broadband - it takes around 15 minutes, and will disconnect all the  services. No thanks, as it was not relevant or needed, since we know that the problem is the physical line setup. And changing the microfilter really won't help.

Of course this was not appropriate or relevant  .... so I tried to explain the situation, but the "computer says" syndrome blocked any attempt at common sense. I had yet another surreal conversation - but sadly on my mobile, which was called back because the original call I made was randomly disconnected . This meant I have not been able to record most of it. But suffice it to say,  no one was listening and the TalkTalk system has no capacity to deal with anyone that knows what they are talking about, but can only robotically follow the scripted procedures.

Despite my effort to tell the TalkTalk support person that her script did not apply in any way to our problem, and not mess with our router, she went ahead and performed a remote factory reset without telling me or asking my permission - which means our complex port forwarding configuration was lost, the LAN IP and gateway address was changed, DHCP was switched back on began interfering with the real LAN DHCP - and all the passwords were reset.

Apparently there is no option to save the configuration to a local back up file.

They eventually did what I asked for in the first place, and arranged for an Openreach engineer to call round and check it out. Thank God that the engineer was the one that had spent the previous day familiarising himself with this complex situation. So we assessed all the evidence and clues - which pointed to crosstalk, and decided that a separate cable would be required. One was duly installed at a low level to avoid broadcasting RFI, and is presently performing with both our VDSL circuits providing the theoretical maximum speeds.

During today, I received a text message from BT asking how impressed I was with their service.... 

But then about an hour later...

And a couple of hours later - it has gone back to 70MBit down/18 up - ie good enough. So what on earth is going on? Is it local exchange and cabinet work? Who knows, that's what happens with a totally unpredictable analogue service like DSL.

The Talk Talk service meantime had no dial tone, and 01245 690854.... oops...

But eventually normal service was resumed..

With the unwanted drop cables from the phone pole removed and replacement cables close to or below ground level, I have been able to operate on shortwave frequencies that had been rendered unworkable as the spread of VDSL using what amounts to "antenna cables"  introduced interference that BT and Openreach - and even Ofcom - seem to try to pretend does not exist. But the neighbour's overhead phone cable is still spraying out interference that I want to try and sort out soon. Watch this space.