Hello Nick,

James, Lee and I enjoyed meeting yourself and your friends at last night's broadband meeting. We found it very informative (lots more ammunition to fire at BT).

As for the saga that is our lives:-

In December we checked, on the BT website, that the new house we had our eyes on could receive a Broad Band connection. To our delight it appeared as though we could (this information was a crucial deciding factor), so plans went ahead for our arrival at our new home.

We moved into the house in January and promptly setup a BT account and ordered our ADSL package. With zeal we then built our network, with a 1 Gbps capability. We had prepared everything and only awaited the activation date.

Two days before we were due to be hooked up, we received a letter from BT informing us that upon further inspection of the line, "ADSL was not available". Strange, we thought. We were under the impression that it had already been sorted out, to the point that we had purchased a router/firewall and appropriate micro-filters.

We were confused, so decided to phone BT for some clarification. Unfortunately the call centre agent could offer none. Obviously running through standard procedures they ran a line check and restored hope in us; it seemed the letter was a mistake. So we re-ordered the ADSL, and waited, this time with some scepticism. As before, although less unexpectedly, a letter arrived.

Unable to download the essential driver updates, and deprived of online games we were forced to opt for a 56k connection, which despite our best efforts we are still being forced to suffer. Needless to say with four computers using 56k of bandwidth, there's not a lot to go around.

What confuses us most is that MK is a new city: what has possessed BT to lose as much business as this must be causing them? Especially as this is one of the fastest growing cities in the world.

BT should be congratulated on an expertly timed and administrated foul-up.

Thank you for taking the time to listen our plight.

Regards,

Russell, Bolbeck Park

After about a year of trying without success using my employer to lobby BT to do some investigative work and continually failing ADSL line tests, I finally bit the bullet and had a second line installed. On this I had ISDN, whilst keeping my other line as residential PSTN. This was at least it was an improvement after the dialup I had been using. This was in I guess October 2002.

About a month later, one of my neighbours had just purchased their first computer and was interested in connecting to the Internet, so they came and asked for advice, being that they are literally 10 metres as the crow flies from me. I said that they probably wouldn’t be able to get ADSL installed and went through the usual issues with them. A few days later they came to tell me that they had been successful on the line test and activation was within the week, which subsequently worked fine. As you can imagine I wasn’t too happy with BT having tried for a year failed, then contracted for an ISDN line for 12 months!

So began the sorry saga of various line tests, extended reach trials, on both the PSTN line and also my ISDN lines all to no avail.

Around July 2003 BT started yet another extended reach trial, but by nature that it was a trial they were only doing it for plug and go customers, as a result I could only attempt to get it with my PSTN line (the ISDN would need an engineer to perform the conversion). As per before the line failed, lots more hassling, work meetings with our BT account manager and pressure wherever it could be applied I had almost got BT to arrange for an engineer visit to have a look at the cabling from the road to the property, this was proving difficult, and basically we had to commit to pay for the engineer with no guarantees of any success.

Before the engineer had been arranged the latest extended reach trial had finished and was being rolled out across the network. As a result as a last ditch attempt I had a line check performed on my ISDN line. For once it came up amber which is more than it had ever done before, so the decision was made to do the conversion from ISDN to ADSL (at great cost…).

The day finally came and the engineer arrived, by this time after all the hassles over the last 18 months I guess I was fearing the worse, the conversion back to PSTN happened, a phone call was made to the exchange to switch the line over then it was time for the onsite line test.

Lots of fingers crossed etc. etc.

The result the line test came in at 49dB, and I was duly informed by my friendly engineer that I could have had ADSL over a year ago and prior to the extended reach being rolled out. By this point I didn’t really care and was happy it was finally in! The previous test from the exchange end had been floating around the 60db mark. I questioned why the readings were so vastly different depending on which end of the cable you start with and was only told that its more accurate from the client's site that from testing the line from the exchange.

Interestingly enough my home PSTN line still fails the line test, I have a feeling this may have something to do with the phone socket connections and subsequent cabling that the original builders installed. I have 6 extensions for the home line; this degrades the signal drastically.


Subsequently I'm having discussions with another neighbour. They have been going through the same issues as I had; always failing, getting on trials etc. I suggested that they arrange for a second PSTN line to be installed and converted, with the only downside of having to cancel the line if it's unsuccessful. They have since had this done and in the same way have now managed to get ADSL installed, whilst their first line still fails.

I am obviously very happy these days, but I do worry about the day when I decide to move to another house.

Dave, Wavendon Gate

Also funny how BT vans come in pairs???

Martin

When pressed he adopted his best petulant teenager attitude & informed me that I could always cancel my ISDN connection & start again!!

No help there then.

I find it more than a little frustrating that my next door neighbour has broadband & he is a little further from the exchange than me!

Good luck.

Tony Bowers, Newton Longville

I have just discovered that my immediate neighbour was upgraded to Broadband two years ago! My other immediate neighbour was upgraded in January, just four-to-six weeks after I paid for an ISDN upgrade, having been assured by BT that Broadband would not be available until "August at the earliest".

BT have acknowledged they have some responsibility here, and offered to upgrade me free of charge - provided I leave AoL as my ISP, otherwise they will hold me to the original contract for the remaining nine months. I believe on principle that this is a disgrace an abuse of their monopoly position), and so I am going to have damned good go at them.

Legally I have a case if I wish to go the distance with them.

David

I heard a general discussion between Steven Jewell and Toby Friedner on Three Counties Radio last week. It was about how the wireless system works. Nothing controversial - in fact probably a tad boring! Mr Jewell  was somewhat 'flat' as an interviewee, but certainly didn't make any interesting claims. I wondered if an angle that Toby was hoping to have a go at was the issue about putting up 'dishes' on our houses, and/or big nasty masts in kiddies' schoolyards, but apart from a brief mention, easily shrugged off by Mr Jewell, he didn't pursue this line.

Mr Jewell did say:

"A while ago a group of people started to complain, quite rightly, about the BT problems, and some of them quite vociferously.

"A decent broadband infrastructure is considered to be absolutely essential for MK businesses and households."

The finances of the trial: "£25k (plus probably a bit more) from SEEDA, with the majority of the work and the financial investment being carried out by NTL".

"We need to see the trees in leaf in case we have line of sight problems, hence the trial will be running on into June."

As far as I recall he didn't mention what happens after the trial. This does worry me.

Mrs Plum

I know of at least 50 people who want it immediately. Any suggestions as to how I might proceed?

Regards,
David, Glamorgan

[Yes I know Glamorgan is in Wales, not Milton Keynes.]

Its not just new residents in MK that have a shock moving in to the area. I just moved my business to MK (Silbury Boulevard) and have been told that - OK I can get broadband but only to 512kbps. (I'm sure some of your members would love to get that), but I've just moved here from Tring where I had 2Mb broadband and 30 channels of primary rate ISDN all delivered across a handful of copper wires slung from pole to pole.

The last thing I thought I would ever have to worry about in moving to MK was the comms infrastructure - silly me.

More power to your collective elbow

Don, CMK

Tony, Walnut Tree

I have been battling with BT for almost 18 months now to get broadband installed and no one within the organisation can even tell me when we can expect it. As an alternative we have had to get 2 x ISDN lines installed to get the bandwidth but this is still not sufficient and BT refuse to budge.

They just seem incredibly unorganised and uninterested in their customers.

How do you suggest I progress this?

Bram, Heelands

Needless to say I was not a happy bunny after that exchange of views.

Greg

I do now have broadband! Interestingly, Serena phoned me a month after install to advise "after checking" that I could NOT have broadband. When I told her it was installed she was rather surprised.

Although I now have broadband, I would very much like to continue to be part of the action group as you are all doing a great job. Without your feedback I would probably still been using a 56k modem and as I am restricted to the half meg service and would like this to be a least 1meg.

I would like to stay in the fight.

Neil, Great Holm