BT plc officially cancel British Summer Time???

I have asked if this is their official position or not, and not had a reply, but they are doubling down on it...

Hi James,

We don't find any time difference for BST and UTC when we checked.

Please find the attached picture.

And they attached this...

This was all because they wanted a call at "5:30 BST" (not even stating AM/PM).

But wow, they are sticking to it. Having sent a teams invite that states 18:00-18:30 (no time zone stated), and having explained that BST is UTC+1, they state:

For tomorrow call has arranged for 6 PM BST

So, it seems BT plc have cancelled British Summer Time.

About time too...

The end of 17070 and serious consequences

I just read a very concerning article on BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgknm8xrgpo

TL;DR BT crossed wires and so a criminal investigation led to wrong address causing a lot of issues for innocent parties.

Police

The decision is the police did nothing wrong.

I would argue police acting solely on IP address information is negligent of the police. So I disagree with the finding. There are a lot of reasons an IP may not identify a person - not least of which is "bill payer" is not "user", and also deliberately or accidentally open WiFI, and tor proxy, and hacked routers, and so on and so on. And, of course, crossed lines happen, so IP is never definitive. They should have more evidence before taking such drastic action, in my opinion. It is almost akin to reading the "return address" on an envelope and assuming it is genuine and raiding someone as a result.

The simplest test they could have done, if going as far as visiting the property, is checking the IP address on their Internet access matches the evidence.

Update: just to be clear, we (AAISP) have a policy in response to any request from police (or anyone else) under the Investigatory Powers Act, which we would expect to almost always just be a request to identify bill payer/address, to respond (as required) but to always include a very clear statement that you absolutely cannot rely on an IP or calling number as indicating the bill payer, or even someone at the address, instigated the traffic/calls. We would aim to try to educate police in the reply. We could perhaps even get some for numbers/IPs that are not ours, and would reply accordingly. To say we have had no requests would be implausible, but ironically the legal issues means we cannot say if we have had requests or not, which is, itself, somewhat crazy.

Crossed lines

But let's consider how crossed lines happen - it is simple, and literally crossed lines where one pair of wires is on wrong port on the DP.

So why was a crossed line not identified?

17070

BT engineer calling 17070

It used to be pretty easy to tell a line is crossed, pick up the phone and call 17070 and it reads your number. Also calls cost, and a wrong itemised bill arriving is a clue that your line is not being used by you.

However with broadband and fixed costs, and so on, it is very easy for two lines to have working broadband on the same ISP, that works based on circuit and needs no login (or router auto configures based on circuit when first connected). And with dynamic or CGNAT you cannot tell you have the wrong IP even.

So customers cannot tell, but this is actually a bigger issue for BT.

The telephone side is gone, and now it is broadband only.

We had a case at the pub with two lines and one was jumped wrong, and BT had no means to tell which line was which now there is no dial tone on the line. As an ISP on site (rare) I was able to confirm which physical line went off when unplugged. But BT need to be able to identify a line - how are they not screaming at management about this now?

So what instead?

So what BT need is a way to identify lines now. And actually it is not as hard as it sounds.

The way broadband works is using PPPoE over DSL. The same is true for FTTP now (PPPoE Ethernet on ONT).

PPPoE has a handy identifier which is sent before any sort of login. Without knowing the ISP or login details a hand held test device for DSL or FTTP working could show the ID it sees.

These IDs are not very exciting at present - my DSL here has acc-aln2.ag

But it could not be hard to make that a circuit ID, or a complete port ID of some sort that the BT engineer can identify. I mean it would be ideal if the full circuit ID in BT, but even just cab27-port43 it would help the BT engineer a lot and avoid crossed lines and a range of other errors.

BT could even expect other ISPs that use BT wiring to have a similar scheme, why not?

It seems to me this should be a standard for such services, and BT engineers test kit should be able to show it. This are only going to get worse as more and more phone lines are phased out.

So I wonder if BT will consider this?

The end is nigh (for phone lines, anyway)

This is both simple and complicated...

The simple bit is that old fashioned phone lines, as have been around, providing telephone service, for well over a century, in the UK, are coming to an end. Well, at least the main provider of such, BT, is stopping them.

That is the simple bit, and it really is simple. Even now, in a lot of areas, you cannot now buy a "normal" landline telephone service from BT, or any of the companies that use BT for such services. You can't take over an existing line, or move it to a new provider. This is spreading across the country area by area. The next step, in a couple of years, is that the existing lines stop working.

What's the plan?

When I explain this, I am asked "What's the plan then?", and "What are they [BT] going to do?".

In principle this is an odd question, BT are stopping phone lines. Why do they need a plan? Why do they need to "do anything"? Why do people think BT will do anything? All that is happening is that a company is stopping selling a particular service. Simple as that.

I think people see phone lines as some sort of right, or public service, but it is not. It is just a service that some companies sell. It is also a service which is purchased less and less. So many people use mobile phones these days, and so many people use other means to have a telephone service, which I come on to later. It makes commercial sense for BT to stop selling this service, simple as that. Other providers will follow suit, though a lot of other providers use BT lines so are stopping anyway.

Just to be clear, bits of copper wire in the ground will be around a while longer, but used for broadband, and not have a telephone service. Though this is gradually being changed to glass fibre.

In practice though...

Of course, in practice, BT, and other providers of such services, are not daft. They have a range of other products that will provide "telephone service" by other means, and will be keen to sell them to you.

This is, of course, confusing to a lot of people. No service will be exactly the same, but some will be very close. One of the issues is the fact that telephone exchanges used to have power backup for several hours, and they powered the telephone handset - so phone lines used to work for a while in a power cut. Also, if the power cut was local, at your house but not at the exchange, they worked as long as you like with a power cut. Almost every other service does not have that exact feature. Even if you have batteries yourself, your internet access may not have, or may only work for a short period (batteries in street cabinets, etc). So no service will be quite identical, but in subtle ways people don't always consider (e.g. power fail and calling 999).

There is also the issue that people will ask why they have to buy some new service? Well, they don't, obviously, but the existing service they buy is stopping, so it is up to them what they choose to do.

999

Emergency services are a concern for people - as I mention, batteries may not last very long even if you have them. There was a reported case where someone could not call 999 on their VoIP service as they had no power during a fire. This is sad. But remember 999 on landlines is not a 100% reliable service, that would be impossible. It is very reliable, and the power from the exchange helps, but even that is only for a few hours at most. 999 has always been a service that telephone providers have to provide to the extent technically possible, and they do a good job. But there are always edge cases (a fire could have damaged the phone line and it would not be a news story, it is only a story because it is "change").

One small issues is VoIP is an "over the top" service. It uses an Internet service to work. ISPs have never had to try and provide a service with the same level of reliability for 999 use, nor when no power, and so on, and as they are not providing 999 it is unlikely that will change (if it does, it will be a lot of cost). That said, an over the top service can be made more reliable - you can have have multiple providers and even satellite links. The snag is most people would not want to pay the extra cost for that increased reliability.

Of course, in a lot of cases, a mobile service is also available. Though people forget that these too need power at the cell site, and those sites do not necessarily have battery backup, or backup for very long.

At the end of the day, try to have a battery backup on your shiny new VoIP service if you can, and a mobile if you can, but as I say 999 has never been guaranteed 100% reliable. So think of your options.

What really are the options?

I am not going to go in to a sales pitch here. Obviously we (A&A) sell some of this. But there are a lot of options.

Firstly - do you even need something like a landline telephone service? A lot of people use mobiles, and only even have a landline for broadband. The line for broadband is fine and will continue to exist, just with no telephone service, though obviously you ideally want to be on fibre now, if you can.

Secondly, what does a landline telephone service mean to you exactly?

A telephone number

A key part of the old landline telephone service is the telephone number itself. A lot of people have had a telephone number for a very long time, and people still know it and call it. So receiving calls on a conventional geographic telephone number is important.

• One option is have a company take over the phone number and simply send it to your mobile. There may be some call charges for that.
• One option is a ceased number message telling people your mobile number - possibly forever, or just for a while until you stop the number altogether.
• And finally, there is also the case of having a telephone service on your number using Voice over IP

For businesses that publish a local phone number, keeping it working one way or another is important.

Voice over IP

The basic option for keeping a service on a phone number is Voice over IP (VoIP), which is a telephone service over the internet. You need a reliable internet service, and possibly even a service that somehow manages to make VoIP work well even when your kids are downloading the latest game update at the same time. Different services (for internet) have different features to help with this. Some providers may provide special broadband routers that have built in telephone VoIP services, maybe even working with an old school telephone if you want (bear in mind that it needs power).

For a business, VoIP can offer some fun options with better telephone systems, call queuing, messages, multiple calls at once, diverts, time profiles, all sorts. Just a matter of what kit or service you buy.

Service provider

One choice for VoIP is the service provider. It may be the same as your ISP, or may be totally separate. Just like with a landline or mobile, look at the costs, the terms, the bundles, call costs, and so on. Some may bundle equipment as well. Some may have a minimum term. Some may bundle calls and some may not. Some may even provide call recording. In practice, just like "porting" numbers between mobile providers, you can usually simply port your number between providers if you need.

Equipment

Another issue is equipment. This can be totally separate to the service provider in most cases, but not all. Some service providers provide an internet and telephone service and equipment all in one bundle. In practice it is probably better to have a service provider that provides the telephone service using SIP, which is a standard for VoIP. This then lets you choose different compatible equipment as you wish.

It is however worth ensuring it works well with your ISP - things like NAT (Network Address Translation) and CGNAT (Carrier Grade NAT) can cause issues with VoIP. IPv6 solves a lot of these but then has firewall considerations. There are also issues with full links - as I mention, someone doing a big download may cause calls to break up - as the Internet tends to expect services to adapt to links being full, and voice calls can't do that. So, it is worth considering an ISP that knows how to handle VoIP properly and consider the router you are using on your Internet access carefully.

What do I have?

I have been using VoIP for a couple of decades now - initially internally from a phone system on an ISDN line and then moving the numbers to a VoIP service and ditching landlines around 18 years ago.

On my desk I have a desk phone, like an old push button landline phone. It gets used more than my mobile (I know, I'm old). It has a headset which I like when talking and typing at the same time, and a speaker phone I use some times. It is connected by one cable, a Power over Ethernet lead, to my network switch, and works using SIP. I use a FireBrick as a SIP phone system in the house allowing me to transfer calls, and ring multiple phones at once, and so on (rings my mobile as well).

Internet in Wales

Having moved house, the Internet access was obviously going to be, err, "fun". It has gone through several stages...

What was meant to happen...

The first thing to realise is that we are not new to this - I mean, I do run an ISP after all. We know that phone lines, broadband, and fibre can take time to install. I have one of the best teams in the industry when it comes to dealing with BT, and they were on the case from the day we made the offer.

Fibre installs can take a lot of time, and need a survey, so I was happy to pay for the survey and get the fibre ordered months before we even exchanged. I had already looked around and worked out there was ducting, which even cut the corner of the property, so even a "dig" would not have been much work. As it happens the survey said overhead as they now use fibre cable not fibre tube (more on that in another blog). This means no excess charges, and no extra delays (in theory). So the fibre order went ahead. Basically, if we did not buy for some reason, we could cancel without too much cost involved, but ordering early would mean a good chance of fibre when we move in, or shortly after.

However, knowing the possibility of delays, phone lines were also ordered for broadband. The phone line(s) appointment was then set up for the day we exchanged, which is when the previous owners would allow BT access to install (previous BT access to survey had been done). At the last minute, BT cancelled that appointment due to "system problems". Several more appointments agreed and cancelled in the two weeks before we completed. All "system problems".

At one point a BT engineer did arrive to put in two phone lines, and got to the loft, and said that there was an existing service there (previous owner's) and so he was not allowed to install. The idea is that BT had just announced delayed appointments for any new install where there was already a service due to COVID, but this (a) was not to affect existing orders like this one, and (b) was to avoid BT engineers in people's homes - yet this engineer was already there. All he had to do was fit the sockets on the spare pairs, but no! He spent way more time in the house than he needed because he was on the phone arguing the toss with Ben at my office!

Several more cancelled appointments, and, well, read on. Suffice to say we did not have even DSL when we moved in, in spite of months of planning. The following stages happened over the first week or so - improving Internet almost day by day.

Flaky mobile

Day 1 was hectic, and all we had was mobile with 1 bar signal if you stand in the right part of the house.

4G dongle + small AP

We then progressed to a set up with a 4G dongle hanging out of a window connected to a FireBrick and a single Apple AP. This allowed WiFi in some of the house, with maybe 1Mb/s and lots of latency, but it was progress. This was a set up we had ready as a starting point.

4G dongle + better APs

They next step was where we get proper WiFi in the house. The FireBrick and dongle in the loft, but working out where to put the APs. Running network cables and a PoE switch, we worked out we can actually cover the whole house (inside) with 2 APs - one for North and one for South. This is because the house is essentially built in two parts and so has a thick stone wall across the middle.

Thankfully we have the services of JLP Property Management (son-in-law) to help, and run the cables in the walls. All neat any tidy, though the APs were hanging from a wire on the wall, we had good WiFi coverage.

The FireBrick and dongle and PoE switch were all set up in the loft, and worked a bit better than just dangling out of a window.

1 ADSL

Finally, after 3 days, we get an ADSL line, a whole 16Mb/s down and 1Mb/s up. Yes, ADSL not VDSL. It seems there is a cab, but it is full, and so on a waiting list!

This arrived at the same time as the fibre engineers! Yes, ordering a proper fibre install, and PSTN, months in advance and the fibre guys turn up at the same time! You would not believe it. However the fibre install cannot be completed as someone has fenced off some scaffolding around a BT chamber by the market in town. Arrrg!

Even so, on one ADSL we have progress. I started the work to sort out my proper IP addresses making my life a lot easier. I also got a small 19" rack for the loft, as you do.

Wired Internet

Next step was getting some wired Internet to some places in the house. Thankfully, and very luckily, we found the four phone sockets in the building were done using network cabling, so we could trace them, change the ends, and get network to some places. The front room TV/SkyQ/AppleTV could all now be wired in.

1½ ADSL

Next was the second PSTN/ADSL line. Obviously this was expected to be 16Mb/s too. But no! There was an underground fault, so only 6Mb/s.

The engineer took all day and gave up, said the underground team would sort in the morning. Even the escalation team at BT said next morning, but no, magically that was cancelled, and so not done.

I did however release a change to the FireBrick to allow it to adjust uplink speed based on speed data sent from the ISP end (which we now do on A&A lines) to allow uplink bonding to work better.

Another AP

The internal APs were fitted to the wall with some 3D printed brackets (once I found, and unpacked, the printer). Given the rather thick stone walls, an external AP was installed to cover the garden. We are now all properly set up with nice roaming WiFi throughout the house and garden, all connected to ADSL lines!

It actually looks like an external AP one side of the house is no use the other side even, the thick walls mean no WiFi even just outside the house. Oh well, another AP needed.

2 ADSL

BT finally fixed the second ADSL line. We have now put in the queue for a VDSL upgrade.

It took 6 days to get around to it, but the second ADSL is 15Mb/s (first now 14Mb/s), bonded. Sadly they are aluminium wires through...

Unfortunately they are far from perfect - seems some backhaul congestion, so a lot of jiggling line rates, forcing VoIP over just one line. And avoiding someone trying to use Disney+ during the day while we work.

Fibre

BT finally arranged access to their chamber. The fibre is 1Gb/s but will be only 90Mb/s backhaul for now. Even so, this should be a very reliable and low latency 90Mb/s, and is 90Mb/s up and down. Finally some decent internet, but with ADSL fallback, well, except...

The fibre, once installed and tested, should be provisioned. This is usually that day, or maybe at worst a day later. However, that was Thursday... If not for the scaffolding, it would have been Monday 1st.

Come the following Tuesday they finally say there is some connectivity issue, and suggest it is a "simple fix reversing the fibres between the patch panel and the ADVA", but they won't do that until the next day!

By Wednesday they had done a "hand over" of the Etherway - i.e. the fibre to the exchange was complete, but somehow the actual circuit back to London was not. As usual BT insist we wait, this time 2 days, and we know that nothing will actually happen during those two days, so we have to chase again on Friday. And, of course, we were right, nothing happened for 2 days. Now on to Friday we are told they have an issue with the VLAN tag!

And no, nothing happened on Friday, so nothing will happen until Monday now, in spite of all my efforts to escalate.

We are in to the third week after the engineers came and put fibre in, and we have issues like this: "The system identified a HSMDA port for this circuit and HE services are not supported on HSMDA cards, it was routed to 20347789:4/2 which is of the type ALN - HS-MDA (V2)" - yes I managed to get someone to tell me what was actually happening. Still no working fibre link though... "this will also involve a truck roll to get engineer to re-cable".

Apparently, I am now told (17th) that they should have it all working on Friday (19th). We'll see...

Friday 19th - updates during the day - by 4pm the new Etherway and Etherflow orders in place, so just waiting for something to happen. Should be "today" apparently. Remember, they installed on 1st, which would normally be the day it is live.

Finally 19:22, BT say the link is live and end to end tested and ready - except it does not work. They claim not to be any to see my kit on the line. Tried fibre and copper ports, and yep, comes up 1Gb/s on fibre port as expected, but still no joy. Arrrg!

OK, took me half an hour, but I checked the SFPs, and a simple mismatch, but I had a wired SFP/SFP cable which just worked - sorted and finally working. The SFP mix up was never going to work, but that did only waste half an hour...

Faster fibre

We will be upgrading the fibre to 1Gb/s as soon as we have a new 10Gb/s back end installed in London. We'll also have a nice shiny new FireBrick FB9000 prototype on the end of it really soon. These will take a bit longer, so more on that later.

It feels wrong somehow

I just paid for a copy of Word. I have never done that before in my life! I don't think I have paid for any Microsoft office product (i.e. I have never had to as not using one). It was actually a copy for Word for my Mac at around £100.

Why would I do this?

Well, short answer, BT.

They provide bills in RTF (Rich Text Format) only. No idea why not in PDF. We have tried to get them to see sense. They don't have to stop providing in RTF for those that want but just add that extra link on the portal for PDF, pretty please.

If you google you will find loads and loads and loads of ways to open RTF or convert RTF to PDF or PS, or LaTeX or text or whatever. Apparently TextEditor on Mac will open RTF, as will LibreOffice. So will unrtf on linux, but no, the magic RTFs that BT make are not handled by any of them. I even tried Wordpad on a windows VM! No joy. It seems to be XML (not ZIPPED) and says it is a Word document, but nothing can open it. Very frustrating.

So, an actual copy of Word - it was risky - if that did not open, what then? More shouting at BT? Refusing to pay until they fix it?

One time we had a VAT inspection, and VAT office threatened to disallow a lot of VAT if we could not produce the bill on paper or some readable format, which proved very hard. I think, at the time, they used an older RTF that would open, but was hundreds of pages long, so VAT inspector literally had to wait around half an hour for the document to open to see the front page with VAT details. That was very nearly very costly for us.

Their portal does not say how much the bill is (I think it used to, hence having paid the above bill) so we need to open it somehow, and usually someone in BT will load the RTF in to Word and save as PDF and email us, but I am guessing they are on holiday, and it is kind of handy to know how much we owe. Why are they so backward!

Now, my paid for copy of Word did work, though it would not export as a PDF (generates an error)! Thankfully, being a Mac, I just say "print" and select PDF and bingo, sorted.

Such a faff. It is not so much the £100, it is paying Microsoft. That just seems so wrong somehow.

Discounts and surcharges

One of the things that apparently confuse people, it seems, if that whenever you see a discount you have to see the flip side, that the un-discounted amount is much like a surcharge.

For example, I just saw this on facebook (with someone making the same point).

Yes, it says "free delivery" but a discount of 10% for collection.

I.e. the pricing clearly allows them to sell (food I think) for the discount price, so the extra 11% on top of that is a surcharge for deliveries.

That is very much not "free delivery", is it!

The trick is to always look at the other side of things.

Let's look at BT!

Now, BT have finally launched the rather odd lower price line rental for people with no broadband. It is described here. It is quite a lot cheaper than normal, £7/month off.

But let's look at this the other way around. What it is, in fact, can been seen as a £7/month surcharge if you get broadband. Even with another supplier than BT for the broadband.

How the hell has OFCOM allowed this basically anti-competitive behaviour - how are they allowed to link their price to competing providers independent services? Well, OFCOM actually encouraged and/or mandated this crazy scheme.

Interesting, broadband via your mobile does not impact the line rental. But on face value, broadband via cable, wifi, or other means would impact the price. It just says "Broadband with another supplier" is not allowed (but says mobile is OK). They actually say broadband via Virgin means you DO NOT get the discount. So this is nothing to do with the line being shared access to the copper or anything like that, it is simply a surcharge for taking a broadband service!

I am surprised it is even legal for this sort of linking of price to independent services from other providers. I cannot help feeling it should not be legal. It would be like us giving a discount on broadband if you use Daz washing powder.

However...

I have not found the formal contract terms - it used to be easy, so if someone finds them, let me know. But that web page is very clear about you having broadband - so presumably if your spouse, parent, child, friend, etc, has broadband installed at your house then the discount still applies (or rather the surcharge does not apply)?

Maybe two neighbours can install broadband for each other, and just use the wifi through the wall :-)

Ideally it means checking the exact terms to be sure.

P.S. Just to clarify, the discounted price is £11.99 from BT. A&A do a "line for broadband use" for £10 (no calls allowed) which obviously applies with having the broadband (only available with broadband).

Summer is coming?!?

I have mentioned this before, but it always amuses and annoys us that BT seem unable to handle summer time.

The usual areas of issues are XML, where a time ending in a Z is Zulu, UTC, not "local time". A time without a Z is "local time" (but local to which end? hence to be avoided). A time with ±HH:MM on the end is a specific time zone. We often see BT see a time and assume UTC when no Z, or local time when a Z it used and sent. It causes no end of issues. To be fair Talk Talk have similar issues on XML. We also see XML from BT with the Z explicitly but the time itself is local time and so everything ends up an hour out. Customers may have seen on clueless that target completion of work in summer is often 00:59:59 the next day (local time) as BT have sent a date/time ending in T23:59:59Z.

It amazes me that this is remotely difficult or not just fixed.

The other classic for a long time was the Microsoft Office invites that would always say meeting at time GMT, e.g. 15:00 GMT, when they meant 15:00 UK local time. So we would not be ready at 15:00 local time, expecting the conference call or whatever at 16:00 (i.e. 15:00 GMT).

This was made worse when Microsoft added a note along the lines of "Times in GMT do not reflect local daylight savings times" or some such, which to me explicitly states they really do mean GMT (UTC) and not BST in such cases. Madness.

Today I have someone in ops suitably annoyed as they normally finish by now, when BT wanted to co-ordinate a simple certificate change at 18:00 BST. At least, today, they finally confirmed the right time, eventually. This is not hard, honest.

Them:

We do not perform any cutover during business hours.
We have the slot at 18 BST on Thursday , we can have the cutover if its fine for you.

Me:

18:00 BST (so therefore 17:00 local time for us here in the UK) on
Thursday is fine for us although isn't that in business hours too?

We can also do 18:00 UTC.

Them:

We can do at 18 BST today. I will send the invite shortly.

Me:

Ah, OK, I don't have Exchange so that invitation doesn't mean a lot to
me, but parsing the text by hand it says:

DTSTART;TZID=GMT Standard Time:20171123T180000

So, OK, it's 18:00 GMT. I can still do 18:00 GMT but it is an hour later
than 18:00 BST. You have caused some confusion here. We are no longer in
daylight savings and 18:00 BST and 18:00 GMT are an hour different from
each other.

Them:

I am so sorry James.
Yes that’s 18:00 GMT.

Apologies for the inconvenience caused.

Better broadband

As our customers will know, at AAISP, we take the quality of the broadband service we provide very seriously, and one of the things we do is an LCP echo every second on every line.

Whilst that may not mean much to some people, what it means is we are constantly testing the link to each and every customer every second to see if there are issues.

Even though we are comparatively small compared to the big players like BT retail, we spot issues in back-haul networks before almost anyone else because of this monitoring. There are other ISPs using FireBrick, so we are not alone, but possibly one of the biggest ISPs using FireBricks, and collating the data over thousands of lines.

Over the years we have seen some really interesting issues, mostly with BT, but even with Talk Talk back-haul we have seen some issues. It is really good that both carriers are prepared to work with us to get issues resolved - although it can be an uphill struggle to get issues recognised initially.

The long grass.

One of the very first issues we found, many years ago, is something called "long grass". It is actually what made us start testing all lines all the time. It got that nick name because the latency response on our graphs is green at the bottom. The long grass was spikes of green at frequent but irregular intervals. These spikes of as much as 50ms occasionally were enough to interfere with VoIP calls.

It took months to get to the bottom of it, and ended up being some Juniper routers which seemed to stall for 50ms when they updated routing, e.g. when someone connected or disconnected a line (which is why the spikes are a bit random). They provided BT with a patch and it was finally fixed. As I say, this was years ago.

Only our monitoring, being able to put together a complete and exact list of the hundreds of lines impacted by this allowed it to be pinned down to specific makes of router. Also, the fact the same pattern of grass appeared on lines connected to the same specific router was also a clue. Almost any other ISP monitoring would not have picked up the issue at all, let alone made that connection.

As an aside, this level of issue is so specific, it is hard to see the likes of OFCOM ever understanding that this could count as a "fault" in any way. Even BT struggle to define this sort of thing as a "fault" and had it been just one line we would not have got them to fix it, which is a shame.

Dripping blood.

Another issue is congestion which results in packet loss, and that slows down lines quite a lot. Called "dripping blood" because we show loss as a percentage from the top of the graph in red. Even 1% of random packet loss can have a big impact on TCP file transfers. This is something that can happen for lots of reasons, but when we manage to correlate to a specific BRAS, metronode, exchange, or even cabinet, we can help ensure the issue is resolved.

On one occasion BT found they had some serious issues within their core network as a result of our monitoring and reporting to them. Again, like the long grass this impacted every ISP using BT back-haul. They had faulty / dirty fibre links, and had some serious misconfigurations on some ports and aggregate links. We had sight of the report to BT directors but sadly could not have a copy - and our monitoring graphs which we provided to BT were key throughout the report.

We had a similar issue on Talk Talk early on, a congested exchange. Turned out to be misconfigured port at 100M not 1G (or was it 1G not 10G, I forget). They fixed within the hour if I recall, thanked us, and ran a script that found half a dozen other similar errors where congestion was not yet happening.

Working with Talk Talk.

We have addressed many issues, especially in BT, simply because of the number of years we have been using them. Talk Talk have had fewer issues, and the main one has been some congestion for some customers. This has cropped up several times and been addressed with various workarounds. However Talk Talk are taking this as seriously as we want them to and they now have a new back-haul network using new Juniper LTSs. This should sort the various capacity issues we have seen and ensure the service is the quality it should be.

The fact we have had issues over the last couple of months is telling in the Think Broadband speed test survey where we were not the highest quality rating of 0.1, but only 0.2, last month. This is a big concern, and probably down to these issues. We were still the fastest FTTC provider they tested though. Whilst November may not be better we hope we are back to best quality metric in December, and of course retaining our top spot for fastest FTTC. Having this sort of independent and impartial testing is very important for ISPs like us, and far more than just blowing our own trumpet.

Today we are testing with some customers on the new Talk Talk platform, and expect to switch over once they are properly ready in a couple of weeks. We are one of the first on the platform, so this testing is important. Obviously those using the new platform may find the lines get kicked off or reset whilst TT are working on this, but so far the testing is going well, and they can always move back at any point.

Not just us...

So, overall, we are keen to work with carriers to ensure their network is the best it can be and so ensure our service is the best it can be. If that happens to make things better for other ISPs and their customers, so be it. As long as our customers have the best, we are happy.

BT Light user scheme

This is a bit of history...

When BT were the only telco in the UK, one of the things they had was a light user scheme. This was a totally automatic system which meant that if you used below a certain number of call "units" in a month you got an automatic discount per unused unit off your line rental.

It meant those not making any calls, or few calls, got line rental at a much lower level. It was the "social" tariff of the day as there were no "call bundles" or crap like that.

I remember those days, BT was simple to deal with, and they had sensible compensation for faults. Why did we ever change? Oh well...

I had a phone line, and back then I was living seriously on a budget. I also had a BT calling card allowing you to enter a long code on a phone box to make a call on your home phone bill. That itself was fun, as the payphone sent a DTMF sequence reporting its number and you could hear it do that. I did decode that once using calling party clear calls to the payphone.

The fun thing was that calls from my home phone line were circa 5p per unit, and calls using BT calling card were circa 10p per unit, both on my home phone bill.

I used Mercury when it was launched. It meant that most actual calls were made with a prefix and a code and charged by Mercury and not BT. So my BT usage was "light". As such I benefited from the light user scheme.

Bit I did, occasionally, use my BT calling card. And those calls appeared on my bill. As this meant some usage then the light user scheme rebate was impacted by my calling card usage.

However, the calling card had the impact that each 5p I spent reduced the rebate as one unit, and not each "unit" I spent (remember the calling card charges 10p/unit not 5p/unit).

I complained, and was told the advert/leaflet was not the "formal" price list, and that explained the actual rules. So I asked for the price list.

I got a thicker glossy brochure that said the same, the rebate is unused units not unused money spent. But it too had the caveat of not being the formal price list.

Eventually after many calls to BT they put me on the mailing list for the actual price list, and it was a big blue binder (later to be two binders) with every single service BT sold, and the pricing. From fractions of a penny for some services to millions of pounds for others. It was really interesting for a geek like me. It was a really useful reference many times when dealing with BT for many years.

It said the same, unused "units" get a rebate, not unused "5p spent". I won my argument over like 25p of line rental.

They eventually changed the rules not to allow use of Mercury for the social tariff, which is a lot like what we see now, charging more if you dare use someone else for your calls. Now it is charging more if you dare use someone else for your broadband, and we (AAISP) are on the receiving end of that bad contract being allowed under UK telecoms regulation. I see the need for a social tariff, but not the need for a price that depends what else you but from competitors.

But there is a funny story, such that I should thank BT for their ineptitude, hugely. I would not be here today if not for the above story. I'd be working for some large telecoms company still, I bet.

One day the courier that delivered the frequent (every week to two) updates to the formal BT price list (yes, on paper), accidentally mixed up the two distinctive Tyvek envelopes and delivery my update to someone else in Bracknell, and his update to me. Or may be the other way around. But the courier wanted to fix it when he realised, and the result is I ended up in touch either the other telecoms pedant in Bracknell, now a friend of mine, Kev. We went on to make FireBrick after many meetings in a pub, and that is the basis of our Internet service at AAISP.

So thank you BT for being so inept that I signed up for the BT Price List.

Advantage anyone not using Openreach?

There is a village where a friend of mine provides the villagers with broadband via WiFi, if they want.

In theory he competes with me. I (as AAISP) could provide them with broadband (internet access) via their phone lines.

We work on a pretty level playing field here - he has costs and so do I. To be honest it is a nuisance that my services "requires a phone line" to work and his does not. That is a disadvantage to start with. Thankfully they all have a phone line, phew.

Some of them do not need to make any calls on that line, or few calls, or won't need to once they have internet and VoIP systems. So they are prefect candidates for OFCOM's latest idea, a cheap phone line for people that only want a phone line only. Reduced to only £11.99 a month and no call packages, instead of £18.99 a month.

If they buy from my friend for their broadband, they can continue with that £11.99 package from BT and the reliability of that hard wired phone line for incoming calls and emergencies.

If they buy from me (as AAISP) they will now be stung by a price hike from BT to £18.99 with a call package they do not need. The "line only" package will not be allowed. It is allowed for my friend to offer broadband via WiFi, but not for me.

That did not used to be the case!

Suddenly, due to an OFCOM ruling, the "access to an Openreach metallic path" for broadband now has an extra cost. An extra £7/month.

I think we pay our way - we pay to access those wires, and a fair price. So why are we penalised by this. Please OFCOM, explain the logic of this change.

Why does access using Openreach now come with an extra £7/month catch - a cost my potential customer will have to pay that was not there before? Of course I say that but one company using Openreach is immune, and that is BT Retail themselves as they can choose to make a line+broadband bundle.

TBH, I am shocked that Openreach (as a logically separate part of BT) is not up in arms over this. They should be, as they will lose business over it. There is now a £7/month advantage to anyone not using Openreach wires to offer internet access!

BT can fine you for getting broadband elsewhere?

OFCOM have announced some changes which seem to allow BT to fine people for getting broadband elsewhere!

Basically, if you have a phone line only from BT, with no call packages, it is likely soon to be available for only £11.99, which is great.

However, if you then come to someone like AAISP for broadband, then BT will hike your phone line price up to £18.99 because you dared to buy broadband from a competitor.

This seems to be a deliberate move by OFCOM, which is really weird as OFCOM actually state "Ofcom also wants to help people who buy a telephone service fromone[sic] provider and broadband from another."

So far on twitter all OFCOM have said is things like "we consider that there is already a highly competitive bundles market offering these consumers better value for money" and pointed back to their web site. They have since confirmed this is what they intend though! It also seems that they clearly recognise that BT will offer a "bundle" which will effectively negate the £7 price hike if you go with BT for phone line and broadband. Also, their tweet makes no sense as "these customers" are those wanting phone line from one provider and broadband from another. These people cannot get a "bundle" for the two because they are different providers. These are the people OFCOM claim they want to "help".

To be clear, we are not comparing "buying a bundle" with "buying separately", which is something OFCOM mention and expect the bundle to be better value, which makes sense. No. We are comparing "NOT buying a bundle from BT" with "NOT buying a bundle from BT". Why the difference in price?

It is no different that saying BT can increase line price if you buy a mobile phone from someone else, or buy a particular brand of washing powder. It makes no sense.

It is also not clear what BT customers, that do not make calls, get for this extra £7/month exactly. After all the broadband side is paid by the other ISP independently. If customer get no more service from BT for this extra money charged then it is just a fine, plain and simple.

Assuming this insanity goes ahead it really is unclear how the actual mechanics of it will work.

It is not clear if OFCOM expect ISPs like AAISP to warn potential customers of the BT fine when buying from us. I doubt the availability checker tells us that this will happen, so that will be difficult. Maybe that will be added to the checker so we can warn people. I can imagine ADR cases over this, and we'll have to start "by buying broadband from us, BT retail will fine you £7/month by way of extra line rental - are you sure you want to go ahead?". I suspect the ASA may even have something to say if we did not include that cost in adverts.

It is not clear how BT will do this in their contract with the customer. I mean, what if a husband buys phone line from BT and the wife buys broadband from AAISP on the same line. Husband won't have broken any contract with BT, so why the penalty? Also what of a case of someone that buys phone line only from BT and their employer buys broadband (from other ISP) on the same line for working at home? Will employer be expected to compensate the employee the extra £7/month in such cases? Will that be taxable benefit in kind or just expenses?

It is not clear how Openreach will notify wholesale line customers when broadband is "attached" to the line so that they know to hike the price. I have not seen B2B/XML messages for that yet. Or will there be a new Openreach service to block ADSL or FTTC being added to a line? That will be tricky when moving line and broadband in one go.

Importantly it is not at all clear how the hell this cannot be seen as hugely anticompetitive and damaging to smaller ISPs that use Openreach lines for broadband, especially those not doing wholesale line rental.

What gets me is the clear and obvious group of people that want a "phone line" only tariff in the first place, i.e. no call bundles, are people that want the line only to support broadband, yet OFCOM seem to try and exclude exactly those people from this arrangement. It makes no sense at all.

Small ISPs without wholesale line rental packages are going to be screwed. And those that try to take it on face a nightmare of R&D for B2B XML and way more if they try to offer calls as well.

What should happen?

It is clear that BT Retail should offer a line only package, as they used to long ago, for people that do not want call bundles. There is a clear need for PSTN lines without calls. The wholesale price for the PSTN line is low - BT Retail can still make a profit offering a line only package with no call bundle.

You could argue that I am, being daft - AAISP offer line only for £10 so we are competing with BT on the line only part, why would I want BT charging less? The simple answer its thinking of out customers who should not have to change line providers if they don't want to.

It is also clear to me that whether or not someone pays another ISP to put broadband on that line (something the other ISP pays BT for separately) should not have any impact on this. Just as the customer's choice of mobile phone contract, or choice of washing powder, should not impact it.

It baffles me, given OFCOMs stated aim to help people buying from multiple providers, why they have not come to the same conclusion.

What are AAISP doing about it?

I am all for competing fairly, really. I fully understand buying separately can cost more, and if we are one part of that then fair enough. I don't mind competing in bundles. But to make it so that someone buying separately not only has the extra overall cost of doing that, but also gets fined by one of the providers, that is crazy and really seems anticompetitive to me.

We already offer a phone line with no calls for £10 inc VAT per month to support broadband from us. So moving line to us and taking broadband avoids the £7/month price hike, which is good. We don't try to compete on price, but the bundle does not work out too badly even so. But why should people be effectively forced to move the phone line part. We offer no calls, so people that want incoming calls or occasional outgoing calls will not find what we offer suitable. We do offer a package to move a BT number to VoIP at the same time, which helps address this in part. But we don't want to force people to move their lines to us if they don't want to.

If we can tell a customer is on this special tariff when ordering, we'll add a warning about the BT fine. I doubt we'll be able to tell though as I don't think OFCOM really thought this through somehow.


P.S. Some more thoughts...

BT have this tariff that is line only, and a condition will be that you must not have broadband on it. I already covered the case of someone else having broadband on it... But...

What if you get broadband from someone via WiFi/WISP or fixed 4G router or even Virgin. Will BT charge more for their line rental in that case too?

If so, that really does highlight how fucking stupid this is.
If not, then really does highlight how anticompetitive this is if a small ISP indirectly stings you for £7/month extra because they use DSL over Openreach lines but a WiFi/WISP does not. How can we compete on a level playing field with that?

Basically the only way this makes sense is if OFCOM consider that ISPs using SMPF and FTTC on a line are not paying their way for that access. Is that really what OFCOM think?

OFCOM confirm BT lied to us

Recently, BT plc stated, several times :-

"Openreach is not a communications provider."

OFCOM have now confirmed (as if there was any doubt)...

"BT plc (of which Openreach is currently a division, and of which Openreach Limited will become a subsidiary when it is incorporated) is a communications provider subject to various regulatory obligations set by Ofcom."

Oh well, not surprising I suppose. Thanks to OFCOM for confirming.

Dear OFCOM, can we play this game too?

I have recently been copied in to a couple of issues that some of my customers have had with BT plc. When I say BT plc, I mean the legal entity that is company 1800000, called British Telecommunications plc.

BT plc practice a form of corporate schizophrenia where they pretend to be more than one legal entity. Worrying this madness has spread to other organisations, notably the Ombudsman service that provide ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) for BT plc.

One complaint was against the BT Retail department of BT plc where an order caused another line to be broken, and the matter went to ADR. They case concluded with confirming "BT Retail sent the details correctly to Openreach", and basically that Openreach screwed up meaning case closed as ADR does not cover Openreach!

The other case is where The Ombudsman Service would not even take a case where Openreach were blocking a number port but would not tell anyone why, i.e. what "mismatch" existed, and BT Retail said there was no mismatch. They said they do not cover Openreach.

In one case, even though admitting that he (i.e. Openreach) is company 1800000, he kept insisting that Openreach was not a communications provider (a clear lie) and to contact his communications provider (which is company 1800000 and hence who my customer was talking to!).

This is, of course, nonsense. Openreach is BT plc; The contract these customers have is with BT plc;  The failure is by BT plc; The dispute is with BT plc; The ADR scheme covers BT plc. This needs sorting.

So the question to OFCOM really is whether this sort of stupidity pretend different companies is actually allowed. Can a company pretend that its different departments are different and hence pass the buck, blame another department, and get out of any liability even under ADR by doing so - a sort of internal force majeure. Is that actually valid?

If it is, then BT sort of get away with this crap, shame, but it also presumably means that A&A can tell CISAS that only our "sales department" are covered by ADR as only they sell to the public, and all other departments are not covered by ADR. This could greatly mitigate risk of any future ADR cases and allow us (unethically?) to "pass the buck" internally between departments with no liability.

If it is not, then can OFCOM please ensure that ADR schemes know that they represent a "legal entity" as a whole and not just parts of it, and that BT plc cannot blame itself for its own failings and get away with it!

Do courts agree with this lunacy?

In the mean time I have suggested, not as formal legal advice, just friendly advice, to both customers that they simply go for a county court claim against British Telecommunications plc, company 1800000. If someone from "BT Retail" turns up and says he cannot speak for "Openreach", then great, they can ask the judge for summary judgement as the defendant has not turned up. If someone from "Openreach" turns up and insists there is no contract the judge can be shown the contract with company 1800000, and again make a summary judgement as the defendant is claiming not to be the party to the contract! If both "BT Retail" and "Openreach" turn up, then one of them gets to take the blame for the error and again the judge makes a judgement against British Telecommunications plc company 1800000. I really doubt a judge would accept corporate schizophrenia as a defence or find it at all amusing.

Why do Openreach lie?

This is the statement from someone in Openreach today, and it is, in my humble opinion, a lie:

As I have said in my previous emails, Openreach is not a communications provider. We only maintain and install the network.

Why do I think it is a lie? Well, let's look at what a "communications provider" is exactly...

Communications Act 2003 section 405: “communications provider” means a person who (within the meaning of section 32(4)) provides an electronic communications network or an electronic communications service;

So let's look at 32(4): In this Act references to the provision of an electronic communications network include references to its establishment, maintenance or operation;

To me that is crystal clear that someone that simply maintains and installs [establishes] the network is categorically a "communications provider" by legal definition. Did I get that wrong?

What puzzles me is why they tell these lies - what have they got to gain by it? And if they do have something too gain by it, does that make the lie actually criminal fraud?

P.S. This is after he confirmed (eventually) that "Openreach" is UK company 1800000, so he is basically saying that British Telecommunications plc, company 1800000, is not a communications provider!

Teaching us to suck eggs? BT?

We have a customer on a fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) service which has packet loss.

The red is loss, as measured by one second LCP echoes over the PPP link, and is often over 5%. Levels of random packet like this are severely impacting his ability to make use of the service.

The loss started at the exact moment BT did work on the circuit due to a major outage, so is clearly related.

This is the line before the outage, and you do not get much clearer than that - no loss. Same as every day before :-

This is the day the line came back after their major outage (which lasted two days) :-

And this is the next day, which looks much like every day since :-

It does not take a rocket scientist to see there is a problem there - periods of around 5% loss, sometimes more, most of the day, every day, since the outage.

And yes, that is start of OCTOBER 2016! BT have failed to fix the fault for that long!

Today we got this, and I am almost at a loss for words! Talk about teaching us to suck eggs!

Is the customer using a VPN? Data is transmitted in discrete units known as packets. When a network server is overloaded, these can get discarded. 
This is known as packet loss and results in slow loading game dynamics and graphics, or the unsatisfactory performance of a VPN connection.
In such circumstances, there isn't much which can be done to improve matters, as the cause is not associated with your PC or broadband service.

I'm really not happy about this, but the "there isn't much which can be done to improve matters" is just shocking. We have asked BT to confirm if they are stating, officially, that 5% loss on an idle line is considered "acceptable" for a GEA/FTTC service - we await the response.

They even go on to say :-

In the meantime can you ask the customer to run some traceroute and provide and this hopefully will aid us in seeing where in the network  the packet loss is occurring.
SPs engineers can use a "wire shark" which can detect packet loss at points in network.

This is after explaining that we can see the loss at the LCP level on the PPP link and providing access to and copies of graphs showing the loss over and over again! It is like dealing with Dory to find a fault called Nemo. We keep having to repeat ourselves.

There is one other small snag.

We are all used to the notion of "fibre" broadband not actually being "fibre" which is why this is "Fibre to the cabinet". BT sell this to us as "Fibre to the cabinet" and call it FTTC. It turns out this line is in fact "Microwave to the cabinet". A good idea, normally, but not as described, and clearly beyond BT to actually understand and fix.

This just highlights the problem with a clear definition of the service: We need a clear specification of levels of idle/random packet loss, idle latency and jitter, reliability/resyncs, min sync speeds up and down, and even throughout before loss/latency starts. Without these you can literally spend months bashing your head against a brick wall and having engineer after engineer sent (each potentially costing around £200).

P.S. Today we get "Openreach have completed the engineering checks on the Radio back-haul and discovered some issues with the Link.". Well, yes, we have said this from day one (113 days ago). How bloody annoying. Maybe we finally get it fixed now.

P.P.S. After 120 days they finally fix the microwave link and the line is clean. So annoying.

BT and their wifi adverts

BT have made some interesting claims regarding their WiFi, with the latest being that it is the "most powerful".

Now this is a rather odd claim as "power" is not something that is all that relevant - power (measured in Watts) is not that helpful as a measure of WiFi, indeed many smaller APs with lower power can (I believe) provide a better coverage and performance. Saying you have the most powerful WiFi is like saying your house has the brightest street light outside it. The main impact being it will make other WiFi nearby worse.

BT have made all sorts of claims before, all of them (in my view) rather suspect. The claim of most powerful WiFi, when WiFi is a radio data system to strict international and national agreed standards, is rather odd. The WiFi will have the power within the standard and legislation, like any other WiFi. It cannot in practice be more powerful.

They even published a document to justify the claim (here).

First issue: "The BT Smart Hub has superior specifications than the routers of all major broadband providers". So only most "powerful" if you ignore the smaller providers. They only look at "major" providers. AAISP have been offering Unifi APs and packs of multiple Unifi APs for some years now, but that does not count as not a "major" provider.

Second issue: The comparison compared many things but not one of them was in fact "power"! They state: "The most important aspect of wi-fi for customers is their Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) throughput.". Whilst this is actually a quite good metric, it has absolutely nothing to do with the claim of being most powerful. Power is in Watts and is not a measurement of download speed.

Third issue: They actually tested the WiFi. This is good as that is what they are claiming is most powerful, but they are selling an "Internet Access Service" using this. The tests are nothing to do with Internet access (you can tell from the speeds they measured) and for most people any speed on the WiFi that is over the speed of their Internet Access is irrelevant, so no help. Yet the advert is to sell Internet Access, not simply WiFi APs.

Basically, they are simply claiming they have a good 3x3 antennae single AP WiFi system they sell/provide with the Internet access system they sell and that it is somehow more "powerful" than other ISPs. They ignore the other (smaller) ISPs selling systems just as good. They ignore those selling multiple access point solutions which are better. They ignore all of the non ISPs also selling this equipment. And they ignore that the actual "power" is the same on these devices and their claim of most "powerful" is not actually about "power" at all but TCP throughput.

Anyway, yes, consumers want an Internet access service that is good. If BT are "most powerful" in that, why are many ISPs (including AAISP) way higher in ispreview's list? (here)

Openreach/BT Split

As reported by BBC, OFCOM are getting Openreach split off as a separate legal entity from the rest of BT plc.

What do we think of that?

To be honest it is tricky - A&A deal with BT plc for both BT Wholesale and Openreach departments. The latter is for phone lines to support the broadband services we sell. Mostly we are dealing with the BT Wholesale part.

A lot of the reasons behind this are coming from some of the larger operators who have to deal with the Openreach part of BT much more. They are concerned that BT Retail get some preference of some sort. There are concerns over whether BT are investing enough in infrastructure.

I am not at all convinced by some of the arguments, as Openreach had 86% coverage of UK premises for VDSL (FTTC) back in April, and are pushing hard on this. So there seems to be quite a lot of investment in infrastructure. Also, we don't really see much in the way of preferrential dealing with BT Retail at all - it seems they, and Plus net, have as much hassle with Openreach as anyone else.

But the devil is in the detail, and it looks like the new Openreach will be owned by BT Group plc, so there is a source of investment via that route. But this also means one of the big issues still exists - if BT Retail pay lots to Openreach, that has no impact on my BT Group plc shares.

In practice, Openreach is already operated like a separate company - annoyingly so on occasions. This split will actually remove one useful aspect of being one company. At present, when dealing with BT Wholesale they will often blame Openreach (or "their suppliers") for a failure. Legally that could be force majeure (matters beyond their reasonable control) if they were not in fact the same company and in fact blaming themselves. Being able to throw that back at them can be useful and force them to do their job and not just blame someone else.

But otherwise I would be surprised if we see any difference at all from this move - apart from new contracts which gives them a chance to screw us over somehow.

Brick wall BT

Hurry up and build that wall, Trump, I want to bang my head against it as it would be easier than BT...

So, simple BT fault, suspected issue on fibre back-haul from an FTTC cab, started after MSO, so probably damaged to dirty fibre. Not a complicated fault at all.

Symptoms are idle levels of packet loss all day, sometimes peaking to 20%, that is shitty!

The dialogue sort of goes back and forth, but we finally go somewhere, after escalation, with a clear statement from BT:

'We have run diagnostics and can see numerous code violations which will require an engineer to liaise with 2nd line DCoE if the fibre escalation team are unable to assist.'

That is pretty clear, so we ask them to fix it.

• Us: Please fix the fault.
• BT: You need to book an SFI
• Us: An SFI is an optional service to check the metallic path to SIN349, nothing wrong with the metallic path here, so silly, just fix it
• BT: No, you have to book an SFI, that is the process
• Us: OK, what is the process for fixing this fault without ordering an optional service.
• BT: There is no other process
• Us: Are you really saying BT have no process to fix this fault without ordering an optional extra service - if so that is breach of contract as contract says you will investigate and fix faults
• BT: We don't see a BT fault
• Us: OK, so you are saying a line with constant loss peaking at 20% is acceptable, is that the formal standard BT work to?
• Us: What actual investigation did you do, and to what standard or reference did you test the line so as to decide there was no fault?
• BT: If you want us to investigate the fault report you raised further then please book an SFI
• Us: No, the contract says you will investigate and fix faults, are you refusing to?
• Us: Repeat of questions about this being "not faulty" at 20% loss?
• …

I'll add some more as it goes. But it goes round in circles.

Either BT

(a) consider this to be acceptable level of service, in which case, especially with ideas of universal broadband service obligations and automatic compensation, we need to take this up with OFCOM, BIS, and the Digital Economy Bill parliamentary committee as a matter of urgency.

(b) accept that this is a fault and BT are breaking contract by refusing to investigate and fix it.

BT just need to pick one and stick with that story to the end. Either that or just damn well fix the fault!

Pointless tests at BT Martlesham

We're having another rather interesting discussion with BT. This time BT plc t/a Openreach.

This is technical, so google the acronyms, sorry. But even if you are not technical you should appreciate the stupidity going on here.

BT have a process for testing modems that work on VDSL / FTTC lines. They even have contract conditions about deploying modems and expect them to pass this test. This does not seem to stop people choosing their own equipment that does not pass the test, so not an issue.

Obviously we want to sell equipment that passes the test if we can. It is getting a bit tedious trying to sort this. But one router we sell, the Zyxel VMG 1312-B10A, was submitted for testing and passed. It is not perfect and we are looking at others, but it is probably the best of the bunch for a consumer route right now, so let's not argue on that for now.

We were really pleased it passed the test, as one of the annoyances with that router is that in bridge mode it does not handle 1508 byte packets which are needed for PPPoE with 1500 byte IP packets. This is complicated, but basically the slightly larger than normal packets allow full size 1500 byte packets to be used on the internet and remove a number of problems with smaller MTUs. The BT modems supplied with VDSL/FTTC (when they supplied modems) did handle these.

Just to do the sums, the Ethernet over VDSL always has one VLAN tag, and could have another or even another. So if you take 12 bytes MAC, 2 bytes type, 4 bytes VLAN, 4 bytes second VLAN, 1508 bytes payload you get 1530 total bytes of Ethernet frame for a 1500 byte IP frame wrapped in 8 bytes of PPPoE header. We are thinking they want to support an extra VLAN tag as they have a VLAN tag as mandatory on the VDSL, so that makes it 1534 bytes total.

The test includes a requirement in SIN498 which states:-

"The modem shall support an Ethernet frame size of between 68 and 1534 bytes. For clarity, this figure includes 4 bytes for the C-VLAN, and excludes bits allocated to pre-amble, Inter-Frame Gap, and Frame Check Sequence at the user network interface (UNI). Support for frame sizes above 1534 bytes (inclusive of C-VLAN) is not guaranteed."

The 68 is the min 64 byte Ethernet with their mandatory 4 byte VLAN tag, and the maximum is the PPPoE maximum baby jumbo frame we worked out above. This spec was designed to allow PPPoE with full 1500 byte IP frames, obviously.

So far so good. I think that is pretty clear. I think, to pass that, I have to be able to send any Ethernet packet size 68 to 1534 bytes and the modem must support it. The Zyxel does not!!! It only handles 1500 byte payload. So cannot handle 1500 byte IP in PPPoE, and requires lower MTU and fragmentation, which has problems.

We know the Zyxel hardware can handle this as a script you can manually run via the CLI after boot makes it work, so this is a silly issue for Zyxel. One small edit to startup scripts and they could comply.

We asked BT why they passed!

Oddly it seems they test with all packet sizes 68 to 1534, and if any packet size works in that range they pass. They have confirmed categorically that if a modem only supported packets of 68 bytes it would pass that part of the test.

So I asked what of a modem that supported more than 1534, and they confirmed that it would, but they only test up to 1534.

Now, I hope that, even if you cannot understand all of the technical aspects here, you can see the logical flaw here.

The number 1534 plays no part in whether a typical VDSL modem passes the test or not! A model supporting only packet sizes up to 1526 passes, as does a modem that supports packet sizes up to 9000.

What is extra odd is the change notes confirm they actually reduced this spec from 1536 to 1534 at one point. They changed a number that has no bearing on the test result.

I can only assume that BT Martlesham have lost the plot and do not know how to do a simple test like this, or understand a simple requirement, or understand Ethernet or IP or PPPoE at all. I thought they were quite technical! Indeed, the test spec (elsewhere in the SIN) talks of checking the maximum supported frame size, and so does not actually test the requirements.

What I did find in the change notes is: "Requirement R.ETH.1 – Text reworded to clarify that multiple MTU sizes can be supported, one of which must be 1534 bytes". Well, "one of which must be 1534 bytes" is pretty clear.

In summary, I cannot take the testing seriously any more. We'll be reviewing modems based on our own tests and not on BTs test spec from now on.

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This also goes a little to some of OFCOMs work recently, on things like compensation for faults. This spec means that the service we buy from BT, when we got a BT modem (that had the same spec) as part of the service, it does not fit with selling an Internet Access Service. If they supplied modems that happened not to work on Ethernet packet sizes of 142 bytes long, but worked for the rest, it would pass their test and meet the definition of the service. But that is not a valid thing to do when selling an Internet Access Service. If you cannot actually have components from a near monopoly supplier like BT plc that allow you to actually sell an Internet Access Service, how can you possibly have any automatic compensation?

Why OFCOM's ruling on BT charging Talk Talk SFI and TRC charges does not help most ISPs

As reported by ispreview, Talk Talk made a complaint about the amount BT plc t/a Openreach charged for Special Faults Investigation (SFI) and Time Related Charges (TRC). They argued that the charges were not cost based and much of their complaints are upheld by OFCOM. There is now much ranting over back-dating and refunding, and so on.

As you know SFI charges are a major problems for most ISPs. The costs, of there order of £160+VAT per visit, are massively more than the monthly, or even annual, profit from selling a broadband line in most cases. Either ISPs get stung or end users get stung, even when the work done was fixing a broadband fault, something that we should not pay extra for!

To explain the problem you have to understand the layers of services provided. I'll explain for ADSL as this is where it is most relevant.

1. BT plc t/a Openreach sell wires in the ground, a metallic path service. They are not selling broadband.

2. BT plc t/a BT Wholesale buy the metallic path from BT plc t/a Openreach that connects a home or office to the exchange; their own equipment in the exchange (DSLAM); their own back-haul across the country; their own BRAS equipment; and routers and links to ISPs. They sell broadband. Talk Talk Business do the same as BT plc t/a BT Wholesale in this respect.

3. Companies like A&A buy broadband from BT plc t/a BT Wholesaled Talk Talk Business; have our own routers; DNS servers; and make use of transit and peering and equipment in data centres. We sell an Internet Access Service.

The complaint Talk Talk made is against BT plc t/a Openreach, and is only about the price. It is sensible for BT plc t/a Openreach to sell a service (SFI) that finds and fixes broadband faults as only their engineers can work on the network. It is sensible for BT plc t/a Openreach to charge for that, because it is over and above the metallic path they sell.

The issue we have, repeatedly, with BT plc t/a BT Wholesale and Talk Talk Business is that we have no interest in buying an SFI service. We already buy, and pay for, working, broadband and any work to fix that broadband is the responsibility of BT plc t/a BT Wholesale or Talk Talk Business. The fact that BT plc t/a BT Wholesale or Talk Talk Business have to pay BT plc t/a Openreach to find and fix broadband faults is not our problem, any more than the fact they may have to pay CISCO engineers to fix a BGP router in their network.

So our gripe has never been with BT plc t/a Openreach.

This ruling may make some SFI visits cheaper but as we should never pay for an SFI visit ever, and it is not a service we want to buy, all this ruling will do is make the amount we dispute every month slightly smaller. It won't solve anything useful for us. Sorry.

Even so, well done to Talk Talk on this - it will reduce their costs which is good news.