Do BT confirm 7 hour fix is a scam?

The actual conversation was:-

Adrian Kennard (12:00:40):
OK, can you confirm - even though this is 7 hour fix, BT plc have no controls in place to ensure you meet that 7 hour fix - is that the case?

Kumar Gundecha Sheetal (12:01:24):
Yes that in case when we are depended on OR for appointment

This seems to me to be a clear statement that BT do not have the necessary controls in place to actually meet the 7 hour fix targets they SELL to us. To me that appears to be a simple matter of criminal fraud to sell such a service.

We'll be taking this up with our account manager.

Update: After several staff (including myself) spending hours on echat and 4 attempts to book appointments, and involving senior people in BT, we finally get an engineer with minutes to spare. He has now left site with the line not working at all (rather than just ill) and hence has missed the 7 hour fix. What a surprise. This was a BT confirmed line fault so should have been "fire and forget" for us, not something using many man hours.

Update: Some people asked why I consider it fraud. If I offered to fix all faults within 5 minutes for only an extra £100 a month - would that be fraud, as I know I will almost never meet that target, even if I have a £5 SLG for not meeting it. Clearly selling a guarantee you quite simply have no intention (or means) to meet has to be fraud - it is a lie to extract money from us.

Update: They finally fixed it, late. But the notes suggest there are serious issues. Someone from BT said that as the engineer was working no it that they would "sleep" the fault until 8am tomorrow!

Update: More fraud? BT diagnosed this as faulty in the first place (i.e. not "right" when they tested) and have confirmed an "E-side change" to fix, but have had the cheek to clear this as a "Right When Tested" clear code meaning they will charge us for the engineer visit. That is a total lie and clear to me that it is a deliberate lie to get money from us, i.e. criminal fraud. How much of this do we have to take before just reporting to the police?

Update: I sent the fault back saying they need to correct the clear code, and they said to book an engineer. Seems excessive just to fix a clear code, but as they asked I have booked one. What a waste of (their) money?!

Update: BT actually stated in an email "please cancel the appointment as we never requested this action" which is clearly a lie as BT send a message "Please book an appointment with your End User."

"In stock" my arse!

4gon.co.uk still list the ruckus 7811 as in stock :-

They also offer 1-2 day delivery :-

Yet when you order they say :-

Many thanks for your order, please be aware that we have to order this
product directly in from Ruckus, there is a 4-6 week lead time on this.

So that sounds a lot like they were outright lying to me to get my business. Sounds a lot like an offence under the Fraud Act 2006 to me.

Then they ask :-

Please advise how you wish to proceed?

So I have suggested that maybe they can ship the one they have In stock on their 1-2 day delivery...

We'll see what happens.

Update: (12th) They finally changed their web site.

Snom m9 IPv6

The SNOM m9 VoIP phone just works using IPv6 with a FireBrick FB2500 VoIP call server.

I was expecting to have to tweak something or diagnose something one way or another, but no - we plugged it in - set the identity (server, username, password), and it works - incoming and outgoing calls - using IPv6.

We'll do a few more tests, but so far I have to say well done to SNOM!

The FireBrick handled the call and bridged the media between IPv6 and IPv4 with no problems.

We just need a simple cheap desk phone that does IPv6 now, please, snom...

broadbandchoices.co.uk

They claim in TV adverts to compare all of the best broadband choices in your area, but do not include AAISP or most other small ISPs in their comparison.

Their web site states "We are totally impartial" on the main page, and they are OFCOM approved as a comparison site. OFCOMs rules confirm that excluding some providers is likely to mislead.

We asked broadbandchoices.co.uk if they can list us and they say it would be logistically impossible to do so - yet somehow other comparison sites manage it - suggesting that it is logistically possible. I did suggest that maybe they could contact thinkbroadband of ispreview if they need advice on logistics ad both sites manage to list us!

So, they do not compare all of the best choices, they are not totally impartial, and they claim things are impossible when they are not. I wonder what else they tell people is also incorrect?

ASA said that the site had "natural search engine results" or some such and they could not help. They had to be convinced that my complaint was about the TV advert not the web site.

However, finally, today, I have a reply from ASA and they are taking on the case. It seems their next step is to contact Clearcast and the advertiser on this. Will be interesting to see what they say.

Odd, though, no reply from OFCOM on this, or indeed on other issues we have raised (such as the TPS). I wonder who one complains to about OFCOM not responding. I suppose we should keep a record of this so that we have an example to refer to of what is an acceptable level of response if ever we have another ADR where the main reason to pay compensation is slow responses to queries. If OFCOM can ignore queries or take weeks to reply, clearly that is acceptable. :-)

Ideal outcome from this: That we are listed on their site, even if only our consumer Home::1 package.

Have you tried rebooting it?

Why do we live in a world where rebooting is a normal thing. It is sad, and I have to say it is largely down to the ease of making faulty software (for which I can be blamed in some cases)...

Today, I was being a dumb consumer, trying to get my TV working. How hard can it be?

The TV was silent with a blue screen, not good. The sky box was being unresponsive. Hmm.

Power cycled the sky box, which is usually all you need. Still blue screen. At one point I got some sound and a blue screen.

OK, give in, turn off the whole lot for 30 seconds... Power on. The sky box is feeding an image over HDMI on the boot up "Sky+HD, please wait". So that works...

Yay, after much waiting (why do things take any time to boot?) we get an image. The sky demo channel, but not sound. Try another channel, no joy.

The Bose sound system is off. OK, well, I did power cycle everything. But I can't turn it on (power button or remote). Check leads, plugs, etc. No joy, WTF?

OK, so I switch to TV speakers - still no sound. WTF?

OK, so, lets try one thing at a time. Tell TV to go on to iPlayer. Arrg! Loud... Turn down TV speakers, still loud. Hang on? The Bose is on, and working and on high volume. Turn that down, switch TV speakers off.

Back to sky and still no sound. Arrrg.

OK, change channel on Sky and magically we get sound.

All is working again.

But WTF! Why is this not easy? Why does it not just work FFS...

I diagnose equipment and networks and hardware and software as my day job. But I have no idea from this which of three boxes was ill, or why, or what it was actually doing. What hope do ordinary consumers have in the face of this?

Clean desk policy?

Finally moving in to new offices - after several minor delays.
(Does this desk make me look fat?)

Hopefully we have everyone in by the end of the day. Well done to everyone chipping in, and moving desks and phones and computers and everything else.

Update: It would be cruel not to include this one too. And I did a lot of supervising with a camera in my hand. Impressed with all the work done by everyone.

The next IPv6 CPE challenge

For some years I have been almost campaigning to get some IPv6 capable, cheap, and usable broadband routers.

Finally their time has come - many manufacturers have finally seen the writing on the wall, and made sensibly priced consumer ADSL and PPPoE (for FTTC) CPE that does IPv6. We see Technicolor and Zoom as the leaders, with Zyxel following, but they are not alone. We currently ship the Technicolor kit at A&A. IPv6 is standard for all new customers, even home users.

Well done.

The next challenge and campaign is simple, good, cheap IPv6 VoIP phones.

This is much the same as we were a couple of years ago with DSL routers. There are some, yes. There are special IPv6 versions of code for some phones. Snom is our VoIP phone of choice, but their IPv6 code simply did not work and they told us they were doing no more work on it. WTF?

We have been able to test IPv6 SIP. We coded this in to the FB2500 and FB2700, and were able to test on one make of phone, with test s/w, which mostly worked. It actually had an odd delay answering the initial ring, but otherwise is fine. It needs finishing.

We have the challenge of finishing the second phase of VoIP code in FireBrick. The next phase is the large scale VoIP server based on the FB6000, as opposed to the very capable PABX functions in the FB2500 and FB2700. This will allow A&A to change over to a new call server. Even so, IPv6 is built in from the start, as you would expect.

But until we find sensible, cheap, usable IPv6 phones, we are a tad stuck.

So - lets see it... We'll do our bit - we'll test and develop the call server with back to back IPv4 to/from IPv6 RDP gateway routing. As an ISP we'll work on suitable firewall settings for IPv6 VoIP via the IPv6 CPE like the Technicolor.

With the right CPE (phones) we can make a VoIP phone a common and standard offering with broadband, finally killing the old fashioned copper pair based analogue voice for home users.

Update: We're going to test the SNOM m9, but that is not quite the low end basic phone I am after really.

Update: The snom m9, err, just works, with a FireBrick as VoIP gateway. Yay!