This tale is about the installation process for my new high speed broadband. The situation was simple: - The modem needs to go on the main phone socket, not an extension - There is no mains power anywhere near the main phone socket Therefore, we needed two things: - The main phone socket moved - The FTTC installation done. This ought to be simple, right? Because ultimately it is Openreach who will do both of those things, and it is utterly pointless and a waste of time and resources for them to send out two vehicles and two people and two sets of equipment, just to install a new main socket, then immediately remove it again and install the filtered splitter socket for the FTTC. Of course, I should just be able to call Openreach and they should be able to amend the work order so that one person comes out and does both jobs, right? Right? I speak to BT, who of course are obsessed with furthering the idea that BT and Eclipse and Openreach, and the services and technologies they provide, are completely separate and unconnected, which is a key part of the whole ridiculous fantasy within which Openreach exists. After being passed from "Daniel" to "Steven" to "Michael", all of whom have extremely strong south asian accents and an insufficient grasp of English to really understand what's going on, I'm told that it's impossible to arrange for both of these jobs to be done by the same person. This is, of course, because Eclipse are installing my broadband, not Openreach, and because BT are doing the socket move, not Openreach. Remember, folks: BT can't coordinate their installation with Eclipse's installation, and neither of them will be done by openreach. These jobs will be done by completely unconnected and separate entities. After all, the fact that BT and Openreach are completely separate companies is more or less the only reason that the UK telecoms industry is fair and equitable, right? So, on installation day, I wait - without much enthusiasm - for trucks with "Eclipse" and "British Telecom" on the side to turn up. Remember, neither of these jobs will be done by openreach. Obviously, if they were, that would mean that BT still had a 100% monopoly on telecoms in the UK, wouldn't it. Wouldn't it?
I caution you now; Homehubs also have a nasty habit of overheating and occasionally crash with no warning. BT has already replaced the current one once, and it's still not quite working.
I don't have a homehub, I have a... whatever Eclipse was willing to pay for. Which has BT written on it. On a related point, this all actually happened a few months ago, and this morning I got a letter telling me they need to book a date to give me a new modem anyway, since the existing ones are faulty. Eclipse, Openreach and BT are all mentioned on the letterhead, but the actual modem swapout will be done by an outfit called Kelly Communications. I'm fully expecting another fleet of Openreach trucks to turn up.
I used to work for BT, so I can understand your pain completely.. Fact is BT Openreach do own the infrastructure as it was split off from BT so that BT wouldn't hold a monopoly. In principle BT Retail shouldn't have any faster access or easier access to Openreach systems, but they do. There's a lovely fine layer of separation which basically is 'Log in to OneView' and that sorts that out. It's all under the BT umbrella but different companies in the same group. They've basically done the bare minimum to appease the judgement and made it as difficult as possible for other companies to sort anything out. Basically any cabling from the back side of the master socket upwards is entirely owned by Openreach, companies can lease their equipment etc (save for in the case of LLU where from the exchange the pair is unplugged from one set of switches and plugged in another (usually done virtually)) But to answer your final question, do BT still have a 100% monopoly on telecoms in UK? No. Virgin Media and Manx Telecom (Kingston upon Hull) still maintain a reasonable market share, and in the case of Kingston Comms (Manx) they actually have a monopoly in Hull. You actually can't get BT there IIRC. Now for other things like 999 and Operator call handling, that's pretty much handled by one of two companies, BT and C&W, BT handle BT (inc virtual companies like talk talk etc), Virgin Media, o2, Vodafone, Orange, some satphone companies, most VoIP providers with e999, and GPS enabled cars with emergency assistance. In addition to TypeTalk (for use by the deaf and hearing impaired). C&W handle home territories of C&W/Telewest areas that were merged into VM, and T-Mobile (and associated MVNOs). The upshot of this is, depending on who you're with for phone service means how fast you'll actually get through to the Emergency Service you've requested and how you'll be greeted when you initially ring up. BT have much better equipment for this that passes on during a live call details like your address and so on without the operator having to verbally pass it (except for confirmation) (There are a few services that haven't got EISEC (the system I'm on about) but they are few and far between, and the ones that don't tend to have a compatible but slightly different system) Hope that covers it! [edit] and just to add something about FTTC, that is actually entirely Openreach's domain. As yet there are no LLU FTTC services truely out there, and as I said from the master socket back is Openreach's. The modem (NOT a homehub) is an Openreach ADSL modem, (which IIRC is cable of bundling two 21CN ADSL lines together to allow for double the speed!). Basically it's a copper version of a VM modem, just without a wifi router and switch built in. (as in the homehub, which you can still use for phone services only (v1.0 - v2.1 Only) or as a router/wifi/switch with the Infinity hub (v3.0) which has no DECT functionality (no phone basically)
Openreach and Kelly Communications are ones that do the FTTC installs. Ive seen quite a few threads recently where multiple jobs have required multiple engineers to come out. As the BT or policy is 1 job at a time which has to be completed before another one is given. It sounds pretty stupid but thats the way that they run their system, talk about being inefficient. The comment about BT having a 100% monopoly is wrong, this is taken from owner of TBB Oftel and Ofcom have put into place the seperation that exists, i.e. there is equivalance of input between difference sections of BT, this ensures competitors have equal access. The only part that BT has SMP is in the local loop, outside of that they do not have a monopoly as compeiton is very strong. Why no one else has invested into making a second local loop is due to the massive cost and rate of return- rock bottom internet prices means lack of investment into infrastructure on the local level- hence why only bt is investing into fibre, after ofcom finally allowed them back in 2009.
Having to deal with Openreach everyday at work I can tell you they are the most backwards and stubborn company.
I think it's only realistic to believe this if you accept that Openreach and BT are completely unconnected companies. Which they very, very obviously aren't.
Yeah, it's very true sadly, Virgin make life a fair bit difficult for BT 999 as well to be fair... but in regards to monopoly as I said they don't have one truly due to VM and Kingston Comms
I have BT, my line speed was "rated" at 12Mbps- but it runs at a peak of 8Mbps. I checked online for BT Infinity in my area, and using my telephone number I was slated for a November 2011 install. November passed... my date was changed to January 2012. January passed... my date was changed to March 2012. I logged in recently to check... I am now slated for June 2012. Packet-shaping/throttling is ridiculous. I am forced to push *all* my traffic over my SSL VPN and bounce it across the USA first to avoid throttling, packet-shaping, and DNS redirect [redirect to a BT page if the URL is wrong]. Fortunately my VPN server is hilariously fast so I still run at the full 8Mbps line-speed I get from BT- but all the time- and I just add 75ms latency due to the trans-Atlantic hops- which is fine as long as I don't play FPS games online, etc. Keep in mind that by their nature, SSL VPN traffic has a higher priority on network/core layer switches at ISP's and NSP's and is not challenged/throttled as normal traffic would be- at least BT ignores it to that extent. But the fact that I have to run over SSL VPN non-stop was not what I had hoped for. The random connectivity drops are a pain in the ass too (3-4 times per week). The Internet is very different in the UK then Canada.
Well, don't worry, even if they do eventually get round to doing it, maybe they'll do it twice! Although on second thoughts, why would any predominantly English company invest in Scotland at the moment, particularly infrastructure. Edit - and if you're endlessly torrenting, I have no sympathy about traffic shaping. I have friends who've complained about this, and I have friends who torrent endlessly, and these groups overlap 1:1. Stop doing it.
It's not about torrenting- it's about having my traffic fiddled with, and throttled during "peak" hours to around 1-2Mbps. Having to jump through hoops to get the Internet to work as BT promised is ridiculous.
When we got FTTC installed bt wholesale turned up 3 times, installed all the stuff only to find that bt retail hadn't enabled the line connection. They did this 3 times! Even bt themselves cant communicate Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
And this is why we use Eclipse. Expensive, but great. They have the best technical support of any company I have ever interacted with, ever. But expensive.
As Lorquis has posted, the companies are seperated enough to meet the approval of the regulators. Since nothing more has been done by the regulators to create further separation whats the issue. While all the different parts of BT are under the BT group the communiction between them all is very poor, as has been shown due to one part not knowing what the others are doing etc. Whats the issue, most of the UK's utility companies are foreign owned, if Scotland did separate it would have its utilites owned by a UK company nothing more, UK goverment funding is avalaible and BT is the only bidder left so they will invest.
We recently changed from BT to Sky (both non fibre optic and 12Mbps max). Our download speed doubled, and our upload tripled. This could, of course, be partly due to the old Homehub and the much newer Sky router, but I think it was mainly the line change. It also means we don't have to deal with BT's abysmal customer service.
