Don't Order BT DSL Products With Line Rental...

dahamsta

...at least not if you want it with any sort of reasonable timeframe.

BT places the WLR (Wholesale Line Rental) orders first, and the DSL order can't proceed until that's completed. Eircom's lead time for this is seven days, and in my case they took the entire seven days to do it. On top of that, BT took another five working days to ask for the infamous deposit, and another two working days to actually send in the WLR order. When the WLR order is actually completed, you're effectively locked into BT until the DSL order is completed, because the other operators can't give you a credible lead time.

Total time in my case before they actually placed the DSL order: Three Calendar Weeks. No credible admission of fault from their new Head of Consumer Sales & Service, Pat McCabe, who was (presumably) supposed to be helping the process along. No credible apology, no offer of discounts or freebies for the inconvenience caused, just ass-covering and bull**** every step of the way.

So no change at BT then, just the usual incompetence and idiocy.

adam

Board@Work

hmm interesting.. I was going to go with them in case IBB cant get line of sight

ozt9vdujny3srf

Incredible!

MorningStar

Are all telecom companies just crap? I don't think any of them are any different. People can blame Eircom for unbundling problems but bad customer service in control of the companies is their own fault.

bk

Adam, that is good going, they seem to be improving!!!

Last year when a couple of friends signed up for them it took 3 - 4 months to get just BB!!!

Solair

I just ordered BT Broadband with line rental and I have to say the service was excellent.

I ordered on May 10th and the service was running by May 15th!

Also ordered their talk plus package which took slightly longer to activate than the broadband.

I get the impression that delays are not necessarily anything to do with BT as they're relying on eircom's staff to switch you over.

I don't think it's fair to say "Don't Order BT Broadband with Line rental" based on a single user experience.

You just had back luck! They're all equally random when it comes to lead times.

They were having some kind of problems with their online sales system. So, it might be worth giving them a buzz on 1904 and asking someone to check it out for you. They're reasonable enough if you're reasonable with them.

Sponge Bob

Were you already paying BT the line rental Solair ?

dahamsta

What Sponge Bob said Solair. Were you?

Yes, some of the delays are down to Eircom, but according to the official processes, BT are completely at fault here. They held the WLR order for seven working days, or eleven calendar days; five due to the fact that they didn't contact me to request their fantastic deposit, the other two just because they left it sit there. That's just sheer incompetence, probably driven by what appears to be positively awful training.

You think I didn't phone them? How stupid do you thing I am exactly? I've been "reasonable" with them four times on the phone (out of a total of six, I wouldn't say I was unreasonable the last two times but I certainly wasn't taking any more crap), and I've tried my damndest to be reasonable with Pat McCabe since he contacted me last week, but he's just been preoccupied with covering his ass.

Reasonable my hole.

adam

bk

Adam, I think you are just pissed because they didn't give you freebies like Eircom did in the past

Really 3 weeks isn't that bad, it could be better, but in all fariness it certainly has improved.

dahamsta

Now I've received an email telling me the order is complete, and their website is showing it as cancelled. This is better? EDIT: He cancelled the original order and placed another one. It's the Oirish way.

(I know you're joking bk, but I'm really not that bothered about the money. However an honest admision of fault and an apology would have gone a long way. At the very least they would have shut me the hell up for a while.)

adam

wheresthebeef

I ordered BT four weeks ago. Since then they made a mistake with my order by putting down the wrong account holders name resulting in eircom refusing it. They didnt even have the courtesy to ring me, i had to ring them after a week. Then they re-ordered, this time not bothering to check if i had previously had BB, then when i rang to see where my briadband was i was told i need an eircom cancellation number. No one in BT had the courtesy again to ring me and tell me about this. I waited again, and again and again until finally after 4 weeks the little green "DSL Sync" light comes on on my modem. So i turn on the computer and go to use the service only to find that the username and password i was given for broadband dont work.
So i am still on dial up at the moment.

BT Ireland are a sack of *******.

Solair

We've 2 lines.

1 was with BT for calls + line rental

The other was with eircom for just calls.

Decided to move the second line over to BT for line rental + DSL (As it's a good discount on the line rental)

Whole process took about 5 days at the very most.

Sequence of events:

Ordered online.
2 days later: Email and phone call from a sales rep to clarify a few details.
Everything confirmed by email at the end of that call.
1 day later modem and filters arrived in post.
Plugged it all in, and it worked.

The line rental and calls didn't click in for at least 5 days after the IOL BB DSL became active.

To be honest, I was quite impressed they were pretty quick. Maybe things are changing! or perhaps it's much easier for them if you already have a BT account and direct debit set up etc etc.

Sponge Bob

Solair wrote:

The other was with eircom for just calls.

Decided to move the second line over to BT for line rental + DSL (As it's a good discount on the line rental)

Whole process took about 5 days at the very most.

That sounds much better

The line rental and calls didn't click in for at least 5 days after the IOL BB DSL became active.

And that explains the problem that Adam described. It appears that BT (and all the other operators ) must :

1. Activate the BB while you are still an 'eircom line rental' customer
2. THEN activate the single billing request to transfer the line rental over to them.

I shudder to think of how the BT billing system digests this , it can best be descrbed as clunky. I would advise BT to synch the billing on the day the second of those requests goes thru because their staff cannot possibly deal with the inconsistencies otherwise .

In Adams case they did step 2 first and ballsed the procedure up , of course the fact that they must do it in that sequence is a great tribute to our regulator, Comreg, and to their farsighted policies and their stout defense of of proper competition in the telecoms market in Ireland.

Respect , Lots !

RuggieBear

i was thinking of changing over from UTV to BT but i just couldn't face the hassle and chance (certainty?) that it wouldn't be smooth...

Sponge Bob

Find out the procedure on

http://www.askcomreg.ie/

dahamsta

Sponge Bob wrote:

In Adams case they did step 2 first and ballsed the procedure up

Precisely. Pat McCabe told me last week that they were swapping the process around so this WLR delay wouldn't happen, so it would be interesting to know if Solair's order was processed in the last 2-3 weeks or before the WLR/DSL promotion was launched. If the former, it would appear they've fixed it and we can all live happily ever after. I'll reserve commentary on the latter until I know, just so's I don't burst a blood vessel or anything.

of course the fact that they must do it in that sequence is a great tribute to our regulator, Comreg, and to their farsighted policies and their stout defense of of proper competition in the telecoms market in Ireland.

Precisely, although as we're regularly reminded, BT had to agree to this process too. They agreed to the seven working day process for WLR, for example - which as far as I'm aware is an entirely administrative procedure - and the fifteen day process for bitstream. I'm sure BT's logic is that they don't want to create a hostile environment with their supplier, but is there really that much to be gained?

It should also be noted that because Eircom Wholesale and Eircom Retail haven't been separated administratively by ComReg, the WLR process creates a competitive disadvantage for OLOs. When WLR was implemented, Eircom Retail's customers should all have been converted to Universal Account Numbers to put operators on an equal footing.

adam

Sponge Bob

dahamsta wrote:

When WLR was implemented, Eircom Retail's customers should all have been converted to Universal Account Numbers to put operators on an equal footing.

The ESB did that (issue a universal account code) early on this year although a cynic would say it was to aid spending in their usurious shops.

Now everyone has 2 account numbers, the 'old' one which is the universal one I think and the 'new' one which is ESB only and which withers if you leave them for Airtricity or Viridian

junglequestions

Hi,
Has anybody got any contact email addresses for the heads of the Sales, Customer services , entire broadband and head of BT UK?

If so please forward them to me as I am writting a lengthly and detailed letter of complaint today to them. It has been two months since i ordered their broadband and line rental and they are still messing me around

Solair

the way the electricity market's being handled is light years ahead of what's going on in the telecom's sector!

I mean:

1) ESB was split into 4 units
ESB Customer Supply - Sells power to retail customers.
ESB Networks - Maintains local distribution networks and connects customers (regardless of who their supplier is)
ESB Power Generation - Generates power
Eirgrid - Owns and operates the national grid.

Why wasn't something similar done with Telecom Eireann ?

2) They implemented universal account numbers and easy procedures for transfering customers between suppliers a long time before they opened the market.

Again, why wasn't this done with telecom eireann ?

ComReg's approach seems to have been to open the market then to react to all of the problems as they hit them.

CER, their energy equivilant, seems to be totally proactive and have just got it right from day one.

Maybe they've been watching ComReg, taking notes of how note to do things and just getting it right! or maybe they're not a bunch of bumbling bureaucrats, unlike their collegues at ComReg.

Then again, many of their staff apparently originate in the ESB, an organisation that's always been pretty good at what it does.

The power sector in this country's generally excellent. The telecom's sector could really do with taking a leaf out of their book!


Oh yeah, btw BT did screw my accounts up:

I now have 2 completely seperate BT accounts, one for each phone number and the bills are being direct debited at totally different times of the month.
What a company!! They should get an award for utter incompetance!

Btw, I also noticed that on my eircom.ie account summary my eircom line's have changed from 021 XXX XXXX to weird numbers beginning with 7777-XXX XXXX ... is this some kind of universal ID number for the actual line?

cousin_borat

Just to add to wheresthebeefs comments, I've had identical problems

My order was made on the 4th of April and still have no BB. After the to-oing and fro-ing with the bloody deposit (Eur 150) the order was allegedly gone to Eircon for processing. After calling frequently to find out the status and hearing various explanations for the delay a note came back on the 26th May on their system saying that they needed a Cancellation number. A cancellation number is required if there was previously another BB provider on the line, ie Eircon.

DESPITE the fact that they were informed at the very beginning that we were changing from Eircon.

This is notwithstanding the fact that I have a seperate Business account manager in BT dealing with two Business packages for other companies that I do some work for. The a/c manager claims that their Business section cannot deal with residential accounts, ever.

Anyhow I have cancelled the two business orders for companies with their business account manager (Sharon) and changed them to Leap Broadband. This was the last straw after several other problems with the business lines.

The only reason I'm still with BT for residential is the "no minimum contract" and the masochistic streak in me to see this through!

Somebody made the point on another thread that a very good complaint letter to write would be to BT in the UK pointing out that this shower of useless twats in Ireland are operating under their name and setting new standards in incompetence and raising the bar for bad customer service to dizzying new heights.

BTW I think people who don't apportion an significant amount of blame to Comreg are missing the point, they're responsable for alot of this mess as well.

dahamsta

Solair wrote:

the way the electricity market's being handled is light years ahead of what's going on in the telecom's sector!

That was very nicely put Solair, you should tidy it up into a formal open letter and send it to: Isolde Goggin, John Doherty, Mike Byrne, Noel Dempsey, Mike Moloney, Oisin Fanning, etc. It'll take ten minutes of your time to make a very valid point that most of them will have to respond to.

You'd better believe they'll be getting an open letter from me when my own personal ridiculous situation rolls to a tired finish. Still no sync light on my effing modem today though.

adam

junglequestions

150 Euro deposit! Strange they only took 125 from me....

they should all be hung!

Nyum Nyum

I'm with UTV and signed up for BT last month.

They just rang now and asked did I send the Transfer Authorization form in as they had no record of it. I sent it last month with the line rental form.

Getting a new DTAF sent out which will no doubt delay everything again....

Tweaky

I had no problems with the process. Our exchange was enabled on June 1st and order placed on June 2nd with modem arriving today the 8th.
The line rental process can now start as dahamsta pointed out they have changed their process and everything is now a lot smoother - for me anyway.

junglequestions

I'm guessing that there are just different teams of people assigned to different areas. That is why some peoples orders are going through.
Still waiting and still receiving excusses since April 4th!!

they will get a a wake up call after it is set up!!!!

dahamsta

Good that they've switched around the process now, hopefully they're addressing the underlying issue of badly developed and implemented processes, both internally and on Eircom's side.

There does seem to be a major issue with training in there, the staff don't seem to all be on the same page. When I was trying to sort out my issue not only did I get a different answer every time, some of them were patently wrong.

adam

beller b

dahamsta wrote:

...at least not if you want it with any sort of reasonable timeframe.

BT places the WLR (Wholesale Line Rental) orders first, and the DSL order can't proceed until that's completed. Eircom's lead time for this is seven days, and in my case they took the entire seven days to do it. On top of that, BT took another five working days to ask for the infamous deposit, and another two working days to actually send in the WLR order. When the WLR order is actually completed, you're effectively locked into BT until the DSL order is completed, because the other operators can't give you a credible lead time.

Total time in my case before they actually placed the DSL order: Three Calendar Weeks. No credible admission of fault from their new Head of Consumer Sales & Service, Pat McCabe, who was (presumably) supposed to be helping the process along. No credible apology, no offer of discounts or freebies for the inconvenience caused, just ass-covering and bull**** every step of the way.

So no change at BT then, just the usual incompetence and idiocy.

adam

That's well within the 25 working days that they quote on thier order confirmation email (& a hell of a lot quicker than Smarts 3months plus)

junglequestions

Still waiting on BT since 4th April - JOKE is the only word for them.
Don't expect them to contact you for anything - i.e. the deposit, the eircom cancelation number etc etc etc.
you'll only find out they have been waiting for these once you ring them.
Suppose there is no point in complaining to ComReg either cuz they are a JOKE also

ghost26ie

they acme to my parents house about a 2 month ago. we signed up for it. about a month ago but when i asked about the broadband they said no one had booked it for us.

ghost26ie

they did transfer our line rental and calls over to their service tho.

Daemonic

No problems with BT here, ordered BB & Line Rental package, on a newly installed phoneline on the 8th of June, was up and running with BB on the 17th.
I'm still waiting for the Line Rental bit to happen (BT order tracking site still not showing it as complete), but i was very happy with how quickly DSL was enabled.