The SIN 349 Problem of Trying to Get BT Wholesale to Fix Broadband Faults

It’s fair to say that some ISPs in the United Kingdom have never had much love for BT’s Special Fault Investigation (SFI / SFI2) engineer service, which often struggles to identify broadband faults and can result in a string of disputed charges. Today’s story highlights another example.

Strictly speaking BT should not charge ISPs (related fees can also get passed down to end-users) for fixing faults that exist within their own realm (network), but in reality the national operator far too frequently takes an approach that can only be described as loopy (e.g. trying to force a copper line test on a fibre optic FTTP line, yes it happens).

One such example stems from the requirement to test lines to the SIN 349 (Metallic Path Facility, Interface Description) specification. The problem with SIN 349 concerns the fact that it’s a technical specification for the copper pair for telephone use and is not really ideal for identifying broadband faults.

At this point we should say that Openreach (BT) supply SFI is an “optional” extra chargeable service over and above the metallic path service they sell to help diagnose and repair broadband issues where the metallic path is as per SIN349. Meanwhile BTWholesale seem to redefine SFI to ISPs as an optional Openreach service that just tests for SIN349 and this is where it gets a bit confusing.

In practice SFI’s, which can sometimes be very tricky for ISPs to avoid (even when they know what the fault is), still requires an engineer to test for SIN 349 when examining broadband faults, although it’s not designed for that purpose and will often miss related problems.

The ISP can thus end up footing a hefty SFI bill for something they knew would never detect the problem and meanwhile the engineer walks away saying the test was passed. However this does rather depend upon the engineer as some can show a greater willingness to look beyond the basics (being polite and offering them some nice tea and cake may go a long way towards that goal).

In the latest example from AAISP we have a situation where the phone line is working OK for calls, but the broadband connection keeps dropping (a lot of people have suffered similar faults and they can be caused by all sorts of things). Funnily enough BT’s engineers have already identified that the issue stems from a drop wire, which needs to be changed and a new anchor to the building fitted.

Sounds clear enough, but the fault has stalled and after an escalation AAISP was told that BTWholesale “cannot even talk to” Openreach unless the ISP first orders an SFI engineer.

Adrian Kennard, MD of AAISP, said:

“We have endured THREE DAYS now of BT trying their damnedest to sell us this optional service in order to progress the repair of a fault on a broadband service. Note that broadband is not measured against the “metallic path specification” anyway, we don’t buy a “metallic path”, we buy “broadband”. So it is a pointless service, and one they know we will be charged for as the line meets SIN349 (they charge for SFI if the line meets the spec).

We could have booked the optional extra service of an SFI and the fault would have progressed, and then we would have to dispute the charges later. But we want this issue resolved so we don’t have these issues and disputes in future.”

At this point everybody in the chain from the ISP and up to Openreach should already know what is required to resolve the fault and forcing an “optional” SFI visit just to make progress, which everybody knows is likely to be a waste of time, doesn’t seem like the best approach.

Since then AAISP has spent the past few days pushing BT to clarify if they have a process to get broadband faults fixed which does not involve them ordering an optional extra service from Openreach.

Finally, after a long battle, BT recently agreed that they could progress the fault without booking an SFI engineer. But should it really have taken so long to reach such a conclusion? We have asked Openreach / Wholesale to comment and are awaiting their reply.

UPDATE 12:11pm

Corrected some confusion between the BT Wholesale and BT Openreach side of AAISP’s complaint.

UPDATE 2:41pm

BT has given us their very general reaction.

A BT Spokesperson told ISPreview.co.uk:

“We’re sorry to hear about any issues which might have had a negative impact on our customers.

We work closely with all of our Communications Provider customers to ensure we understand their needs and take on board any feedback they have about our products and services.

Over the last 12 months, we’ve paid particular attention to SFIs – giving customers advice on how they to use them effectively and where it might be appropriate to explore other options.

We will continue to hold regular customer forums to discuss such issues, and our account teams are on-hand if CPs want to speak with us directly.”