VIDEO – Adrian Kennard on the ISP Conflict with BT’s SFI Fault Fixing

Running an ISP is far from easy and for those providers that make use of BT’s national UK telecoms network then there can be added complications, particularly when it comes to the tedious task of trying to get a broadband fault fixed by an engineer. Now AAISP’s boss, Adrian Kennard, has done a video to explain.

In theory BT (Openreach / Wholesale) should be responsible for fixing any broadband faults that exist within their own realm, which reflects most of the fixed line network that sits between the ISP’s own platform and the end-users Network Terminating Equipment, such as your BT Master Socket (e.g. NTE5). In practice it’s not always quite so straightforward.. (it helps to have some pre-existing understanding of this subject in order to follow the video).

Life as an ISP is certainly never without challenge. We should also point out that BT do work closely with all of the ISPs on their network in order to understand their needs and have been trying to improve SFIs for a long time, although as always there’s clearly still plenty of room for further improvement. Here’s how a spokesperson responded to a similar concern in August (here); repeated below.

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 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.”

Going forward it will be interesting to see how the future generation of Single Order Generic Ethernet Access (SOGEA) products change the market (here, here and here), which will effectively be sold as a broadband-only solution and may thus reverse the old trend where consumers purchased a fixed line (line rental) for phone services first and broadband was only later stuck on top as more of an optional feature. Today data is the priority.