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Before You Blame Your ISP...

EricWade

ISP Rep
Oftentimes, frustrated DSL users assume that their ISPs are responsible for line outages and slow periods. What you may or may not realize is that nearly all of them are Bulk Resellers of BT services and are at the mercy of this communications giant when it comes to the telephone lines and exchanges.

Whilst we often hear from our providers that problems are the result of BT-related issues...we seem quick to assume that our ISP is just passing the buck. My guess is... that BT really is the culprit in most cases. FACT: BT still controls the lines, exchanges, and most of the infrastructure involved in the telecommunications grid in the UK.

Until ongoing decentralization of BTs stronghold is accomplished by good healthy competition and governmental regulations, we can expect many of the internet/telephone service problems to continue.

Furthermore, with BT doing significant software/hardware upgrades to their networks, human error will play as much a part as mechanical/electrical/software issues will. Growth and emerging technologies can be painful and problem-ridden for any major business. And the larger, more encompassing the business is... the more likely problems will arise.

So, before you go and assume that your ISP is failing you, consider the possibility that the problem may be with BT afterall.

Associated Article:
http://www.connect-world.com/Articles/12UKTELECOMMUNICATIONS.html
 
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That's a valid point, unfortunately in reality you run across several key problems:

1) Many ISP's don't communicate their problems to customers in the first place.

2) Those that do communicate often give very little or vague information.

3) In the past some have blamed BT, only for it to be eventually discovered that the fault was actually at the ISP.

4) LLU, ADSLMax and Datastream based products confuse matters.


These aspects have a tendency to blur the line of responsibility when it comes to identifying the true source of any problem. No doubt people will always consider BT as being among those to blame for an ADSL fault, yet poor communication from their provider will often result in the ISP itself being blamed.

Ultimately end users are not police officers and will naturally blame the one they’re paying the money to; hence it is the ISP’s job to properly explain any given situation and chase those responsible.
 
BT are unfortunately a very frustrating company to deal with, and the problem is that ISP is the go between the consumer and BT.

It's not as if we wont tell the customer what the problem is, majority of the time BT dont tell us or they dont know. When we do dicover the cause I am more than happy to pass this information on to the customer.

There are occasions and they do happen when we have exhausted our resources and raise a fault, but then we may come across something new and exciting and the problem is not with BT. This rarely happens.

LLU and ADSLMAX are confusing things a hell of a lot, and I blame this on misadvertisng, poor support and poor information from BT.

I agree with Mark in the fact that the customer is paying the ISP for a service, so they are entitled to know what is going on. What frustrates me is the fact customers expect problems to be fixed straightaway, and you have to kindly explain this is not the case.

One day BT will get their act together, but then again they will probably not.
 
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I recently had a problem (that Eclipse solved in the end - thanks guys) but trying to get a message to BT is almost impossible. You'd think BTW would be a little more open to the public rather than sitting behind a website. I know they don't want to be bombarded with stupid questions from every man women and child but a bit of human contact would be good. Luckily Eclipse support is very good but i feel sorry for those who's ISP are a little less customer service oriantated.
 
Before you blame your ISP

BT wholesale are actually very capable and know what they are doing. The problem many of the wanabee ISP's dont really have any technical knowledge or training, and havent got a clue what they are talking about, so its a lot easier to blame BT.

Although its a bit dearer, the most reliable service is BT Business Broadband.

If you want to find out if your ISP actually knows what he is talking about, when you have a techincal support problem, ask him if he can tell you what is your MSR. (It means maximum stable rate). It should be as this table if your line has settled down.

Synch Download
288K ¼M
576K ½M
1152K 1M
1728K 1½M
2272K 2M
2848K 2½M
3424K 3M
4000K 3½M
4544K 4M
5120K 4½M
5696K 5M
6240K 5½M
6816K 6M
7392K 6½M
7968K 7M
8128K 7.15M

If they havent got a clue what you are talking about, you are with a useless ISP
 
BT wholesale are actually very capable and know what they are doing. The problem many of the wanabee ISP's dont really have any technical knowledge or training, and havent got a clue what they are talking about, so its a lot easier to blame BT.

yep totaly agree
 

Blimey, that paper is eight years old - so old, that it even mentions Mercury Communications (remember them?), yet gives not one mention of more recent LLU.

The article finishes by saying:
...or face the economic consequences of inaction.

What could be much further away from reality?
We now have one the cheapest Broadband markets - so cheap, some companies are giving it away free ... well more or less what amounts to be free.

But yes, consider all possibilities before actually pointing the finger of blame, although I suspect that both 'showmonstersgeo' & 'twds' are quite near the truth.
 
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I disagree completely with all of you who say BTw are very capable, them who are the good ISP's speak to on the BTw help desks and diagnostics know less than the ISP person does on ADSL how it works also what is needed to fix this particular problem so it drags on with the ISP finally having to give it them in baby talk.
 
blimie that artical talks about Ionica, i was begging for them to come to my area back in the day. Did anyone actually use them?
 
onephat said:
blimie that artical talks about Ionica, i was begging for them to come to my area back in the day. Did anyone actually use them?

You can still see old Ionica dishes attached to many houses around here. I seriously considered them, but as I recall it couldn't support a dial-up connection speed any greater than 32k.
 
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Although its a bit dearer, the most reliable service is BT Business Broadband.

I disagree.

1. Some parts maybe very smart and up to date in their knowlage. But certainly some are not, as we have found out.

2. You havent tried all the business packages out there, so you cant say that.

I can well sympathise that there are a lot of stupid people running ISPs, but BTW dont deserve anywhere near the credit you give them.
 
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In general, very generally..

If you lose sync= mainly BT
If you have sync but cant connect= could be BT, but mainly ISP, or the upstream ISP they resell from.

I agree most ISPs blame problems on BT because it is an easy excuse for them. The problem is the communication rather than the fault.

A lot of ISPs do suffer from a lack of technical knowledge, but 1st line support is a low paid job, anyone with talent is going to want to get out of it. But saying that there are first line people who have been in thier jobs for years, its dissapointing that they havent learnt anything about how dsl works.
 
Lucky for me when I had a major problem Eclipse passed on all my comments and questions directly to bt wholesale and I was able to carry out a conversation with bt wholesale through Eclipse. To say that bt wholesale were incompetent in regards to the problem I had would be the understatement of the year!
 
It is all too easy to blame BT, however I think most of the time, most of the problems you would get as an end user with ADSL are down to BT to fix. This does not change the reality of the situation however, in that I pay money to my ISP, not BT. If something goes wrong I want the ISP to fix it as fast as they can, I don't care much who's fault it is, all I care about is that I pay the ISP, and for that I expect to get a good service. When that service does go wrong, which it will do from time to time, I expect them to keep me informed, and if I phone up, to sort it out asap. If they are having trouble with BT getting it fixed, I am not going to complain to BT, I will complain to them. And if they don't sort it out in good time, I will leave them and goto someone who will.

The times when it is not the fault of BT, it is the fault of the ISP when they don't have enough bandwidth sorted out for demand, or something is going tits up their end. Either they are a good ISP, have identified it and let you know about it, or they blame BT, which all too easy to do. Again, either way I really don't care. Just fix it as fast as you can, and tell me what is going wrong and why, and how long it will take.

As for the service, and who knows more than who...it is the same with almost any industry, but especially those based on telephone contact.

I worked for NTL for almost 6 years. I knew a lot more by the time I finished than when I started. My last position in NTL involved liasing with BT all day every day Mon-Fri.

Most of the time, BT were good to deal with, I would say 90% of the time. They knew their stuff and things went ok. The last 10% of the time you would hit problems. How those problems were resolved really was pot luck as to who you spoke with. Some people are simply better at the job than others. Either those "others" are less experienced, which will improve over time, or they are simply stupid/lazy basts who don't give a crapola one way or another. And the same thing can be said of NTL or any other company.



The EXACT same is true of people in the ISP customer care/tech support etc. And the EXACT same is true of any other industry you care to name.

When you phone up, your either lucky to get someone good, or your not. If you don't like the way it is being done, complain/leave, or put up with it. If you put up with it, it can't be that bad in the first place.
 
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