Hard sell from BT

It has been a long day, and part of that has been arguing with BT, with Shaun and Alex's help.

We have a very understanding customer with a mostly working service and we are giving him a discount for indulging us on this point. But it has allowed us to push BT on the ongoing issue of SFI engineers yet again. I hope that we will eventually get a straight answer and I can update this post.

Simple story - a phone line working OK for phone calls but dropping broadband frequently. Already engineers have established it is an issue with the drop wire and need to change it, and fit a new anchor to the building, and so on. I.e. the fault has been properly investigated by BT and remedial work proposed. This is all good.

However, the fault has stalled, and last week we escalated to High Level Escalations. On Monday we are told that BT plc t/a BT Wholesale cannot even talk to BT plc t/a Openreach unless we boot an SFI engineer!

At this point it is worth explaining that BT plc t/a BT Wholesale define an "SFI Engineer" as an optional service we can request that will send a man to check the line meets the "metallic path specification" (SIN349). As far as we know the line meets SIN349, and we have no reason to order such an optional service in this case (or indeed, ever!).

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).

The fact it has taken three days to make no progress is why we need an understanding customer. 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 stage I have now asked, at least half a dozen times, of account manager, and High Level Escalations, and other BT staff :-

Obviously you have a process to get broadband faults fixed which does not involve us ordering an optional extra service. That stands to reason, as otherwise you would not be able to meet your contractual obligation to fix broadband faults.

So please, just tell us the process we have to follow to do that, and we can get this fault fixed.

And...

At this point we have simply asked that you tell us the correct process by which we get BT plc t/a BT Wholesale to fix a broadband fault without us ordering an optional extra service.

It is surely a really simple question you can just answer for us right away. Once we know, we can follow it and this fault can be resolved.

Obviously you must have such a process else how would BT meet its contractual obligations to rectify broadband faults.

So please, just tell us..

And variations on that...

BT should be able to just answer that simple question. For some reason they just pass the buck and do not answer. Oh, and magically, 6pm today, they finally think they can progress this fault without us booking an SFI engineer. But clearly a process that involves three days of arguing and BT trying to sell an optional service to us, cannot be the proper official process, so we still await the answer.

I'll keep you posted :-)

P.S. ispreview have picked this up (thanks) and it is worth clarifying...

The BT plc t/a Openreach side is not that daft – they define SFI differently, and they sell that service as a means to help address broadband faults. They charge because (at least for ADSL) Openreach don’t sell broadband, they sell metallic paths.

The issue here is actually BT plc t/a BT Wholesale, not BT plc t/a Openreach. BT plc t/a BT Wholesale redefine SFI as a service simply to check the line to SIN349, and not a service to fix broadband faults. After all, we would not want to buy a service to fix broadband faults as that is already part of the broadband service we already pay for. That redefinition means we would never want to buy that SFI service. However, logically, BT plc t/a BT Wholesale would want to buy the SFI service from BT plc t/a Openreach to help fix broadband faults (as they are the only people that can work on the line), and as fixing broadband faults is part of the broadband service, they should not charge us when they pay for that service. I hope that make some sense.

Update: So far (5th Aug) the best I have is: "BT will take steps to repair a broadband line that is not operating within its contracted specification or fault threshold. The exact nature of the resolution will be determined as part of the diagnostic journey and will differ depending on which component or product is affected. The process for contacting BT Wholesale and raising a fault is contained within the customer service plan." which does not really answer the question.