BT Infinity: A story of preparation and installation

Background:

Having been retired for a good half-decade, I finally got round to the one thing I knew was going to go badly: re-negotiate our BT broadband package for our home. For the last 10 years or so, we had been getting our broadband and telephone from BT. However, I was operating my own D-Link router, not BT's hub. Our internet speeds has been getting slower and often cut out altogether. I blamed my old router (wrongly, as it turned out). Examining the old bills more closely I discovered a monthly bill of  £30.60 for so-called "broadband" on top of the £26 for unlimited phone calls (a total of £56 a month). I performed a broadband speed check over a two-week 24/7 period: a paltry 0.99 Mbps for downloads (rising to 1.43 Mbps occasionally). Now even I know that is a stupid cost/download speed ratio. Despite the bad press in the forums (especially on Moneysupermarket and BT's own forums) plus my own experience with BT's after-sales service, I went ahead with BT Infinity anyway. Here's how it went:

History:

September 2013: I spent a fair bit of time searching BT's labyrinthine web site to determine what exactly was on offer. The BT Infinity package offered a deal that was actually less than my current combined bills for telephone and broadband. Moreover, it promised me "up to 48 Mbps" on my download speed. Even if reality failed me by 50% my internet access would be 24 times faster!

Friday, 27th September: I telephoned 0800 800 150 to ask for a quote for a new package. I was told that, until my old contracts (the phone and the broadband) were merged, they could not deal with my enquiry. (I wondered: Why hadn't BT offered to merge these two before? After all, the paper bill we received each month quoted all charges!) I had to wait until Monday and then phone back.

 

Monday 30th September: I spoke to a salesperson on 150 who said that nothing had happened so she would phone me when it had. So, another day later, on the Tuesday morning (1st October) she phoned back to say the accounts had been merged and that an application for BT Infinity would give me far faster download speeds and cost me less. Did I want to pursue the contract? She warned me that should I cancel before the 18 month term was up I would be forfeit the remaining cost of the term. Hmm.

What the web pages don't make clear is that the engineer can only install BT Infinity on the house's master socket, a fact that only became apparent in the small print in the pre-installation e-mails. Pretty sure that my master socket was not in the room where our computers are used, I queried this on the 150 number. An enthusiastic guy called Sam from Warrington assured me, after I had tried to describe the setup in the house, that the engineer would do everything necessary to "make it work for me".

Encouraged, I agreed to the 18 month contract for BT Infinity (but only on the telephone; no e-mail to acknowledge, no papers to sign, no hard copy contract!). So far so good. During the next few days I received a parcel containing the hub and strict instructions on how to deal with the arrival of the engineer on Tuesday 8th of October via e-mail. I was still not happy about the constraints surrounding the master socket but I was encouraged with BT's faith that the engineer would "make it work".

Tuesday 8th October: Installation day. Having read all the horror stories in the forums on BT's own website regarding cowboy contractors I shouldn't have been surprised when, yes, a contracted engineer turned up: one M J Quinn of Southampton, whose van proudly displayed the name "Openreach". He informed me, as the morning wore on, that he had only been in BT's employ for a week. Alarm bells should have gone off when we tested the new BT hub under the old cabling. Download speeds did not exceed 1.4 Mbps, which meant that there was nothing wrong with my old D-Link router after all.

The engineer said that he could only install the modem and hub at the master socket that he identified to be in the living room on the other side of our small bungalow from the converted bedroom that housed our two PCs. That meant we would have to rely on a wireless connection. Did I wish to try it out? Still entranced by the promise of 48 Mbps, I said yes. We trotted off to the junction box at the end of the road where he rewired the old cables to the fibre connection. Back at the house he installed the white modem and the hub to the "master socket" and we waited for the magic to start.

Except it didn't. The DSL light stubbornly failed to go on. I telephoned 150 and had the woman talk to the engineer. She explained that the new account would not be activated until midnight so we could not test the wireless connection after all. (I wondered: Why do BT not activate the service before the engineer arrives so we can test it "live"? Is it another device to gain your "contract" and then abandon you?). So, I was stuck with non-functioning equipment, the cabling in the junction box configured so that I could not return to a traditional form of broadband, the BT Infinity kit installed in a room I really didn't want it in, and zero wireless connection to our PCs at the other end of the bungalow. The engineer made good his escape. Faced with a day without internet connection, I waited for midnight.

Wednesday 9th October: Midnight came and went. At 0700 hours I tested the new system. The DSL light failed to go on and, again, we had no internet. I telephoned 150. Following instructions, I reset and replugged the two pieces of kit. I suggested to the woman that the engineer may not have wired the junction box properly. She told me to wait while she tested the line then cut me off. I telephoned 150 again and talked to a different person. We reset the boxes again and he tested the line (without cutting me off this time). He then told me that he was referring it to "the level 2 department", The Service Monitoring Team. They needed 24 hours to monitor a line that I knew was already clearly not working and would telephone me between 8 am and 10 am the next day. Another day without internet. Another delay to "book" an engineer to do the job that should have been done properly yesterday.

Thursday 10th October: To be fair, I received a phone call at 0900 hrs the next morning. The caller confirmed what I already knew: that there was no signal coming from the junction box. He offered me a new installation date on Monday 14th. That would mean nearly a whole week without an internet connection. I complained that, since it was BT's fault that the original installation was flawed, surely BT should rectify that as a matter of urgency if it pretended to provide a good service to its customers? He informed me that he could not contact Openreach; only use the appointment timetable that had been provided. He did add, however, that we would not be charged for the days without a connection. Resigned to yet another delay, I accepted the appointment and received a text confirming 0800 hrs on Monday.

Friday 11th October: With time on my hands I telephoned 150 to ask about the state of the account. Trudy informed me that, if the engineer made Infinity work on Monday, regardless of where the kit has been installed and whether the hub wireless signal reaches our computer room, then BT will consider the service as working and we will be subject to the full 18 month penalty costs if we cancel. It would appear that we would have to move our computers from our converted (at enormous cost) bedroom into the living room. Not an option, I said! She said that we had the opportunity to cancel up to one day before the arrival of the engineer. I said that, not knowing where the "master socket" was in the house, we did not know that the engineer would set up the kit at the furthest point from the computer room until he turned up. She said we could downgrade to the normal broadband service (which I know remains at the abysmal 1 Mbps speed) but would still be subject to the 18 month minimum contract. In effect, we would not be able to avail ourselves of any technology offered by another provider with a newer infrastructure (say, Virgin). In desperation, I asked, "did the previous decade of being a BT customer count for nothing?" Apparently not. Wait for the engineer, she suggested.

Monday 14th October: So, another day, another engineer. Except . . .wow!  . . . this one turned up at exactly 0800 hours, was "Can-Do!" the moment he stepped through the door, and explained a lot about what was wrong with the last week's fiasco. It would seem that Openreach do have a cadre of fully trained and experienced engineers (I can personally vouch for this now). They will actually do what all the over-optimistic sales people tell you they will do.

Unfortunately, Openreach also sub contract out to companies on the cheap who only get a couple of days training and have absolutely zero experience. The contractor we had a week ago (I am now aware):

• failed to wire the junction box at the end of the street properly, so there was no chance of ever getting a data signal into the house,
• failed to identify which of our sockets was the master socket (the one he said was, was not!), so there was no chance of our broadband working even if he had wired the junction box correctly,
• failed to test the line identified (wrongly) as the master socket with proper equipment before attaching the hub and modem. (The second, trained engineer did this extensively before even getting the modem out of the box.),
• failed to understand the wiring in the house: the wiring in the loft was split, as I understand it, by "star cabling" which doesn't carry the whole broadband signal to the master socket but divides it to the other (non-used) outlets. (The second, trained engineer, despite e-mail messages from BT warning that they would not go into lofts, was up in the loft straight away, re-wiring the whole house as necessary to make it work.),
• failed to move the master socket (notwithstanding he didn't know where it was) to the very room I wanted it to be. (The second, trained engineer offered to do this immediately and made it happen within the space of a half-hour.), and
• failed to ensure the whole thing was properly working before he made good his escape on the previous Tuesday.

In short: our young, keen and entirely hard working official Openreach engineer did everything I expected BT to do when I signed up for this service. I am very happy to report that I now have wired internet access in my converted bungalow bedroom. All the hardware (modem, hub and computers) is in the one room. My download speed has gone from an average of 1Mbps to 50 Mbps. My monthly bill has dropped from £56 per month to £48. And, for the first time in a week, I think I can sleep at nights! One thing to note: had all the kit been installed in the first location the wireless signal would not have reached the computer room! The new BT hub is not as good as is made out.

Observations:

 

The following observations are based on all this recent experience, plus a decade of previous experience with BT.

1. If you are considering switching broadband accounts, or upgrading to BT Infinity, be aware that they invest a large proportion of their infrastructure in selling the product only. The sales teams will assure you that nothing will go wrong and everything concerning BT Infinity will work according to your needs.
2. After you agree to purchase the 18-month contract, and you have a problem or complaint, you will be diverted by annoying automated systems to a call centre. The person talking to you will be procedure-driven; will be unfailingly polite; will be very sorry that you have been inconvenienced; and will speak with a sometimes-difficult-to-understand Asian accent. They will also be frustrating.
3. If you need to re-contact BT's after-sales service you will get a different person and have to go through the whole procedure-driven process again. Expect to do this a lot. Be prepared to be without a connection for some time. It is very difficult to get from this stage to the point where someone will physically investigate the problem.
4. The biggest pitfall is the installation. Your Openreach engineer may well be a contractor. If so, you will not get the service promised by the sales hype. There is no form of redress in the face of a less-than sterling service. Be aware that properly trained engineers can and will rewire your house to the degree necessary to get your broadband working where you want it. Do not expect this if you get a contractor.
5. If your broadband is working, but not necessarily in the location you want or at the speeds you want, there is no redress. BT assume that the contract is valid. There is no 30-day cooling-off period. If you complain you will have to suffer 2 and 3 above.

Conclusion:

So, should you trust the BT Infinity hype? If you have read all the above then you will know the answer is, "yes and no". When it is installed, it works fine. If you are lucky to get, as I was the second time, a keen, trained and experienced engineer you will come away quite impressed.

The problem is that you cannot rely on BT Openreach to install it properly, or to your satisfaction, at the first instance. If that happens you will be in for a very frustrating time as the BT organisation is an extremely compartmentalised corporation, its various departments are contracted and sub-contracted to save money. Communication with BT or between its departments, ironically for a communications company, is difficult. BT may sell you a joined-up package but getting a stress free, joined-up response to a problem is unlikely. The result can be frustrating, if not reducing the customer to near-apoplexy. I may be lucky in the next 18 months and the whole package will continue without a hitch but I dread the thought of ever finding myself in the need to telephone them again.