[SWLUG] Switching to a BT line. Effects?

[Neil Jones]

On Wed, 2008-06-25 at 11:03 +0100, Philip Downer wrote:
> Neil Jones wrote:
> > It is pot luck as to what kind of person you get on the other end but
> > this one appeared to be working for them as a result of failing the
> > exams required to be a road sweeper. :-)
> >   
> 
> The last person I spoke to on the Virgin helpline was a nice lady in 
> India, surprisingly she was actually more helpful than the person I'd 
> spoken to in the uk a few days earlier. It seems that Virgin contract 
> out their nighttime support calls to India as that was around 2am, the 
> rest of the time I've had someone in the UK.

Well it may be you are dealing with a better motivated and educated work
force. Remember most people don't speak English at home in India there
are actually many people there who won't speak English well enough to do
these jobs, so I would imagine we may be getting better paid educated
and motivated people. I had a really good guy once but a lot of them are
no good at all.

> > However that would mean installing a BT line for the internet.
> >   
> 
> Whilst Andrews and Arnold may be competent BT are not, do not expect any 
> reasonable level of service from them, remember that a&a are reselling a 
> BT service and so any complaints to a&a about connectivity will need to 
> be taken up with BT. I resell DSL through my own company and BT are a 
> nightmare to deal with, even though I'm dealing with them through an 
> intermediary but I hear lots of customer issues.

It is the problem with all the big companies. They are near monopolies
so don't need to care. This is what I worry about. 


> 
> > Are there any consequences as regards speed and reliability that I
> > should be concerned about?
> >   
> 
> Depends on how far you are from your exchange and remember it's always 
> an 'up to Xmbps' so you could pay out for 8mbps but only be able to get 
> 512kbps on your line and with BT if your line speed doesn't drop below 
> 120kbps (I think thats right) they won't view it as a problem. Look at 
> samknows.com and check out your exchange, if your exchange is LLU then 
> it might be better to go directly with an LLU provider that is in your 
> exchange rather than A&A but theres no guarantee that provider will 
> understand the internet.
> 
> Basically if you aren't all that close to an exchange stick with Virgin.
> 
> Phil

Thanks for the samknows.com tip Phil.


Neil Jones
neil at nwjones.demon.co.uk