The joys of Openreach. Not.

I do IT. I do VoIP. I provide customers with broadband to run their computers and phones.

 The common denominator I have no option but to use is the part of BT plc known as Openreach. A new VoIP customer of mine has a BT Redcare alarm service on a BT Business analogue phone line. We wanted to put broadband on the line. Their literature says this is ok. I place the order through my usual supplier, AAISP. They usually provide a new broadband service via BT Wholesale.

 After it goes live I then request a migration to TT Wholesale as they are generally better and more flexible. The Broadband went live via BTW the Friday before last, but was subject to horrendous packet loss. It finally stabilised and was acceptable on monday monrning. Then came the migration to Talk Talk Wholesale last Friday.

 It should normally be a transparent, painless migration, but this has been (and still is) excruciating. 

1) The migration should have happened last Friday. It didn't. It completed at 23:10 on Sunday night. BT were very late.

 2) Migration shows as complete. No sync on the Talk Talk dsl.

 3) Monday morning. Line checked for dial tone. Faint, crackly dial tone. No calls able to be made in or out. No ADSL. Redcare - working fine.

 4) Raise a PSTN fault with BT Business. Line showing disconnected near customer premises. Redcare still fine. very odd.

 5) Today, Tuesday. BT shows up. fixes the dodgy line - and we have dialtone. Calls are now fine in and out. But Redcare is now dead, sir. It died when BT fixed the line fault. GRRRR! but good news - The ADSL line went straight in sync when the line was fixed. Bad News - no PPP. GRRRR.

 I thus drive to customer (50 mile round trip), swap the modem into another adsl line. We have Sync and PPP. Customer hardware is thus fine. TT Wholesale provisioning - Fail.

 Can't raise the fault on BT RedCare because BT (Openreach) has not closed the fault properly. Current status:

 PSTN line - \o/
 ADSL sync - \o/
 ADSL PPP - /o\
 RedCare - /o\

 so on this circuit we have: BT Business PSTN. BT RedCare. AAISP internet on TalkTalk Wholesale. VoIP from me, TxRx Communications Ltd.

All of these are dependant on the incumbent monopoly which is BT plc. We have A total shambles, with BT breaking things when they do anything with their aging copper wiring. Scary to think the whole of the UK telecoms network is dependant on corroded Krone strips and dodgy jelly crimps. Ho Hum. Grrrr.