Difficulties getting broadband, BT and DACS
I have been trying to sign up for broadband since last October. After much pressure BT put 50 new lines into our village (41 houses) so you would have thought that we should all have access to broadband. Well I’m afraid that is not the case.
The availability checker for all houses which have dared to sign up with an alternative ISP to BT now reads "a non standard solution to telephony has been provided to this address". This basically means we can’t sign up for their broadband package.
Additionally, every house in the village is on a DACS shared line and has to be transferred to one of the new dedicated lines. My ISP Tiscali won't sign me up because of this availability checker tells them they can’t. BT wholesale has said that my line is suitable for broadband and my ISP is legally obliged to contact them to resolve the issues. However, the response from the broadband sales department at Tiscali was "we never talk to BT wholesale”.
They also advised me that would cost them £50.00 to "de-DACS my line" and apparently they’re not prepared to get into that.
In desperation I tried to go over to the dark side and sign up with BT Broadband for a year to get the work done, but they refused, citing the availability checker.
I have complained to the regulator, but it seems bizarre to me that BT have put in all the work increasing capacity and are refusing to reap the benefit. Tiscali just seem to be attempting to cream off the easy connections, i.e. those with an existing un-shared line and an ordinary phone package. So, has anyone got a suggestion on how I can make some progress towards getting broadband here?
By: Frank
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Dacs units have been used in the past ,before broadband to help BT with supplying more lines to customers.In laymans terms a Dacs unit can supply two houses with a phone line each by only using one incoming cable pair,you basically share one line between two of you .This is fine for a normal phoneline ,but broadband requires one dedicated line for each house ,If you have a DACS unit going to you house this means there are no,or very few SPARE incomming lines(copper cable pairs) near your property.Bt are reluctant because to de-Dacs requires an engineer to take the unit down ,try and find a spair cable in the network ,then go back to the exchange and rewire some equipment ! If a spare pair cannot be found near your property ,BT will have to lay a new or extra cable which costs alot of money and manpwer ,for the sake of one customer(thats how they see it ) Tiscali or pipex arent interested because itS a bt engineer who will have to do it ,and they will have to foot the bill for this work ,(which could include cabling ,justfor 1 customer ,so basically it sometimes isnt worth the bother for these people ! And in case you are wondering I was a bt engineer involved in dacs units !!!
+2
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I have one of those horrible things on my line (DACS) and can't seem to get anywhere with getting it removed. I had BT Openreach come out to reconnect my line as I had just moved in, and he told me about it and should take it up with my ISP provider. So I phoned Talk Talk and those said it was up to BT to remove it.
Then I phoned BT and guess what yup they said it was up to my ISP. In desperation I phoned the bloke from Openreach and he told me, if my ISP provider had put on the invoice that the reconnection was for broadband then it would have been removed.
Guess what??? I did and it wasn't. So now I have gone on a monthly mobile contract. But living 40 yards from an electric train line is not helping as I keep loosing my connection and my max download speed so far has been about 90kb/s (not impressed).
Is there anything that can boost my speed?.
Then I phoned BT and guess what yup they said it was up to my ISP. In desperation I phoned the bloke from Openreach and he told me, if my ISP provider had put on the invoice that the reconnection was for broadband then it would have been removed.
Guess what??? I did and it wasn't. So now I have gone on a monthly mobile contract. But living 40 yards from an electric train line is not helping as I keep loosing my connection and my max download speed so far has been about 90kb/s (not impressed).
Is there anything that can boost my speed?.
+9
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We left pipex homecall in march 08 and started with a new provider paid final bill by direct debit. Then we received another bill for £6-20 when we phoned them and eventually got through they said that the line had not been closed properly but they would now do it when we had paid this bill which we paid by cheque. Then in July we received another bill this this time for £13 pounds after several phone calls we were told that the order to close the line had been stuck between files and had not gone but this was now being sought ed and we would hear no more. Now today we have received a letter from a debt collection agency saying unless we pay them £21-65 they will take us to court, has anyone else had this problem and where can we take from here.
+3
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Abillynonymous - 15-Oct-08 16:05
We have been 'negotiating' with Talk Talk for over two years. it took them 12 months to tell us there was DACS on the line and now we are being told that the free broadband we originally bought all those months ago is not available in our area and we should talk to their sales team to sign up at £10 a month ! At the same time I will be sticking opins in my eyes and hammering nails into my private parts !!!!!!!
+3
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www.kijoma.net - alternative broadband solutions for people in your situation
+2
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I have been mucked around for 6 mths by talk talk, there is a dacs on the line,BT wont remove it and wont talk to me about it.Talk Talk say would you like to cancel your order?I dont know what the solution is.
-3
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To comment from BTengineer. You are obviously not a bt engineer as you talk absolute rubbish and know nothing about dacs etc.
+3
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realbtengineer - 16-Nov-07 13:42
I spent 6 weeks waiting for BT to activate my broadband. Every week I'd call, be assured there was no problem, it would activate in 5 days, etc, then their "system" would cancel the order. Finally they admitted that they didn't want to convert the TPON line because it was too expensive, but might reconsider in a few months. They've converted a few for my neighbours, probably just enough that they can pretend the exchange supports broadband as the regulator demands. Anyway, I've cancelled the order, and intend to move telephony provider as well in revenge. Actually, 3G mobile broadband is about the same price as BT's cheapest offering, so that's probably the way to go for me, even a connection as slow as 500kbs would be fine for me, I don't download movies or game online.
-6
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the bottom line is that adsl is a rubbish service and does not work as bt new from the start and was supposed to work on only one wire and having a dacs on the line will cause it to drop out 4 5 times a day also having the old phone lines with the bell wire will drop the line out also check the exchange bandwidth limits as they only alow 5mb +
+3
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UK online is the worst broadband company ever. I hope that anyone who reads this spreads the word. Here is the short version of what happened: In August this year I moved house and asked for my broadband to be moved to the new place. This took TWO months! During this time no one could give us a definite date when it would be installed and no one would take responsibility for the delay. After many phone calls complaining about the service they told us we would get 3 months free, we have since been charged every month. We have tried to speak to someone who will sort out the problem, but they don't seem to exist. You can't even get to speak to a manager. The call centre people sound like they read straight out of a manual, all they do is apologise. I wish I could speak to someone who will take some initiative and responsibility for all of this.
+1
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Know how you feel was on sky broadband and then moved house. BT kept rejecting my order saying the line was incompatable so after six weeks of fighting with sky I call BT who say no problem you can have broadband installed in 5 days time, find a neighbour has similar issues, turns out lines were fibre optic and recently converted and a ltd number are available but seems bt are keeping them for themselves! So I've had no choice but to go to BT. My broadband costs have gone from a fiver a month up to £25. I've no choice but to pay it but I've only taken a 12 month subscription and plan to migrate as soon as the twelve months are up! That's the plan but wether they give me a mac code , thats the story for next time!t
+11
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If BT wont' release your DACS line , have a look around the satellite broadband companies. Expats have this problem all the time in Spain and Portugal. In Eastern Algarve we couldnt' get a phone line at our rural holiday villa because PT wouldnt' do anything. They even tried to sell us the equipment without checking there was a line first. In the end we got a 2meg broadband satellite connection from an English company. Their engineer set it up so we could share it around our house and our two self-catering apartments and two English-speaking neighbours in the village.
-1
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About two years ago, Ben Verwaayen (BT Chairman) was interviewed by BBC's Breakfast programme. I could not believe the arrogance of the man when he made statements implying that BT were supporting the UK's progress towards high-speed internet access for all.
This is a terminological inexactitude. If you look back at their commercial approach to the roll-out of so-called 'broadband' services, BT have done everything legally permissible (and there are of course other commentators who be tempted at this point to add "... and some") to stifle competition. The fiasco over BT's imposition of 'thresholds' and 'trigger points' in exchanges ... their corporate nose-thumbing at Oftel/com regarding attempts to regulate their monopolistic advantage; the commercial and technical obstacles thrown in the path of other ISPs seeking to co-locate equipment for ADSL services in the exchanges ...
In my opinion, there is one organisation that is primarily responsible for the UK's slow take up of broadband and they have never done anything to justify "blowing their own trumpet".
This is a terminological inexactitude. If you look back at their commercial approach to the roll-out of so-called 'broadband' services, BT have done everything legally permissible (and there are of course other commentators who be tempted at this point to add "... and some") to stifle competition. The fiasco over BT's imposition of 'thresholds' and 'trigger points' in exchanges ... their corporate nose-thumbing at Oftel/com regarding attempts to regulate their monopolistic advantage; the commercial and technical obstacles thrown in the path of other ISPs seeking to co-locate equipment for ADSL services in the exchanges ...
In my opinion, there is one organisation that is primarily responsible for the UK's slow take up of broadband and they have never done anything to justify "blowing their own trumpet".
+8
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I think we who have a high level of dissatisfaction with the service we are getting from our various Internet Providers,should get together and put a file of complaints before Watchdog or the Office of Fair Trading.Only then will these people take some notice of what is said instead of burying their heads in the sand and hoping the problem will go away.They have had things their own way for far too long and must realise that there is far more competition in the market now.
+2
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I have had reliable broadband for 2 years at 8k from the exchange. An intermittent SYNCH problem developed in August whereby an engineer visited and advised that I was too far away. Although the problem resolved itself completely the following day, after another 20 days of perfect signal BT Wholesale just terminated the connection without advising my ISP. Now I cannot connect as the availablility has been set to advise that the line does not work.
Compaints to BT and OFCOM have achieved nothing - I think it Watchdog next. It appears that I have no right of appeal despite the fact that the line was actually working again.
IF there was an alternative in the village (e.g. cable) I guess they might be more interested!
Compaints to BT and OFCOM have achieved nothing - I think it Watchdog next. It appears that I have no right of appeal despite the fact that the line was actually working again.
IF there was an alternative in the village (e.g. cable) I guess they might be more interested!
-11
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BT are sh**e. I have been arguing with them for over six months about the DACS on my line. They even agreed to provide me with Boradband and are adding it to my bill - but they REFUSE to remove the DACS?!?!?!
Discrimination of rural customers by a company chasing profits over customers. This would not have happened before deregulation... but now it's here i'll drink to the death of BT.
Go to www.dacswars.co.uk - you can email all concerned in BT and OFCOM to complain.
Cheers and good luck!!
Discrimination of rural customers by a company chasing profits over customers. This would not have happened before deregulation... but now it's here i'll drink to the death of BT.
Go to www.dacswars.co.uk - you can email all concerned in BT and OFCOM to complain.
Cheers and good luck!!
+3
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Tim the BT HATER - 12-Jul-06 12:58
I thought that I was the only one to think that BT was involved in selective choosing of Broadband applicants. We have been here for 20 years and the ajacent farm building conversions 10 years. Two of these families have been allowed a Broadband connection but we have had our line split and refused Broadband. Our proposed package was to be from Talk Talk and they could not do anything about it either.
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