Residents from Worthen to Bentlont Left in the lurch.
Heather Kidd has slammed BT for the way they have dealt with a raft of complaints from residents in the Worthen, Brockton and Bentlont areas following a major broadband system failure over the last week.
From 27 December onwards the broadband service provided by the newly upgraded Worthen Exchange disappeared for large numbers of residents in an area extending from Brockton through Worthen to Aston Piggot and up to Pentervin and Bentlont. Others saw their speeds crash.
The excuses provided by BT were many and varied. They included:
i) Faults on individual phone lines.
ii) Individual customer’s providers fault (odd because BT WERE the providers in many cases).
iii) Hubs weren’t working and a new one was needed or the hub has to ‘re-learn’ the broadband after being off…. For several days!
And
iv) There were no faults on the line! Customers were being told that according to BT’s system they could receive 7-9mb. In reality they were receiving next to nothing.
It was patently clear that there was a major failure at this exchange and or the lines but BT were simply unwilling to admit it. Instead they fobbed off residents with bland excuses whilst customers, including many businesses, were left to suffer.
I contacted BT locally and they spoke to BTs West Midlands Wholesale Division. This finally brought about results with most people being reconnected over the last two days. There are still some left without a service including one small businesswoman who was cut off again after being reconnected after 4 weeks without a service.
This kind of service is simply not good enough. This was clearly an exchange issue or other structural issue and could have been dealt with very promptly. I am still pressing BT to get those still unconnected back on line. My local BT contact has been very good at sorting this – but the public do not have that access.