[geoff01]

Sometimes I yearn for the `old days.`

At one time everything to do with phones was through British Telecom. If you had a problem with your phone you`d phone their faults line, they`d do a line test, fix it, and away you went.

Nowadays with the opening up to competition it`s so difficult to make sense of it all.

My Internet is with BT. My phone service is with Talktalk.

At the beginning of this week my Internet connection kept on going off. I phoned the helpline at BT, and they said it was very likely to be a phone line problem. I also had a very noisy phone line, sometimes humming, sometimes crackling. The BT Broadband engineers advised me to phone BT`s 151 `faults` helpline, which I did.

I was then told by BT`s phone faults section that as my phone service was with Talktalk I`d have to get in touch with them for them to resolve any issues.

So started the saga! I phoned Talktalk (and some of the calls to them this week have taken 25 minutes just to get through to the department, with the same repetitious music being played in a loop). I was told to disconnect my computer and try the phone without any accessories on. Same thing, noisy line.

I was then told to disconnect my phone and just use the Internet, which I did, and the broadband connection kept going on and off (which to me strongly suggested it wasn`t my phone equipment at fault, but the actual line).

I was told to change my filter at the phone socket, and fortunately I had a brand new one spare, so I did, and the problem continued.

I was then told to take off the front cover from my phone socket and try the phone in the opening within the socket itself, to eliminate the problem being the cover. I did, and the fault persisted.

Now, bear in mind all this took place over all this week, because they wanted me to do a full test for days, not just minutes or a few hours.

Now, I can understand why they wanted me to elimate all possibilities, especially faulty phone equipment, because they told me that if an engineer came to my home and found that it wasn`t a line fault, but one in my home, I`d be billed for £140!!

Anyway, back to my tale. Today exactly the same thing was happening as it has all during the week - poor quality when I use the phone, Internet connection going down...

So, having eliminated all other problems I was as convinced as I was at the beginning of the week that it was a line fault. I rang the helpline (got through after 27 minutes), to be told that they would now escalate it and `test my line.` 2 minutes later the woman came back on to tell me....guess what.... I had a fault with my line and they`d get it looked at!!!

I give up!

[Skyree]

So just contract your services through BT?

[geoff01]

Yep, I`m thinking of doing that.