BT Down - 051 Area?

Sully

Hey,

A local small business called me (as I setup their broadband and new PC) saying they were without broadband for the last 4 days and when calling Esat an automated messge says that the "051 Area" is experiencing difficulties. They are unable to get through to a human! Various estates throughout Tramore seem affected, while others are not which is strange.

Anybody have any ideas why this is? And whats the business number to get answers quicker (they didnt sign up for a business pack btw)?

Cheers for your help in advance!

Hissing Sideban

My BT broadband is down since about 11pm Tuesday night - not a peep out of BT customer service. (number is 1904)
I fought my way through the recorded announcements and music on hold twice, once on Wednesday and once on Friday , answer was that there were 'problems' and that they didn't know when it would be resolved as Eircom hadn't got back to them (they actually own the DSL gear).
Thats allright then I said! So no doubt it will be down until well after christmas, and possibly the new year!

I am lucky enough to still have a backup WLAN system that (sort of ) works, but anyone else affected is broadbandless and indeed internetless!

Sully

I thought they could fix the equipment themselves considering they own it. Why do they need Eircom?

CuLT

Sully04 wrote:

I thought they could fix the equipment themselves considering they own it. Why do they need Eircom?

Just what part of the phone lines, exhanges and masts do you think BT own? o_O

neon_glows

sully as per our chat online my broadband is in good fully working order, however i am not on a residential package, im on there business package, i doubt this makes much difference but im still online. I have a contact in BT called brendan, the number i get him on is this still brings you to a switch but the call seems to always be answered really quickly and if u ask for brendan he always seems to know what he's talking about.

[mod]I'm sure that number was given out in confidence and not to be put up on here.[/mod]

Sully

CuLT wrote:

Just what part of the phone lines, exhanges and masts do you think BT own? o_O

My apologises, I have no idea about the technologies used for BB. I understand Eircom own exchanges, equipment within them and lines. I somehow doubt many peoples lines could be damaged, and I gathered that Esat were using their own equipment in the exchanges.

Please correct me or inform me of my mistakes ;D

jabarrett35

Hi I spoke to a guy in the broadband dept yesterday and he said that the DSL transmission is not loop backing to their server. He didn't think it would be repaired until after the holiday. However he mentioned compensation being available. I'm not sure I believe him.

Sully

jabarrett35 wrote:

Hi I spoke to a guy in the broadband dept yesterday and he said that the DSL transmission is not loop backing to their server. He didn't think it would be repaired until after the holiday. However he mentioned compensation being available. I'm not sure I believe him.

They were open Xmas Eve? How nice! And you stuck out the wait?! How nice :P

Thanks for the update. Pitty its bad timing. Is it just a local problem or are others affected?

jabarrett35

No it seems to be only the Tramore area at the moment. If you do the auto call back it reduces the time you are holding on. BT have a contract with Eircom to
provide a service so I'm sure there are financial penalities if they do not repair
the service within a specified time.

Sully

Business answered my call today and were "not aware of any problems" but said if its residential they probably wouldnt be informed. They said "hopefully" it will be fixed tommrow if there is a problem but residential support is backonline then.

neon_glows

so why would residential and business be seperate, i suppose they may have a legal obligation to business customers over right residential customers, but it hardly went down adn they just fixed the business customers.

jabarrett35

Well it's up and running again though I had to reset my router. I wonder how long it was back for because I had know idea that you had to reset after a conncetion failure

Sully

jabarrett35 wrote:

Well it's up and running again though I had to reset my router. I wonder how long it was back for because I had know idea that you had to reset after a conncetion failure

AS in rest back to factory settings? Where you had to re-set up the whole unit again?

I thought a simple power off/on would do...

Sully

Response from EsatBT:-

Response (Technical Support) 28/12/2006 02.40 PM
Dear Kevin

There is an issue in the 051 Tramore area

The issue is partially fixed as some of our customers can now log on to the Internet

Unfortunately there is no estimated fix but we are working to have the issue resolved as soon as possible

Regards,

Cabaal

Sully04 wrote:

I thought they could fix the equipment themselves considering they own it. Why do they need Eircom?

BT Business is LLU in 051 area, could be like LLU in UK where an ISP can only enter a BT exchange when a BT engineer is with them.

Could cause abit of a delay resolving such a issue

Sully

I responded;

I have been monitoring the situation on the Irish site/forums Boards.ie - Broadband Section. One user reported to be back online in Tramore but claims he had to reset his router to get back connectivity, which we both thought was rather strange.

Any comment on this? Also, can you provide areas / locations of the 051 area which you know are working?

Many Thanks.

Regards,
Kevin

Response:-

Dear Kevin

You could try to reset your router and see if it comes back on

Unfortunately its a bit random as to who is affected and who is not

Regards,

Response:-

Hi again,

I get the feeling that this matter is not being taken very seriously by Esat. I would of assumed if a greater area was having broadband connection issues a team of engineers would be sent working to fix the problem and get the service back. This seems to be going on for some time and your customers are finding it very difficult to get through to Customer Support over the phone, which is disappointing also, for any kind of up-date on the matter.

I thought my responses lacked details to why there is a problem and why there is such a delay in getting it fixed. It was more like a "Yes, we know there is a problem. It will be fixed when its fixed". Can you not provide more information to the cause of the problem, and any kinda of ETA to when you hope to have it fixed?

You also failed to respond to previous questions in my last contact with you. If you do not have these answers, please escalate this to someone who does know.

Thank You.

Regards,
Kevin OSullivan

Hissing Sideban

'A Bit Random' doesn't sound very scientific, does it ? Who have they working there, Engineers of astrologers!

My DSL is still down well over a week - thats a pretty poor service in my book from any company, and I have to say the customer service is bad also - even though getting through to them *using the callback facility) is no worse than most businesses these days, the response wasn't worth a slap!

Mind you who do you go to instead,? In my experience, all the broadband providers and teclos are rubbish where customer service is concerned.

Sully

I think its time we ALL complained to ComReg. Sometimes, it makes a difference. They have 10 working days to fix the problem once a complaint is made before ComReg act and by the looks of things - it will be more then 10 days!

Anyway, for those who want a dialup number I was given one a while back which is slow enough but gets us on the internet if required:-

1892150150

No User / Pass.

I had similar problems with my provider UTV Internet a while back, where my internet was down and they couldnt seem to figure out why. Fault reports were issued to Eircom - but UTV were getting no updates, so I had to contact Eircom Local Eningers to get the update - and the line was given the all clear. UTV didnt believe them, and in the end they said try a new router -- and it worked. This was going on over a month and we rely on the internet for business.

Im reporting here because its some neighbours of mine who are having difficulty and need someone to make the calls and find out why cause they dont understand it at all!

neon_glows

perlico are down in 051 area to and there customer is non existant to.... many people are really getting frustrated by this, tonight i converted 3 customers back to dialup, is this really ireland should be going? back to dialup cause there broadband is down for 2 weeks.

Sully

Got this response today, still not happy.

Dear Kevin

The issue in the 051X are should now be resolved

As I do not have any details for your account I cannot currently see if your router is online

Please check your connection and reply if the issue has not been resolved

My Response back:-

This issue has resolved. However, I still have questions unanswered from my previous support requests. Would you mind answering those - so we can draw a close to this support ticket? I would rather not have to go to management to get answers, or even take this public. Nearly a month without internet connectivity and absolute no communication from Esat to its customers. The only response I get is that its "random" - which was not an acceptable response. Perhaps its time you escalated this ticket to your supervisor, as I have asked many times for answers and have not got them. In fact, you have been rude enough to ignore them.

I expect EsatBT will be compensating its customers for the downtime and lack of support?

If I fail to get answers in your next, immediate, response - I will be forced to take further action to find out these answers. I hope it does not come to this.

Regards,
Kevin OSullivan

Sully

neon_glows wrote:

perlico are down in 051 area to and there customer is non existant to.... many people are really getting frustrated by this, tonight i converted 3 customers back to dialup, is this really ireland should be going? back to dialup cause there broadband is down for 2 weeks.

Perlico are dodgy if you ask me. I heard people complaining on Joe Duffy a few months ago about lack of service, and lack of customer support. Even complaints about staff being rude to them! In fact, a member of management came on and apologised - and said it would take time but the problems would be fixed.

fi

Hi, im in Dublin and i lost connections yesterday lunch time... i tried everything at home thinking it was that....

i then rang teh tech support, was on hold for 40 mins before it asked me to go through to Q buster... adn still no call back

I rang again at 12 was on teh Queing system for another 30 mins before it put me through to Q buster, adn im still waiting...

is this a BT issue, is anyone else in Dublin without a connection???

if not can anyone sugest what i can do, i ahve 2 DSL router modem box thongies and neither will connect even though my laptop which is wireless says im connected its only joking with me as you cant do anything!!!

thanks in advance

Diabolus

Sully04 wrote:

A local small business called me (as I setup their broadband and new PC)

(they didnt sign up for a business pack btw)

Erm why?

Oh wait so your emailing BT back and forward looking for credits and answers and you dont even have their broadband?
Sounds like its not your problem.
Sounds like this business shouldn't have gone the cheap Res route tbh.
No business in their right mind would.

p.s Any updates?

fi wrote:

Hi, im in Dublin and i lost connections yesterday lunch time... i tried everything at home thinking it was that....

is this a BT issue, is anyone else in Dublin without a connection???
thanks in advance

This thread is labelled "BT Down - 051 Area?".
If i were you i would start a new thread called "BT Down - 01 Area?".
In this post your location / exchange, router type, DSL lights etc?

Might be able to give you some limited help if i can...

Sully

Diabolus wrote:

Erm why?

Oh wait so your emailing BT back and forward looking for credits and answers and you dont even have their broadband?
Sounds like its not your problem.
Sounds like this business shouldn't have gone the cheap Res route tbh.
No business in their right mind would.

Its only a small business, listed as residential. They have no clue about the internet, and barley understand the difference between a "Phone Provider" and "Internet Provider". I was given the duty to help them get it all working so they came to me when it went down.

p.s Any updates?

Replied:-

Dear Kevin

Q: One user reported to be back online in Tramore but claims he had to reset his router to get back connectivity, which we both thought was rather strange. Any comment on this?

A: This customer must have been one of those who were either not affected to begin with (i.e the router had malfunctioned and needed a reset to boot correctly) or their issue was fixed by Eircom.


Q: Also, can you provide areas / locations of the 051 area which you know are working?

A: We cannot tell which customers / locations are affected directly from any outage on the Eircom Network.


Q: I get the feeling that this matter is not being taken very seriously by Esat. I would of assumed if a greater area was having broadband connection issues a team of engineers would be sent working to fix the problem and get the service back.

A: BT have taken this matter very seriously and as you say a team of engineers were sent to fix the problem. However as the fault was on the Eircom network they were responsible for dealing with the fault and the engineers.


Q: Can you not provide more information to the cause of the problem, and any kinda of ETA to when you hope to have it fixed?

A: We could not provide any more information as we simply did not have any. Eircom were aware of the fault and were dealing with it accordingly. There is no ETA or SLA between Eircom and any DSL provider for faults minor or major.


Q: The only response I get is that its "random" - which was not an acceptable response.

A: Sadly this description is the most accurate response we could have given. As above we cannot tell which customers / locations are affected directly from any outage on the Eircom Network.


Q: I expect EsatBT will be compensating its customers for the downtime and lack of support?

A: If you provide your telephone and account number, I can arrange for a Customer Care agent to call you back otherwise, I suggest you call our Customer Care team on 1904 and apply for credit during the downtime.

Regards,

And my (final) response:-

Hi again.

Many Thanks for answering my questions. I was not aware the fault was on Eircoms side and I am well aware of the difficulties of other ISPs getting any proper update or feedback from them when there is a problem. Its just a pitty that this is the "done thing" as such, and everyone (including the ISPs) are taking it lying down.

Please have EsatBT call "X" (as I said earlier, I was speaking on behalf of her) of Y, at Z. She has been a customer since the days of IOL and was very disappointed at the treatment received since the outage and also the delay in getting it fixed.

Many Thanks for your response. I hope Esat will have something to offer X as compensation for the downtime and lack of support which she was subject to.

Kind Regards,

Diabolus

Sully04 wrote:

Its only a small business, listed as residential. They have no clue about the internet, and barley understand the difference between a "Phone Provider" and "Internet Provider".

I'd suggest you get them on a business package with a decent SLA

Hissing Sideban

Well, as of this morning before I left for work , my DSL is still down, I cannot believe how long this is going on, and the poor customer service I got from BT so far. On th e29th of December, I officially logged a complaint via the web site, and received an automated reply with an incident number, but since then - nothing! Not even a reply from Kevin!

I will complain to Comreg, as someone says if enough people complain, it might make some difference! I wonder how many people are affected in Tramore - of course, many will be offline so we wouldn't hear about them on this board!

The BT business office is in the Waterford industrial park very close to my work, so I asked in there yesterday, but they only deal with th ebusiness side - so I certainly won't be moving my or any of the businesses I consult for (who are all large telecoms consumers) to BT in the near future - if thir attitude is so poor to me, I can't imagine it would be much better (just fancier worded excuses I expect) for Business!

Jokers!