Diary of an ADSL disaster

BTopenworld promises an internet that's vibrant, faster and always-on, but for many customers the reality is very different. One small company charts the world of woe waiting at the end of the broadband rainbow...

With Labour and the Tories fighting over which party gets to champion the broadband cause you might think the future for always-on, fast net access looks rosy. But for small companies signing up to services offered by the likes of BT and alternative telco providers, the reality is often very different.

One such company, London-based recruitment firm Pollen Reed, jumped at the chance of a broadband connection. With a business model built on communication and research with clients and potential candidates, the chance of cheap, permanent access was too good to pass up...

28/4/00
Attracted by the advertising, company director Daniel Pollen signs up to BTopenworld's ADSL pre-registration service. Despite the delay in launching the service and the resulting negative publicity he's confident BT will be the best telco to provide a reliable service.

"BTopenworld will contact you to confirm your full order when it can be progressed," the customer services desk writes. "Now the wait is almost over... BTopenworld is on its way."

26/6/00
Pollen Reed takes possession of its shiny new office near Oxford Circus in the heart of London. Still no sign of an ADSL connection, but the openworld team assure Pollen it isn't far away now...

24/7/00
Despite numerous emails and phone calls during July and early August, still no sign of a connection date. In fact, according to one unhelpful helpdesk assistant, BT isn't sure if central London has any ADSL coverage yet anyway.

25/8/00
At last! An email from BT: "Now the wait is almost over... BTopenworld is on its way..."

Despite ADSL's apparent continuing no-show in Oxford Circus, the customer service desk agrees to a connection date of 11 September. The company's directors believe they are now just one small step away from that elusive permanent connection.

11/9/00
The fated day arrives but despite formal confirmation from openworld in the form of a letter and CD-Rom, there's no sign of the engineer. According to the customer services desk, a survey should have been carried out first.

On 13 September Daniel Pollen finally receives an email saying ADSL is available in Oxford Circus.

2/10/00
The engineer shows up and connects the office to openworld. After testing the service on his laptop he disappears. A week later and Pollen Reed's IT department finally manages to hook up PCs to the socket, but find the IP addresses have been changed and all emails will have to be re-routed.

11/10/00
Within a week, internet access and email have disappeared as the openworld server crashes. "We went with BTopenworld as we expected a reliable and trustworthy service," says Pollen. "I didn't even receive a courtesy call or apology, let alone an offer of compensation for loss of business."

Despite a formal complaint, there is no response from openworld. When pressed, customer services go as far as to say: "I have passed your email on to the complaints liaison officer who will arrange someone to contact you."

April 2001
During the last six months, Pollen Reed has listed six serious interruptions to its email and internet service and spoken to eight different customer service representatives. Each time Pollen is told: "We are not able to guarantee 100 per cent services," and "we have no idea when full service will be resumed".

Pollen accepts that there is no guaranteed level of service in the openworld agreement but believes that any business contract demands a reasonable level of competence. "BTopenworld have been unable to provide a regular service and have failed in every way to meet my expectations," he says.

Most frustratingly, Pollen and its partner Sheldon Reed chose the telco over its rivals because they believed BT would be able to keep its infrastructure running, providing backup and alternative routes if it encountered problems.

BT has offered the company 21 days free connection and £80 as compensation, but the determined Pollen is planning to fight on.

"I wonder if they'd treat us this way if we were the size of British Gas?" he ponders.

Better ring customer services to find out...