BT Infinity Connection Dropping but BT refuse to a...

Question

Hi,
So in September we got BT Infinity. It was a hassle and handled terribly by BT customer service but we eventually got it. It's been working fine for around five months but within the last few weeks we have been having connection issues.
Over Easter I have spent over 10 hours on the phone to BT via my landline and mobile trying to get a solution, but all I have got is a repeated denial of my problems.
On the 27th March I called BT to report that our connection had been repeatedly dropping over the past few weeks and a fault was opened. I was told I would be updated but no-one called back despite promises they would do.
I called BT on the 28th March to follow up my issues but was met with an advisor who lacked knowledge in the issue and simply told me to continue monitoring my connection.
I called BT on the 3rd April as there had been no improvement in my connection, which is dropping multiple times per day, and on this day 7 times. After going through the same repetitive questioning session about how I connect to the internet, a deep line test was run, and it was decisively concluded that there was a fault with the line within BT's retail servers. I was told this would be followed up and promised a call back on the 4th April.
After I had not received a call back on the 4th April within the time allocated to me, I called BT where I was met with an awfully rude woman who had no interest in helping me and went on to suggest what I was saying was an outright lie and she categorically stated there had been no call back booked despite me having the text in front of me which confirmed it.
After being told to 'continue monitoring my line', a slightly repetitive phrase favoured by BT Customer Service, I called back as instructed on the 8th April. Again, I went through a repetitive process before finally making some sort of progress and being sent a new home hub.
My new home hub arrived on the 11th April and made no difference to my problem. I therefore called BT and spoke to an advisor who told me he could only assume the Home Hub was sent in error, as he was absolutely adamant it would make absolutely no difference to my situation. I was told to 'continue monitoring my connection' over the next few days but before he ended the call I asked him a number of questions, none of which were adequately answered.
Why is our connection dropping? Rather than giving me an explanation as to why it is dropping, he told me that we are lucky it only drops a few times a day! He said 'everyone in the world suffers from a connection which drops multiple times per day' and that 'there is absolutely nothing we can do because there is no problem'. He told me about rate-adaptive lines, which according to him 'are used by every household in the world' and that these lines 'inevitably drop out up to five times a day, which is normal and acceptable'.
So how many times can it drop before it's considered a fault? The basic answer I received is that there is no limit! It doesn't matter how many times it drops, it absolutely normal! Only if it drops '20-30+ times per day' is it considered a problem worth solving to BT.
Why do you never call back (in particular, why did no-one call back on the 4th April, and why did an advisor accuse me of lying about the call back)? They said that when the issue is escalated from Level 1 to Level 2, it is impossible to see any contact between the customer and Level 1, so when the call back wasn't arranged as it should've been, there was no way BT could've known. He apologised for this and the way I was treated by his colleague.
Why was a fault reported on the 3rd April? Why have I not been updated since? Simple answer from BT. There probably was no fault, that was probably also incorrectly opened. Note the key word probably. The advisor I talked to said he had no idea what happened in any of my previous calls and that there was no way he could find out why the fault was opened, or listen to the call (despite all calls being recorded). He said it was impossible for Level 2 to hear the content of any calls made with Level 1 and that it was 'impossible for an advisor to take notes for a call lasting more than half an hour'.
I recieved a call back today on my mobile where I was told just to continue monitoring the fault. However I was also told, again, quite categorically, that there is nothing wrong and that he would happily send an engineer in three days but that 'he would be able to do absolutely nothing. It would be a waste of time'. The advisor also refused to give any details on how much this would cost and was desperate to end the call saying 'goodbye' despite me being mid sentence multiple times.
I have now been told to 'continue monitoring my connection' and await another call back on Friday, by which point I will have wasted many more hours on the phone to BT.
Your customer service is disgusting. Your lack of compassion and understanding is disgusting. The way you totally mislead customers is disgusting.
And now for my top BT Operator quotes (or near quotes, as obviously no-one has any idea what was said in these calls, not even BT!):
"If your temperature raised to 100 degrees celcius but then went back to normal, there would be no problem, it's the same with broadband"
"Everyone in the world has a rate-adaptive line and everyone in the world should expect their line to drop"
"If your line only drops 5 or 6 times a day there is no problem, you obviously should've known this before you signed up for Infinity"
"There definitely is a fault.... there definitely isn't a fault" - the trademark conclusiveness of BT
"We can limit the speed on the phone line, but it would have to be to 1mb" - this is despite absolutely contradictory help published by BT
But despite these humorous moments, I have wasted a huge amount of time on the phone to BT.
I have one simple demand. Stop the broadband from dropping multiple times per day. If you cannot do this, let us leave, as you are not meeting your contractual obligations and therefore we shouldn't have to either.
And please... don't apologise for your colleague not calling back in the first minute of the phone call and then not call back.

Answer 1

Hi Bryan,
Like yourself and many, many other people who come to these forums - I have been experiencing the same problems. Constant disconnections, and recently, speed dropping to 4Mb in the Evenings (I'm supposed to be getting 74Mb).
It's ridiculous with how many people are experiencing these problems and BT are blatently ignoring it. To add insult to injury, this was posted in February. A statement from BT basically saying "Well you're all gonna be having problems, but it's on you."
Don't fret though, the moderators, and other people from the community can be fantastic help.
Purchasing an Openreach modem, suggested by ray_dorset, I'll still be awaiting for the Huawei 612, V3b modem to arrive and hoping this will fix the drops in speed. I currently have an ECI modem fitted in, which has stopped the disconnects, but have not stopped the speed drops.
For anyone reading this who is unfamiliar with modems as I was:
As far as I know, there's currently two types of Openreach Modems. Every exchange is built with a certain "chipset" which will work best with these modems (explaining in simplistic terms and I could be very wrong, so I am happy to be corrected.)
The Two Openreach Modems:
Huawei 614
ECI
From the advice I have been given by the moderators, if you're new to BT Infinity, then your exchange may have only recently been built, which is then most likely to have a chipset which will work better with Huawei modems. I'm about to find out this by next week.
If, in some horrible scenario it doesn't work and the speed is still constantly dropping, then you may need to fork out and purchase a new router (BUT KEEP THE MODEM). Many people have said their internet has been fixed by doing this.
One of the things I did find pretty hillarious however, is that I did call up BT the other night due to having terrible connections. He told me to take out my modem and just use the home hub 5. He then kept telling me to change a few settings on the HH5 and run a speedtest. Every, single, time we changed something - the speed would get lower and lower, followed by an "Uhhh, monitor your speed over the course of this week and then we'll call you back."
I'm sorry, but BT customer service have no idea how to fix this, so don't waste your time ringing them. I genuinely feel bad for them too, they have to put up with our **bleep** while the engineers at BT who work on the firmware for the HH5 can't be arsed to try and fix it any further.
Seriously, mate - just try the steps above, come to the forums if you need help because you're more than likely to get a better answer. I know it sucks not being able to call up BT because they're just going to give you a bunch of BS, but if everyone who had a complaint on this forum worked for BT tech support, maybe there'd be more satisfied customers.