Written evidence submitted by Ms Sandie Reed (DCS0042)

 

Written submission from Ms Sandie Reed Domestic customer of BT.

  1. Slow speeds for nearly 15 years.
  2. Router problems.
  3. Poor communication from BT
  4. Local exchange restrictions
  5. Existing fibre optic potential ignored
  6. Radio broadband problems
  7. Commercials pressures for broadband
  8. Business development restricted
  9. Mobile phone/emergency services

1.Too slow: I have been a BT broadband customer since 2003. At the time of signing up I had a broadband speed of half a megabyte. It is now 2018 and my broadband speed remains the same. I am paying through the nose for this “service”. There are times of day when things go very slowly and whole days when things go slower than slowly and connectivity either blinks on and off or else goes altogether. I want to watch a Welsh soap opera on  i-player on my PC (not enough broadband to get the television variety) and also to watch archive film on youtube. It could also be handy for learning choir parts, but confuses the rest of the choir when I stop every 2  minutes and rotate my head to allow for buffering time.....

2. Router difficulties: From time to time BT updates the routers but doesn’t let customers know. A few years ago I got a new router gratis. This time I had to pay around £70 for the privilege. I think BT should refund this money given that I suffer from their slow speed. BT have failed to respond to this request.

  1. Failure to answer: Via my MP, Mr John Lamont, I have sent logs of my daily experience to BT. While BT have responded, they have replied to any of the general or specific issues I have raised. I insist on emails because then I have a written record of events. During the last spate of correspondence I had my wrist in plaster, making keyboard use slow and very painful. I did not respond quickly enough to a BT email. He assumed I had withdrawn from the correspondence. I replied that I had not and wished an answer to my questions. I have heard nothing since. They DID say we were to get fibre optic. Nevertheless some while ago a green junction box of the type associated with the useless copper wire technology has appeared outside the village hall. The source of this box could not be traced! The right hand of BT is clearly unable to work out what the left is doing. When I first started complaining several years ago, one BT woman told me I was lucky to have broadband at all!
  2. Whitsome exchange: This village has had quite a population growth due to an outbreak of upmarket homes. Despite the increased demand, BT has refused to upgrade the exchange. For several years now BT can accept no new broadband customers, as my neighbours will testify. We live about a mile south of the exchange, down the B6437. We had to wait years to catch up with the rest of the country to get the 1471 facility.
  3. Fibre optic potential ignored: The cottages are about 100 metres north of the junction of the B6437 and the B6461. Along the B6461 there runs a fibre optic cable to the village of Swinton. It would be a relatively simple matter to service nearly 30 households at Whitsome Hill by running a spur here from the crossroads.
  4. Radio broadband problems: Privatisation has exacerbated the many problems here. New residents are now forced to pay a surcharge of £100-£150 for connection to a rural radio broadband supplier. Planning permission has been given for a pair of further upmarket houses for non-locals on the hardstanding to the north of this listed cottage row, which would disrupt the signal to our cottages. Bang goes my attempt to get away from BT even if I COULD afford the surcharge. Now a further radio company has begun operation and is causing considerable interference to reception of the original service and hacking off my neighbours. No choice for me. Rural broadband is far too vital to be left to untrammelled private enterprise buccaneers.
  5. Commercial requirements for broadband: The withdrawal of many services from rural areas, of which banking is one such example, means that there is increasing pressure for people to do things online. It is frustrating to try to book a train seat, etc, when connectivity is lost in the middle of a transaction.
  6. Business restricted: When I retired I had intended to start an online jewellery business but no chance of that with the rubbish speeds and losses of connectivity. BT was once a publicly owned facility. The interests of the rural public are now ignored.

 

Mobile phones: There are many black holes in the mobile phone system round here. Again, this is due to the patchy coverage by uncoordinated private companies. I am unable to get a signal on my EE network anywhere near Norham, the nearest Northumbrian village south of here. Very helpful when a tyre goes bang due to the many potholes in the area. If I am just north of the Tweed on the Scottish side of the Norham bridge, phone calls to emergency services are answered by the English side so take time to sort out.

 

January 2018