T HAS been nearly four months since a serious REIN issue developed here in this neighbourhood. It took me over 20 hours on the phone before BT sent out an engineer (I wasn’t the only one complaining) and perhaps 40 hours on the phone (set aside other forms of correspondence, many visits from engineers, and the suffering from a poor connection for many months in a row) to send out the Precision Test Officer. Much of it was gradually chronicled in the following posts:

• BT Complaints Again (Updatedx14)
• BT Takes Two Months to Bother Fixing Faulty BT Network for Entire Neighbourhood (Updatedx20)
• BT Update: Precision Test Officer to be Sent Out After 3 Months (Updatedx9)

Dumping BT isn’t quite a solution because it’s the BT Openreach line that has an issue with it. It doesn’t matter if one moves to a different ISP, the cables stay the same. My neighbours who experience similar issues and complain about it are not even with BT as their ISP. So we need alternative cables, e.g. Virgin. A couple of days ago I responded to BT (see the latest in the third link above).

Virgin is now polling/asking (by post) the whole area if there’s enough demand for fiber-optic connection. I think that they already have some infrastructure in place, based on what the precision testing officer told me. BT Openreach wiring here cannot be trusted anymore, and there is no imminent remedy, not even hope of a fix.

If I get my way, we might be able to get new wiring from BT’s competition here. That will help resolve the issue for good, I hope, helping a lot of people…

And later on the connection got so bad that I escalated this to the highest BT managers with the following strongly-worded message:

We have just been disconnected SEVEN times in a 30-minute period. This is not acceptable and I cannot accept closure of this issue. If need be, I shall work to have alternative cables introduced in our neighbourhood and lobby all my neighbour (using letters) to dump BT for good, showing them how poorly the company has dealt with this issue that I first reported nearly 4 months ago. I have detailed documentation of this case, so facts are on my site. It took more than 3 months to merely send a precision testing officer out! https://schestowitz.com/Weblog/archives/2015/06/23/bt-rein/

Yesterday I spent half an hour with BT on the phone. We’re still trying get get alternative wiring/cabling (alternative to BT Openreach), whereupon we can finally leave.

Judging by some reactions that I received online, other people in England and even in Scotland had similar experiences with BT and only by dumping BT’s cables have these problems been ‘resolved’. This BT monopoly on the cables (BT Openreach) needs to end.

Update: BT Retail sent the following message.

Hi Mr Schestowitz,

I’d like to thank for your emails and time you have spent with me on the phone it was very much appreciated and I’d like to thank you for your patience with the issues you’ve faced.

The Future
I’ve closed your complaint as we discussed on the phone. If you have any other problems, please get in touch on [redacted] or [redacted] using PIN 1089. Or you can email my team at [redacted]

For anything else our Customer Services will be happy to help on 0800 800 150. Or why not take a look at our website www.bt.com. Alternatively for any issues with your BT services the Technical Helpdesk are available on 0800 111 4567 should you need them.

What we’ve done…
You reported you were facing issues with your Broadband in that it was intermittent, dropping connection multiple times per day. After multiple tests and engineers have been out heavy REIN interference was suspected. A REIN trained engineer and both a Precision Test Engineer have both surveyed the area but were unable to locate a source for the interference.

Currently legislation exists in the form of the Electromagnetic Compatibility Regulations (Statutory Instrument 2006 No.3418). It ensures that when new equipment is placed on the market in the UK it mustn’t cause interference to radio services and telecommunications networks. Conformance being indicated by the affixation of the CE mark.

Unfortunately in most REIN cases the source of the noise is not a device that is causing problems from new, but has degraded during its life such that it generates excessive noise in the order of 50dB (100,000 times) higher than when it was new, and met the EMC regulations and was CE marked. This excessive noise is usually due to components failing within the power supply, but unfortunately the equipment still appears to operate normally to the owner.

We’ve talked about such issues with BIS and Ofcom in the past and they all agree that there’s currently no legislation that we can use to stop this interference being caused. The EMC regulations are a market entry requirement to allow free movement of goods around Europe and hence only apply when equipment is first sold and so has no application to in-life issues that subsequently occur.

In most cases when such issues are bought to the attention of the owner of the faulty equipment they are co-operative and will take action to repair or replace the equipment causing the problems. However in a limited number of cases (like this one) that co-operation is not forthcoming and then there is currently nothing that BT or anyone can do. It is for these cases that new legislation is required. Ideally any new legislation should allow an enforcement authority to issue a suspension notice (something along the lines of Article 43 of SI2006: 3418) to the owner of the equipment that is causing the interference.

I hope this helps you understand our position better, and why this has been a lengthy process. As the engineers have confirmed that they are unable to locate the sources of the REIN in the area they’ve had no choice other than to close off their investigation and with this there are no further actions we can take.

I’d like to thank you for both your time on the phone and the understanding of the situation.

Monies…

Due to the issues you were facing and as we discussed I would like to credit you half of the Broadband cost for the 4 month you have been facing these problems. You will see a single credit on your next bill of £44.25. This is in full and final settlement of your complaint as we agreed.

Many Thanks

[redacted]
Executive Level Technical Complaints
BT Retail

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