OFCOM

 

  BRITISH COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES REGULATOR ENGLAND, WALES, SCOTLAND, NORTHERN IRELAND

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The Chief Executive Officer 
Ofcom
Riverside House
2a Southwark Bridge Road
London, SE1 9HA
                                                                                                                   27 August 2021

Dear Sir or Madam:


BT and Open Reach – Monopoly – & Inappropriate Business Practices

Please find enclosed copy of my letters to BT Group plc., and OpenReach Ltd., dated 14 August 2021. The content of this letter sets out the basis of a complaint stretching back several years – still unresolved.

The telephone line and especially broadband service is extremely slow with frequent dropouts, and crackling on the line when making landline calls. The problems have been ongoing for several years, with BT Group plc as the service provider, and as the owners of Openreach Ltd., being entirely responsible for the service connection.

It appears that BT and Openreach work hand in glove to employ a system designed to assuage clients, while continuing to provide a substandard service, a business practice that to my mind is dishonest, in that complaints raised are put through a process involving an engineer visiting and carrying out tests, then saying speeds are good, in the full knowledge that the fault is ongoing, and that they have no intention of upgrading the aging copper wires from the area cabinet, to .......................

Knowing that this is an ongoing dispute, yet still charging for a service that fails to provide the speeds contracted for, allows them to obtain a pecuniary advantage, while causing me loss, in that at times I don't have the service promised, in an age where everyone relies on the internet to live.

It appears to me that BT and OpenReach enjoy a monopoly situation, where the consumer does not have a choice. Even when I was with TalkTalk, in an effort to cure the poor service, it was OpenReach Ltd., owned by BT Group plc, that effectively controlled the network.

I am of the view that if a service is not brought up to the required standard, free of discrimination - as required by Article 14 HRA 1998 - that BT should be forcibly disenfranchised, or alternatively, compelled by law to effect modernisation of their faulty network.

The problem as I see it is that BT have enjoyed a monopoly situation, without effective monitoring and controls to ensure that customers receive a satisfactory service, no matter where they are located. 

The lack of competition means BT Group as the controlling minds of OpenReach (wholly owned subsidiary) can get away with failing to upgrade a substandard infrastructure, leaving the consumer high and dry.

BT/OpenReach have engineered a business practice designed to disguise their failures and inability to correct long term faults arising from the said defective infrastructure, by opening and closing complaints that they know will not cure the problem, but tends to make it appear to their clients as though they are tackling the problem.

For all these reasons, I am asking you if you would consider exploring the possibility of taking this on as a serious complaint, by way of an investigation into the business practices of British Telecommunications plc., with a view to busting the monopoly situation, in the interests of fair play, strong communities, and morally robust institutions, as per United Nations Sustainability Development Goals 9, 11 and 16.


Yours Sincerely,



......................... (Affected Customer in Person)

 

 

 

 

OFCOM have failed to respond to this letter.

 

 

 

Considering that it was the Scotsman, Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the telephone in 1876, you would imagine that British Telecom and OpenReach would offer a decent service to all people within their geographical remit. 

 

That may be so if you live in a city or large town, but when you live in a village backwater you are likely to get second class treatment, unless you decide to make a career of fighting the injustice ....

 

 

 

 

COULDN'T CARE LESS - COS WE'RE ALL RIGHT JACK

 

It is alleged that the reason for such poor performance in outlying areas is all to do with money. But is that cost effective for their shareholders. Is it restrictive practices, a dishonest business model or plain and simple negligence.

 

Either way the company is in breach of contract, in ordinary law, if they fail to provide a clear landline and internet speeds advertised. Especially over a prolonged period

 

Is there an effective remedy? 

 

 

 

 

 

The village of Herstmonceux is an area in Sussex, England, that is the subject of investigation, after 3 years of faults, slow broadband speeds and line crackling, still unresolved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

HERSTMONCEUX - Is also a poor signal area for mobile phones ...

 

 

 

 

TELECOMS UP SHIT CREEK WITHOUT A PADDLE

 

The shit service may include Human Rights violations.

 

 

 

 

OFCOM AND THE OMBUDSMAN

 

OFCOM is the services providers regulator, who is supposed to intervene and seek to sort our complaints.

 

 

 

 

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NOISE POLLUTION

 

Line crackling ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's

 

 

OMBUDSMAN DENIAL

 

...

 

 

THE MONOPOLIES COMMISSION

 

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The deve

 

 

 

 

ABOUT THE INJUSTICE ALLIANCE

 

The Injustice Alliance is a group dedicated to unearthing perverse decision making, and making corrupt officials accountable for their actions. This includes law enforcement officials who are either on the payroll or for other reasons fail to investigate crime.

 

 

 

 

 

 

ARE YOU IMPRESSED BY THEIR BULLSHIT? - Many customers are unimpressed with the level of service, referring to BT as Bullshit Telecoms. Fair comment. In fact it is more cleverly managed bullshit than you imagine, with no effective remedy all the while there is no network competition. Being cables and exchanges that offer a less fault free experience, as with BT nursing old systems that should have been replaced years ago. For some reason, the British Parliament have allowed a monopoly situation to become unassailable. When competition should be encouraged to give customers a genuine choice. There is no choice at the moment as to whose cables and network you want. It is Hobson's Choice.

 

John Flemming puts it rather well in his 2011 rant: Are there any competent telecoms companies anywhere in Britain?

BT treats its customers with much the same care and respect as the Libyan and Syrian governments treat its people.

But Pipex/TalkTalk appears to be in some sort of heavy-handed contest with BT and Virgin Media to win a prize as the most PR-stupid and professionally incompetent telecoms company in the UK. They seem to manage to be devious, deaf and incompetent simultaneously. At least Virgin Media is not devious, it’s just plain incompetent.

Virgin Media claims to have the fastest broadband in Britain but, in my (his) first-hand experience, its broadband does not work for 60% of the time and constantly drops. Someone else I know reckoned, for her, Virgin Media’s broadband was perhaps 10% the speed of her former BT line for 90% of the time. Perhaps it has the fastest broadband in Britain over a measured two second spurt. Try to get any customer service, of course, and you might as well be trying to play football underwater.

At least Pipex/TalkTalk’s people are comprehensible, if unwelcome. BT, in my (his) limited experience, have ‘help centres’ in ‘proper’ India staffed by unfortunate people with accents more incomprehensible than drunken Glaswegians wearing gas masks. That’s not racism, it’s a rant against BT’s stupidity in having foreign help centres. They might as well have their help centres staffed by deaf mutes in Guatemala for all the good they do. When will BT realise that saving money on help centres costs them more in lost customers and disastrous damage to their already low image?

 

 

 

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