Tuesday, September 05, 2017

British Telecom: Tonight Declan complains to BT about our latest 1/2 hour removal from the internet plus the almost total shutdown of our BT TV service (WITH UPDATE 8/9/2017)

Re: Blocks on public access to our Church and State website since 26 July 2016

From my earlier blog post's Update 6 September (11.15am):

"And it's not just Facebook blocks, blocks on public access to our Church and State website and the daily targeting to fluctuating degrees of category pages throughout the site that Declan and I are dealing with these days. We have also been dealing with Internet cuts since 26 May. See my blog post of 21 June, Internet cuts: We pay £65 per month for BT Infinity but feel we are in a race against time to stay online (WITH UPDATE 6/9/2017 RE: 155th Internet cut since 26 May 2017)."

8 September (5.42pm): 724 blocks on public access to our Church and State website since 26 July 2016.* See my blog post of 16 January, The blocks on public access to our Church and State website continue unabated (WITH UPDATE 8/9/2017 RE: 724th block since 26 July 2016). 101 blocks last month that included 8 blocks on 15 August; 21 blocks this month; 18 blocks this week that includes 6 blocks on 3 September; 1 block so far today (as of 8 September at 5.42pm).

1. 651st 15 August 2017, 12.03am
2. 652nd 15 August 2017, 1.56am
3. 653rd 15 August 2017, 3.39am
4. 654th 15 August 2017, 5.34am
5. 655th 15 August 2017, 10.51am
6. 656th 15 August 2017, 3.11pm
7. 657th 15 August 2017, 4.34pm
8. 658th 15 August 2017, 6.45pm (8)
-----------------------------------------
61. 711th 3 September 2017, 3.56am
62. 712th 3 September 2017, 5.47am
63. 713th 3 September 2017, 7.23am
64. 714th 3 September 2017, 5.34pm
65. 715th 3 September 2017, 9.05pm
66. 716th 3 September 2017, 10.20pm (6)
-----------------------------------------
74. 724th 8 September 2017, 4.07pm

* An unprecedented escalation of 52 blocks in one week at the end of April 2017 that kicked off with our focus on the Danish Cartoon Crisis.

The War on Free Expression



British Telecom is one of the world's leading communications services companies. We pay BT £65.53 per month (£786.36 per year) for BT Infinity 2 fibre optic broadband. Nonetheless, tonight Declan has had to telephone BT Technical Helpdesk to complain about our latest 1/2 hour removal from the internet, plus the almost total shutdown of our BT TV service. Our internet connection was coincidentally restored within seconds of the call without the Helpdesk even having had a chance to do anything about it. As for their TV service, the Helpdesk didn't even try to fix our BT TV YouView box because our TV and aerial are working fine. Instead, they placed an order for a new TV set-top box. Declan copied British Telecom Chairman Sir Michael Rake into this complaint last June to BT's Executive Level Complaints (Consumer) about their account of what happened during an engineer's visit to replace a badly fitted BT master socket that was otherwise working fine:

For the attention of Sir Michael Rake, Chairman, British Telecom

Shirley Mackie
Executive Level Complaints (Consumer)
British Telecom

Address removed for email


16 June 2017

Dear Ms Mackie,

This evening I spoke with an advisor in the Ombudsman Services: Communications. I have been told that I must request a second deadlock letter before writing to them because your deadlock letter below has instigated a new complaint.

I refer to your comment in which you state as follows: "An engineer attended on 7 June, but was unable to complete the necessary work. The engineer explained he was unable to repair the current master socket and offered to provide a new, securely fitted master socket on the same wall as the existing socket. But you advised you did not want this."

I do not accept your version of what happened during the engineer's visit on 7 June (hereinafter referred to as the "Complaint"). Firstly, your account is at variance with the attached ACR recording from my smartphone that informs you that the engineer only stated before leaving my home that the work needed to be carried out by my landlord Family Mosaic, not BT. I previously provided your colleague Miranda Bracey with this recording on 7 June.

Secondly, your account is at variance with the attached engineer note from 7 June, which states as follows: "This is a Fibre customer and will need a Fibre trained engineer to be allocated." Thirdly, as you have conceded below, it was a third engineer who visited my home on 12 June and securely fitted a brand new master socket to another location on the same wall. He also carried out a comprehensive line test and could not find a problem with my line.

I therefore hereby request a second deadlock letter that provides me with BT's full and final position on my Complaint and refers me to the ombudsman service.

Yours sincerely,

Declan Heavey



Declan received this initial response on behalf of Sir Michael Rake:

16 June 2017

Hello Mr Heavey,

Thank you for your email to Sir Michael.

I'm really sorry that you've had to come back to us regarding this matter.

I will ask our team to look at the deadlock for you and contact you no later than Tuesday.

Best wishes

Tracy

Tracy Reid
Executive Level Complaints (Consumer)

18 June: BT Executive Level Complaints (Consumer): Request for 2nd Deadlock Letter for the Telecommunications Ombudsman (WITH UPDATE 19/6/2017)

UPDATE 8 September (5.47pm): Unbelievable! We received our new BT YouView box yesterday evening, but in less than 24 hours we are back to where we were this time yesterday with no signal quality or signal strength. Last night we were getting signal quality 94% and signal strength 100% and good picture. We have already written off this new TV set-top box as a waste of our time and money.



Last night at 8.35pm:



This afternoon at 3.24pm:






From My Picks:

9 June: Ministry of Justice: Complaint to the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice against the County Court at Central London, Royal Courts of Justice (WITH UPDATE - Day 13 21/6/2017)

'Let me recommend an important web site churchandstate.org.uk. Operating out of London this well-designed and exciting web site covers church-state, population, climate change and other issues. Check it out.' Edd Doerr, President, Americans for Religious Liberty