BT Proposes New Fault Charging Scheme

Anyone who has ever had a problem with their broadband will know that it?s often one of the most difficult services to sort out quickly. As broadband consumers we often have to deal with charges for technical support lines, quality and language problems with foreign call centres and the old favourite of being bounced back between our providers and BT without either actually wanting to admit the fault lies with them.

One of the biggest problems with the faults process right now is the inevitable BT visit if tests over the phone fail to find anything conclusive. This is a common occurrence for a fault like line noise that could have multiple causes and can be difficult to diagnose remotely. The problem is that openreach engineers charge you if they don?t find a problem or if the problem was outside of BT?s area.

BT will cover free repair to faults resulting to anything that they conceive as belonging to them, which is essentially everything from the phone jack in your premises out onto the street and beyond, but? doesn?t over you own internal wiring. The problem is that most consumers don?t really have a clue about what constitutes internal problems. Many line faults are also intermittent ? fail to have a problem when the BT engineer shows up and you could be charged just for the callout.

BT has announced that some of this process, that it calls Special Faults Investigation (SFI) will be changed for SFI2 that allows a more modular approach and is focused on tackling the issues caused by Local Loop Unbundled (LLU) broadband which the majority of UK consumers are subscribed to.

However, while the new service may solve some problems, it comes with another new callout charge that could see consumers getting charged twice ? once for a test on the internal wires and one on the external connections. There?s also no independent way of telling if a fault simply wasn?t fixed or there wasn?t one to begin with, thanks to BTs monopoly on the network.

Adrian Kennard, Direct of AAISP commented on the charges and lack of third party regulation:

“Even what he says misses the point that they do not “prove the fault not to be in openreach’s (or just BT’s) network”.

What they do is *fail* to identify the fault in their network as so *assume* it is in the end user equipment. They do not prove it is there. But that is the basis for them charging.”

A statement from BT stated that new tools could mean charging could be lowered:

?Depending on these engineering work packages carried out, the charges may be lower than today’s standard charge. Additionally the investigation itself will be more ‘intelligent’ with Openreach engineers using the latest test and diagnostic tools available in the industry in a structured procedure to trace a complex fault.?

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