Keeping off the grass

Finished Product

 As part of the tidying up after  the building work, they put a load of gravel on the drive - it was getting a bit thin in places. And this was fine, except that it spilled over onto the grass. Come the summer  and grass-cutting the gravel and stones will will trash the blades of the mower. And also theis stuff will follow gravity and successive rains will probably wash the gravel downhill  and onto the grass ( again) . So I thought I'd better build a small retaining wall.

Before

 The first step is to dig a bit of a hole and then put some flat, wide and solid stones down to act as the foundations. I dug a hole. And found a cable. I suspect its the telephone line coming  into the house. I found it a while back , where it enters the property

 




So not sure what will happen if I (gently)  put a big slab over it , the wall was moved 6 inches further away. For a while I've  been making a big pile of stones suitable for walling  and now was the time to go and get them. In digging for the foundations I also found a couple of other large stones  that got dug out , relocated and included in the wall.

starting

and on a bit more

  Ideally Id have liked to have put in another course or 2 but haven't easily got access to the stones. So ive made do with what I had . I can always come back and extend it (upwards or sideways) when supplies of suitable materials improve

Phones' back. and a small silver lining

The phone went down on sometime Tuesday  night during the storm.  Its been difficult to find out how widespread the problem has been , but  from  listening to  a number of course, we think  quite a few on the Harray side of the hill were affected.

The Openreach van ( all the way from Inverness)  arrived on sunday morning.  After a few minutes he discovered the total lack of phone was that the microfilter on the main connection had blown.  But he detected  another, different remote fault. this could be what the BT line test had found when i tried it whilst we had no phone. But  why didn't BT find it when we started making a fuss about the line ?

 So we left him to it, plugging some stuff into our phone line and disappearing, I assume to the nearest roadside cabinet  3 miles away. And when we returned there was a note reporting the problem as fixed.  The Broadband still isn't wonderful but here's the proof that things have improved

and its not just a one -off ( so far).  Usual speed of approx 1.5Mb/s before and 1.9-2.1 Mb/s after  !

so an improvement of 20% or so. 

But there is a downside as well. My online server has failed during the storm.

So I've taken it apart, rescued the hard disk and am in the process of retrieving all the  information from it. rebuilding it is a project for the next few nights - but of course I cant just pop out to get the bits - its mail order for anything I want .

 

No phone

we had a bit of a storm  yesterday.  Some of the ferries were cancelled

With some thunder and lightning overnight on tuesday  (not very common here , I've been told) , and the power went off very briefly a couple of times . We weren't alone - quite a bit of our bit of Orkney was affected .

 And  on Wednesday  the landline wasn't working - no dial tone. So I reported  it to BT , they tested it and I got an automatic message saying its their kit that has failed and someone was sorting it. I was also  pointed to ' MyBT ' bit of the website (the bit  they tell me how much I'm paying for a 1.6Mb/s connection) for updates .

 So here you go - I've logged into MyBT - the log out button is in the top right hand corner , ergo I'm logged in - and they tell me  this - no faults .

Wrong. Still no dial tone . So I 'test the line'  , and i get this

So there is still a fault.  BT cant really do anything about lightning strikes, and Im sure im not the only one affected. But its a pity they don't put as much effort into  ensuring there existing customers get  good information  - nofault/fault information is reminiscent of the up to 16Mb/s  weasel words when they flog you the connection - rather than continuing to  try and push additional services i don't want.

We've been without for 18 hours so far . And with the poor mobile signals, coummunication with the rest of the world can be challenging at times.

BT -robbers

My download speed is usually about 1Mb/s. This from a package that advertises  'up to 16 Mb/s'

Once I had  signed up they sent me an email that says

expected speed 0.75 -2.5 Mb/s 

The best ever speed I've measured  ( and we do regular tests)  is 1.5Mb/s 

they managed to excel themselves last night.  On several occasions we gave up trying to do anything . When it did work , here are the speeds we were getting 

And this co-incides with them sending  me my bill. 

I think  I should get a refund for the days when my service is unusable.  

BT - the lessons so far,

So I've eventually got a phone call from someone at BT
And an explanation of what should have happened. No real explanation about why  I was given such a run-around  and why the electronic switch (because thats all it was) couldn't have been sorted out earlier.

Things I have learned about BT so far.

• The Call Centre is hopeless. Their remit is to  say whatever is necessary to get the customer to go away.
• BT would appear to be a megalith that is too big to be efficient, at least for domestic customers  
• They are too keen on getting you to spend more money on new things rather than providing the service you a are paying for.
• Rural customers get a really bad deal.

When my parents first  got a telephone - must be 50 years ago - there were free phone calls after 6pm, so phone calls before then were restricted . And there were different rates for different times of the day.
the technology has improved enormously - packet switching , no telephonists connecting you , better cabling. So why , other than to take advantage of the customers , are they charging me a ridiculous amount for a few electrons to whiz along a cable ? No doubt some of my  money is going towards this (but to give him his due , he responded  more promptly than anyone else in BT to anything so far.

And now the phone deal that came with the BB probably isn't right , so I need to try and sort that out.
I can look forward to spending hours of my life that I will never get back again, listening to some drivel about 'up to 32 MB' when I know I will get nowhere near that speed  

Sadly I'm tied in to this shambolic megacorp for 12 months.

BT - Eager anticipation

well, the deafening silence has continued since the phone call and follow-up emails of 17th and 22nd July. So at 9 pm on Sunday night I sent them another reminder, asking for at least an acknowledgement.
But this time i copied the BT CEO into the email .

And i got a response that looks like it has come from the man himself !

Really impressed .

But we shall see if the rest of the Organisation  are as interested
 

BT - the deafening silence continues

So I've heard nothing from them - no further phone calls, no emails .
So ive  re-sent the email in case the original got lost.

BT - ducking and diving

So this drags on - the dialogue of the deaf. BT are 'sorry for any inconvenience caused '. Inconvenience is a mild term for the hassle !

So i have exchanged a few emails with them , pending a data subject access request response and a cheque for £10, to see what they think happened and who said what and when.

the latest version from BT is that the phone call on the 28th ( after we had moved in, and intended to be the phone call that activated the BB ) was to 'place the order' . But I've got an email from them , generated on 6th June that thanks me for the order and gives me the connection date of 4th July.

So we will have to take this a line at a time.

I've corrected them about is the date i placed the order - the 6th June and not the 28th . I'll have to forward back to them the email that they sent me if they continue to be a bit confused. I've asked them what information I was given on the 8th June. Thats all . So hopefully no scope for obfuscation.
we shall see

BT Broadband - inept, patronising and mendacious

Sorry to start with a rant.  Moving house is stressful , but the most stressful thing but this one has been BT and the age of the Broadband connection.  other interesting stuff will come later - but at the moment this has been the worst bit of the whole business of moving house.

F&J (previous residents) had BT broadband , so I thought the first stop would be BT. After contacting F&J they said their service was OK , with speeds of about 1.6MB/s – about par for rural Scotland. I had an internet chat through the BT website and got them, without too much trouble after the initial sales b*****cks of 'up to 16MB/s' to tell me that the speed I could expect could be 0.75-2.5, which tallied with what I knew, so I duly signed up. The confirmatory email gave a connection date of 4^th July. Why? F&J had a BT provided line and the BT home hub was being left in the cupboard, so why should it take a week? So I queried this in a phone call on 8th June and was told that all I'd have to do was make a phone call on the day we moved in (28^th June), and the connection could be initiated. Fine. Moving house is expensive, stressful and a hassle, so having access to online details, internet banking to ensure there is money to pay bills, important paperwork I had to do for work would make life a lot easier. So on Friday 28^th at about 1200 I made the phone call – to be told that I couldn't be connected and would have to wait until the 4^th July to even get working phone line. To summarise a very long phone call, they would see what could be done. Saturday 29^th am. Nothing. So another phone call (from a mobile with poor connection) – it was in hand. Saturday 29^th pm till no phone line, so another phone call – it was in hand. Finally the phone line became active at about 8.30 pm. So we fully expected the Broadband connection to go live shortly after they always say leave it until midnight) – so we went to bed expecting to get up to broadband. Sunday 30^th June, no BB so at 10am I called yet again and negotiated yet again the dreadful voicemail. This went through to technical support. They couldn’t do anything but would contact Admin and call me back. No call back so I rang again at 3pm but this time they couldn't do anything because the Order Management Team don’t work weekends – apparently not even an emergency or on call team. By this time I had got fed up with repeating the same tale to be met with a 'Connection on 4^th July' response, so before telling them anything I referred the to the call history and the call of 8^th June, which said 'connection on 28^th June'. By this time there were a couple of formal complaints abut this shambles of misinformation and prevarication from BT (references VOL-012-77843251977 and VOL-2693178044515) But in one my now twice daily calls I did get a bit more information about what probably happened. The phone line has to be activated before the BB. And for some reason it wasn't activated on the 28^th, so the BB couldn't be activated. And when the phone line went live on Saturday 29^th nobody had or could get the BB activated. And they have no way of sorting this shambles out, other than to keep repeating to me '4^th July', despite them agreeing that they had changed that date to 28 June, or promising a connection by midnight of the next day. Monday 1^st July led to me repeating the same tale, referring them to the same conversation regarding 28^th June and hearing the same platitudes about understanding my situation, hearing the 4^th July quoted ,but this ended with an assurance that I would have a connection on the next day. On the phone call of Tuesday July 2^nd, with no BB, I asked about the status of my complaints (see above) to be told they had both been closed. So I asked that they be re-opened ,as I hadn't received any sort of response to either the initial complaint about the connection or the complaint about not receiving the call-backs when I was told I would. But never fear , there are 4 people in the Call Centre who have taken personal ownership of this problem. Its a pity that this ownership never actually led to any communication or meaningful activity. And there are lots of people in the Call Centre who said they understand my frustration. I had to point out on many occasions that they most certainly did not understand my problems – online bills to pay and no way to access internet banking (no 3G signal up here, so the smartphone access kept timing out) and work deadlines flashing past the window, important contact details stored on the internet, and me jut sitting here listening to the drivel at the other end of the phone line. Anyway on the 2^nd July I received a fast-track reference number (2117) that my connection would be activated by midnight on the 3^rd. Having been here before, I rang up just to check it was all still on schedule, only for the '4^th July connection' mantra to be repeated to me again and again. So after repeating many times how the person at the other end of the phone certainly did not understand my situation, I ended up talking to the supervisors' supervisor. And 10 minutes after that conversation, I had a BB connection! .Admittedly only 1.6MB/s but better than what I had before. So it was just a matter of finding the right person who could toggle the correct electronic switch. I don't want people understanding my situation. I don't want platitudes from ill-informed people reading off a script understanding my situation , whne they most certainly did not. I want a BB connection But why did it take 5 days, 2-3 phone calls per day . Would I recommend BT to anyone ? . Have a guess.