RE: Are BT serious?

["Mark Harrison" <Mark@xxxxxxx>]

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Guys,

Thanks all for the suggestions and advice. I think it very likely that my
customer has a DACS line. However, the problem was NOT one of inability to
connect at high speed. It was total failure to dial correctly 9 times out
of
10. (To the extent that we got a "number you have called has not been
recognised.)

The line is now working, but with a genuine 3Com modem rather than the
modem
that came supplied with the HP Pavilion.

I know that the Pavilion modem is working on other phone lines (tested
before and after the problems at our customer's). I also know that two
consecutive Pavilion PCs have had the same problem.

I am putting it down to a case of "you get what you pay for", and
realising
that a £100 modem _IS_ better than a £30 one. Much as it hurt me to pay
that
price, and buy PC equipment from Dixons, it was the only solution that
fixed
our customers problem in the timescale we needed!

What I'm now intending to do is get a small "float" of high-end
modems for
customers where the standard one doesn't work.



Regards,

Mark


-----Original Message-----
From: Keith Doxey [mailto:keith.doxey@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 21 September 2000 20:51
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [ukha_d] Are BT serious?



Hi Mark,

Befrore I start my reply......

THIS IS IN NO WAY AN OFFICIAL BT STATEMENT !!!!

...As I remember from my days as a telephone engineer (they ended 4 years
ago) the highest rate guaranteed was 9600 but I believe that since the
entire BT network is now all digital exchanges rather than noisy old
strowger, that has now been increased to at least 14k4. Any line should be
able to get at least that.

Possible causes of not being able to achieve that are...

Line fault - either noise or hum.

Exchange line gain is not fixed - the gain of a digital exchange line is
auto adjusted to compensate for long/short lines, this can play havoc with
a
modem training. The gain CAN be set at a fixed level.

Line is served by DACS - Digital Audio Carrier System - basically 2
customers served over the same pair of wires. The line are totally
independant but the bandwidth is less than that you will get from a nornal
straight copper pair.

The line may not be copper - there was a lot of aluminium cable used in the
70's when the price of copper went sky high. It was discovered that ali was
no match for copper but quite a bit still remains in service.

Other equipment on the line can cause problems. When I visited Mark McCall
he asked me to look at his dads modem as it was really slow <14k4 I
think. I
spotted a "Relate 300" in the kitchen on the way in and said that
was the
cause. Unplugged the phone and connected at 33k6 straight away. At home I
had a Relate 300 that caused me to connect at 16k8 or 19k2 but after
unplugging it my modem connected at 28k8 (Max speed for the modem).

As I said above, these are MY comments NOT BT's.

But I am disappointed with the offical help you got :-(

Hope that helps a little

Keith



-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Harrison [mailto:Mark@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 21 September 2000 15:44
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: [ukha_d] Are BT serious?



I've just spent a frustrating few hours with BT Business Tech support about
a customer of mine who can't get any kind of dial up. (Despite several
different PCs, all of which work elsewhere.)

Within the first 5 minutes, BT told me that "we don't guarantee data
over
normal PSTN lines, you need to upgrade to ISDN or ADSL."

Oftel confirmed that this is indeed the case.

How can a PTT get away with this in the year 2000????

M.