Good news from BT for all you FTTC customers (that is those customers whose fibre connection reaches to the nearest cabinet).

BT's slightly delayed promised rollout of the doubling of FTTC speeds for Infinity 2 customers is scheduled to start today.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/11/..._increase/

Downside is BT have re-introduced the dreaded "up to" terminolgy and have relabelled the 40mbps service as the "up to 38Mbps" service, magically reducing the previous service provision by 5% without apology or explanation. This means that the doubling of speed offers a theoretical speed of "up to 76Mbps".

In practice BT must comply with OFCOM's directive that the customer must be advised in writing of the estimated guaranteed speed that will be achieved at the customer's premises when signing up for a new service or are renewing an existing contract.

Experience now informs us that BT Retail (the part we as customers deal with) and BT Wholesale/Openreach (the guys who provide the installation and the technical support) work with a hidden agenda between them that states that the customers line speeds are deemed satisfactory if line speeds achieve any level that is over 30% of the proposed "up to" speed.

In practice this means that if you have been promised "up to" 40mbps and yet your line performs at say any speed just over 12Mbps - BT Wholesale will state that your line performance is deemed satisfactory- irrespective of whether BT has given you a written estimation of guaranteed line performance or not. They will then decline to offer any further support based on their assumption of this fallacious unpublished agenda.

What additional value for the "high speed network" based on this infallible fibre network and what value is the seemingly toothless regulator OFCOM bringing to any meaningful resolution for the BT customer ?

Not a lot - and BT unashamedly keep hiking the price for these so-called premium services.

I had not expected to be making further contribution on this post as I was enjoying initial speeds of 36-38 ish Mbps on my FTTP service for about 80% of the time and expected my line to settle down.

Regrettably the 20% portion of non-performance has remained unacceptably and stubbornly unfixable by BT. I have experienced high levels of drop-outs, slumps in line speed to virtual zero and a degree of unreliability that is best described as appalling.

Nine weeks in, several episodes of shuffling of BT feet and moving of the issue "off my desk" within BT, I am almost totally unable to obtain a coherent or competent response from the BT Wholesale/Openreach division.

Late last night I was informed that my case specifically was being escalated and that I should anticipate an update today.

Do I thing it will be meaningful or competent - watch this space.