BT, Round Two
Jan. 27th, 2011 04:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cryptogirl(I'm sure the pain caused by reading this is somewhat approximate to the pain I've had sorting this lot out the past week :P)
Well. Since the last update, we've had not one, but two engineers out, and two calls to Bangalore. And a possible PC intrusion.
So. You may remember I was waiting on an engineer at the end of the last installment. Thus it was that I installed myself at home for the 5 hour slot, waiting eagerly for the Openreach van. And waited. And waited. 5pm rolls around, I'm starting to think there's a no-show. Suddenly- a BT van! Which drives up and down the main road...and leaves again.
I phone 151, and a nice lady says that maybe he's going to look at the exchange and/or other external things. Half an hour later- now with only 30 minutes of his slot left- the engineer calls, asks some generic questions about our problems, then says it's 'getting a bit dark' so he'll 'be round first thing' the next day. If that's not a 'it's dark, I can't be arsed, I'm off for my tea' I don't know what is. Hilariously, the woman on the phone said this would be because in the dark, he couldn't see any wires, and it 'might be unsafe' to climb any poles. I neglected to mention the arrival of new 'torch' technology.
First thing the next day, we were awoken by merry banging and crashing at the grey outside box. When it stopped I headed downstairs, to be greeted with a 'sorry you were out' card. Double you tee eff. I open the door and shout and wave until the engineer finally notices and (reluctantly) comes in. After removing his eyes from my cleavage he starts poking about the phone socket doing some tests; and when Pete surfaced, naturally all the tech conversation routed to him. (I even got an extra-special explanation of 'the long cables that go in your computer'. GOLLY GEE HERE WAS ME THINKING THEY WERE CALLED ETHERNET CABLES). The long and short of it was that the pair-quality test was fine, ergo the line was fine. He did concede that the socket looked old and unreliable (screw fitted wires rather than punch-in), so replaced it with a 'Linebox' which 'might boost the broadband'. He also conceded that we're on the very edge of the range of the exchange, and that we're actually closer to the Histon one. (Presumably, there's no way I can connect to that one though...)
There was also a wholly unsurprising rant about how Openreach are contracted out to various non-BT folk, that the communication is terrible, that engineers get money for old rope (you can't just have a Vision box delivered for your telly, an engineer must 'install' it), and that the new equipment isn't all that much cop. I'm definitely hanging onto the silver Vision box after his explanation that the Pace one only has one tuner, and the picture and signal quality is dreadful. And with those rants he was away. Our speed had- slightly- gone up to about 2.7MB. All was well.
Sadly, the Cambridge exchange went down on Saturday at noon, so we were without internet for most of the weekend. Somewhat disappointing to the Welsh lady who had been calling me almost daily since the engineer's non-visit to ask if the net was ok now. As it happened, since the net came back the ping had been a bit too high, and we had both our laptops just drop their connection on Monday night. As in, the adaptors just cut out, the Home Hub had no warning lights, and the laptops would not communicate with the Hub until the latter had been rebooted. This didn't worry her last time she called.
I should point out as an important aside that Pete called the broadband helpline on Sunday, and after half an hour of Mr Bangalore stepping him through turning things on and off again, he eventually admitted he'd gone and asked a supervisor, and it was indeed an exchange problem outside our control. This is an unremarkable call on its own, until I tell you that the next night we had one of those scam calls saying there's a virus on your PC, in an attempt to con money out of you and install pointless things. We haven't had any of these calls since...last time we had to call BT India. Coincidence?
Yesterday I got a missed call on my mobile. The voicemail, on a terrible line, was a BT line engineer asking for Pete calling regarding the line fault, and saying he would be over in half an hour. Now, the previous engineer had suggested that if problems persisted, we were to raise a broadband fault which would get the correct kind of engineer out to us. We had yet to ask for this. In fact, we hadn't asked for *anyone* else to show up. When this chap showed up, he replied with an incoherent mumble when I asked if he was a broadband engineer; then he proceeded to perform exactly the same tests with the same equipment as the last guy, and found no line faults. Yes, that's right, he was *another* line engineer. I asked if I'd now be charged for two visits, he mumbles something about him billing BT for his time but nothing about how much my next bill will be. As it is, like the last guy he fitted yet another thing to the socket, this time an ADSL adaptor, which does away with needing microfilters and which my reliable expert informs me might actually do something useful.
Well, it would have done something useful, but a scant few minutes after the engineer left, the internet stopped working. The problem, as Vista saw it anyway, was that the connection was 'Local only', and it couldn't contact the DNS server. These things to me would indicate something upstream of the bits and bobs in the house; nevertheless I went through my usual steps to fix net fail for nearly an hour, to no avail. That's right- I would have to gird my loins and phone India myself. After a disappointing start, where both my name and number were read back wrong several times, the first thing asked for was...my mobile number. Now, this is fair enough in the event of having to furtle the landline and getting back in touch, but given what I've said above about the Suspiciously Timed Spam Calls I was reticent. Having explained the net problem, we went through the usual rebooting the router and resetting to factory settings, during which time Pete called, bemused that any of this was going on in the first place. Eventually- with a lot of mutual accent misunderstanding- I had to cart the laptop downstairs and wire it in, at which point it still didn't work. Undaunted, Ms Bangalore furtled with the Hub remotely, and lo! there was nets. This apparently proved that it was my wireless which was at fault. When I asked her what it was exactly she did, she said she 'changed the channel'. Uh-huh. Changed the channel of the, er, WIRELESS bit of the router, which fixed the WIRED connection. Spot the deliberate mistake.
(Throughout this exchange she's started the patronising we know so well. 'So, now we need to check the wireless connection' 'Shall I open the wireless settings?' 'No, WE..NEED...TO...CHECK...THE...W-I-R-E-L-E-S-S' /wrists)
There then followed a monologue during which I had to whack the Secrecy key with my foot, because I was rolling around guffawing so much. She was patiently explaining that the wireless signal is 'attracted and repelled by heavy magnets' which are located in such innocuous things as TVs and microwaves and that these magnets were exactly what was wrong with my wireless. And not, say, something external like DNS as I'd suggested half an hour ago. I'm surprised she didn't ask me to simply rub a giant magnet all over my PC to fix the issue. Oh, that screeching noise? That's just your hard drive expelling wireless signals that are stuck to it, ma'am.
This is where it gets distinctly wrong. She then says that, in order to fix the wireless connection, she will need to 'share screen' with me, in other words remotely control my PC. Now, I'm all for remote assistance as a useful tool for fixing stuff- hell, I saved Mum's XP machine from spyware this way- but, as I explain to the lady, if it's simply a case of changing settings, I'm fully aware of where they all are and am capable of changing whatever's needed. She fights me tooth and nail at this point, insisting she needs to do it, and in the least convincing voice bleats 'You can trust me!'. That's like trusting Alastair Campbell to write your last will and testament. I refuse, then she says she needs to do a couple of things, and as happens many times in this call of nearly an hour, there's a long awkward silence. Then she asks me to go to the 'two small computer screens' and right click on them, by which point I'm light years ahead and have already turned the sodding wireless connection off and on. Miraculously, the jovial animation would indicate that the wireless is working again! Huzzah! Not wanting to trust a simple ping on the command line, I fire up Spotify, usually the first app I start on any given day. And I see this:
Now, for the uninitiated to the wondrous world of Spotify, when you launch it you are presented with a home screen, containing a news feed and a brief selection of the latest musical additions. What you are not presented with, broad as my musical tastes lie, is the timeless classic 'Rastafari Ganja People'. Immediately there's a distinctly panicky voice on the other end, asking if perhaps I'd like to start up 'my favourite browser' now. I politely inform her that I've already started another application which uses the net and it seems to be working terrifically. The woman now sounds on the edge of P45 receiving, and offers to email me hints and tips on net furtling to the spam address I give her, then ends the call quickly.
Like all concerned folk would, I ran a virus/antispyware scan and all was fine. I also checked my firewall and router logs carefully, and there are indeed flurries of activity during the time she was silent on the phone. For the tediously interested, the logs in a cunningly disguised font colour below:
14:46:21 26 Jan UPnP action 'AddPortMapping' from ip=[my IP address] (Success)
14:40:12 26 Jan CONFIGURATION saved by TR69
14:39:44 26 Jan [CWMP] Connection Request NOT ALLOWED.
14:39:42 26 Jan CONFIGURATION saved by TR69
14:39:16 26 Jan CONFIGURATION saved by TR69
14:39:07 26 Jan [CWMP] Connection Request NOT ALLOWED.
14:38:52 26 Jan [CWMP] Connection Request NOT ALLOWED.
14:38:31 26 Jan CONFIGURATION mbus igd sync successfull
14:38:26 26 Jan CONFIGURATION mbus atomic sync successful
There were also inbound attempts blocked by ZoneAlarm, but as I understand it, when people DO allow the remote access, it's some kind of securely signed thing that would pop up asking for access. However, what you're not seeing here is the whole story, which is that my exact firmware of Hub contains, in effect, a backdoor that allows BT staff to get in and tinker whenever they like. Presumably regardless of what security you set. The forums are of course up in arms but predictably soon silenced over this. Additionally, you don't need to go far to see the (in)effectiveness of letting India into your PC, and shows I was right to refuse. They try such useless actions as deleting your temporary files, removing your network adapter altogether (!), or in one poor chap's case, tinkering with the Registry to the extent that his machine will no longer start. I've done a cursory check of most bits of Vista and it seems unchanged, and I've also run CCleaner just in case. In the immediate term, we're waiting on a Linksys router coming from Amazon, since there's no requirement to use the Home Hub at all, and (I would hope!) the Linksys won't be the networking equivalent of a chocolate fireguard.
Meanwhile, the net is fine, InPrivate browsing for the win, and I'll be eagerly waiting on the next call from my Welsh correspondent, the next 'thereisavirusinyourstreetmuddum' call, or the next bill, whichever is first. Prace bets now!
Oh, and a cautionary tale to end this. The second engineer said that not only is BT bringing its own inept brand of fibre to Cambridge this year, but the longterm plan is to do away with aerials and dishes, and provide all TV directly through the internet connection. Our sharp-brained engineer mused that next time there's a fault- which as we've seen is *so* unlikely, right?- you'd have no TV whatsoever, and would presumably have to entertain yourself with Kerplunk, or listening to a double-chinned toff falling off a roof, or host some kind of party with bottles of Blue Nun and cubes of cheese on cocktail sticks. Actually, that last one's not a bad idea. Does anywhere in Cambridge stock Black Tower...?
Well. Since the last update, we've had not one, but two engineers out, and two calls to Bangalore. And a possible PC intrusion.
So. You may remember I was waiting on an engineer at the end of the last installment. Thus it was that I installed myself at home for the 5 hour slot, waiting eagerly for the Openreach van. And waited. And waited. 5pm rolls around, I'm starting to think there's a no-show. Suddenly- a BT van! Which drives up and down the main road...and leaves again.
I phone 151, and a nice lady says that maybe he's going to look at the exchange and/or other external things. Half an hour later- now with only 30 minutes of his slot left- the engineer calls, asks some generic questions about our problems, then says it's 'getting a bit dark' so he'll 'be round first thing' the next day. If that's not a 'it's dark, I can't be arsed, I'm off for my tea' I don't know what is. Hilariously, the woman on the phone said this would be because in the dark, he couldn't see any wires, and it 'might be unsafe' to climb any poles. I neglected to mention the arrival of new 'torch' technology.
First thing the next day, we were awoken by merry banging and crashing at the grey outside box. When it stopped I headed downstairs, to be greeted with a 'sorry you were out' card. Double you tee eff. I open the door and shout and wave until the engineer finally notices and (reluctantly) comes in. After removing his eyes from my cleavage he starts poking about the phone socket doing some tests; and when Pete surfaced, naturally all the tech conversation routed to him. (I even got an extra-special explanation of 'the long cables that go in your computer'. GOLLY GEE HERE WAS ME THINKING THEY WERE CALLED ETHERNET CABLES). The long and short of it was that the pair-quality test was fine, ergo the line was fine. He did concede that the socket looked old and unreliable (screw fitted wires rather than punch-in), so replaced it with a 'Linebox' which 'might boost the broadband'. He also conceded that we're on the very edge of the range of the exchange, and that we're actually closer to the Histon one. (Presumably, there's no way I can connect to that one though...)
There was also a wholly unsurprising rant about how Openreach are contracted out to various non-BT folk, that the communication is terrible, that engineers get money for old rope (you can't just have a Vision box delivered for your telly, an engineer must 'install' it), and that the new equipment isn't all that much cop. I'm definitely hanging onto the silver Vision box after his explanation that the Pace one only has one tuner, and the picture and signal quality is dreadful. And with those rants he was away. Our speed had- slightly- gone up to about 2.7MB. All was well.
Sadly, the Cambridge exchange went down on Saturday at noon, so we were without internet for most of the weekend. Somewhat disappointing to the Welsh lady who had been calling me almost daily since the engineer's non-visit to ask if the net was ok now. As it happened, since the net came back the ping had been a bit too high, and we had both our laptops just drop their connection on Monday night. As in, the adaptors just cut out, the Home Hub had no warning lights, and the laptops would not communicate with the Hub until the latter had been rebooted. This didn't worry her last time she called.
I should point out as an important aside that Pete called the broadband helpline on Sunday, and after half an hour of Mr Bangalore stepping him through turning things on and off again, he eventually admitted he'd gone and asked a supervisor, and it was indeed an exchange problem outside our control. This is an unremarkable call on its own, until I tell you that the next night we had one of those scam calls saying there's a virus on your PC, in an attempt to con money out of you and install pointless things. We haven't had any of these calls since...last time we had to call BT India. Coincidence?
Yesterday I got a missed call on my mobile. The voicemail, on a terrible line, was a BT line engineer asking for Pete calling regarding the line fault, and saying he would be over in half an hour. Now, the previous engineer had suggested that if problems persisted, we were to raise a broadband fault which would get the correct kind of engineer out to us. We had yet to ask for this. In fact, we hadn't asked for *anyone* else to show up. When this chap showed up, he replied with an incoherent mumble when I asked if he was a broadband engineer; then he proceeded to perform exactly the same tests with the same equipment as the last guy, and found no line faults. Yes, that's right, he was *another* line engineer. I asked if I'd now be charged for two visits, he mumbles something about him billing BT for his time but nothing about how much my next bill will be. As it is, like the last guy he fitted yet another thing to the socket, this time an ADSL adaptor, which does away with needing microfilters and which my reliable expert informs me might actually do something useful.
Well, it would have done something useful, but a scant few minutes after the engineer left, the internet stopped working. The problem, as Vista saw it anyway, was that the connection was 'Local only', and it couldn't contact the DNS server. These things to me would indicate something upstream of the bits and bobs in the house; nevertheless I went through my usual steps to fix net fail for nearly an hour, to no avail. That's right- I would have to gird my loins and phone India myself. After a disappointing start, where both my name and number were read back wrong several times, the first thing asked for was...my mobile number. Now, this is fair enough in the event of having to furtle the landline and getting back in touch, but given what I've said above about the Suspiciously Timed Spam Calls I was reticent. Having explained the net problem, we went through the usual rebooting the router and resetting to factory settings, during which time Pete called, bemused that any of this was going on in the first place. Eventually- with a lot of mutual accent misunderstanding- I had to cart the laptop downstairs and wire it in, at which point it still didn't work. Undaunted, Ms Bangalore furtled with the Hub remotely, and lo! there was nets. This apparently proved that it was my wireless which was at fault. When I asked her what it was exactly she did, she said she 'changed the channel'. Uh-huh. Changed the channel of the, er, WIRELESS bit of the router, which fixed the WIRED connection. Spot the deliberate mistake.
(Throughout this exchange she's started the patronising we know so well. 'So, now we need to check the wireless connection' 'Shall I open the wireless settings?' 'No, WE..NEED...TO...CHECK...THE...W-I-R-E-L-E-S-S' /wrists)
There then followed a monologue during which I had to whack the Secrecy key with my foot, because I was rolling around guffawing so much. She was patiently explaining that the wireless signal is 'attracted and repelled by heavy magnets' which are located in such innocuous things as TVs and microwaves and that these magnets were exactly what was wrong with my wireless. And not, say, something external like DNS as I'd suggested half an hour ago. I'm surprised she didn't ask me to simply rub a giant magnet all over my PC to fix the issue. Oh, that screeching noise? That's just your hard drive expelling wireless signals that are stuck to it, ma'am.
This is where it gets distinctly wrong. She then says that, in order to fix the wireless connection, she will need to 'share screen' with me, in other words remotely control my PC. Now, I'm all for remote assistance as a useful tool for fixing stuff- hell, I saved Mum's XP machine from spyware this way- but, as I explain to the lady, if it's simply a case of changing settings, I'm fully aware of where they all are and am capable of changing whatever's needed. She fights me tooth and nail at this point, insisting she needs to do it, and in the least convincing voice bleats 'You can trust me!'. That's like trusting Alastair Campbell to write your last will and testament. I refuse, then she says she needs to do a couple of things, and as happens many times in this call of nearly an hour, there's a long awkward silence. Then she asks me to go to the 'two small computer screens' and right click on them, by which point I'm light years ahead and have already turned the sodding wireless connection off and on. Miraculously, the jovial animation would indicate that the wireless is working again! Huzzah! Not wanting to trust a simple ping on the command line, I fire up Spotify, usually the first app I start on any given day. And I see this:
Now, for the uninitiated to the wondrous world of Spotify, when you launch it you are presented with a home screen, containing a news feed and a brief selection of the latest musical additions. What you are not presented with, broad as my musical tastes lie, is the timeless classic 'Rastafari Ganja People'. Immediately there's a distinctly panicky voice on the other end, asking if perhaps I'd like to start up 'my favourite browser' now. I politely inform her that I've already started another application which uses the net and it seems to be working terrifically. The woman now sounds on the edge of P45 receiving, and offers to email me hints and tips on net furtling to the spam address I give her, then ends the call quickly.
Like all concerned folk would, I ran a virus/antispyware scan and all was fine. I also checked my firewall and router logs carefully, and there are indeed flurries of activity during the time she was silent on the phone. For the tediously interested, the logs in a cunningly disguised font colour below:
14:46:21 26 Jan UPnP action 'AddPortMapping' from ip=[my IP address] (Success)
14:40:12 26 Jan CONFIGURATION saved by TR69
14:39:44 26 Jan [CWMP] Connection Request NOT ALLOWED.
14:39:42 26 Jan CONFIGURATION saved by TR69
14:39:16 26 Jan CONFIGURATION saved by TR69
14:39:07 26 Jan [CWMP] Connection Request NOT ALLOWED.
14:38:52 26 Jan [CWMP] Connection Request NOT ALLOWED.
14:38:31 26 Jan CONFIGURATION mbus igd sync successfull
14:38:26 26 Jan CONFIGURATION mbus atomic sync successful
There were also inbound attempts blocked by ZoneAlarm, but as I understand it, when people DO allow the remote access, it's some kind of securely signed thing that would pop up asking for access. However, what you're not seeing here is the whole story, which is that my exact firmware of Hub contains, in effect, a backdoor that allows BT staff to get in and tinker whenever they like. Presumably regardless of what security you set. The forums are of course up in arms but predictably soon silenced over this. Additionally, you don't need to go far to see the (in)effectiveness of letting India into your PC, and shows I was right to refuse. They try such useless actions as deleting your temporary files, removing your network adapter altogether (!), or in one poor chap's case, tinkering with the Registry to the extent that his machine will no longer start. I've done a cursory check of most bits of Vista and it seems unchanged, and I've also run CCleaner just in case. In the immediate term, we're waiting on a Linksys router coming from Amazon, since there's no requirement to use the Home Hub at all, and (I would hope!) the Linksys won't be the networking equivalent of a chocolate fireguard.
Meanwhile, the net is fine, InPrivate browsing for the win, and I'll be eagerly waiting on the next call from my Welsh correspondent, the next 'thereisavirusinyourstreetmuddum' call, or the next bill, whichever is first. Prace bets now!
Oh, and a cautionary tale to end this. The second engineer said that not only is BT bringing its own inept brand of fibre to Cambridge this year, but the longterm plan is to do away with aerials and dishes, and provide all TV directly through the internet connection. Our sharp-brained engineer mused that next time there's a fault- which as we've seen is *so* unlikely, right?- you'd have no TV whatsoever, and would presumably have to entertain yourself with Kerplunk, or listening to a double-chinned toff falling off a roof, or host some kind of party with bottles of Blue Nun and cubes of cheese on cocktail sticks. Actually, that last one's not a bad idea. Does anywhere in Cambridge stock Black Tower...?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-01-27 05:13 pm (UTC)I doubt freeview digital is going away any time soon, it's only just come in!
no subject
Date: 2011-01-27 06:19 pm (UTC)I take three things from this:
1. BT are shit. I knew this. In the past they have done comical things to me such as trying to give me and my former housemate on the other side of town the same phone number, and indeed the 20 minutes I once spent on the phone to India to ascertain that they were not allowed to tell me my own phone number.
The reason that I pay significantly more to AAISP than I would to others is that they talk to BT so that I don't have to...
2. I knew I was right to disable the remote desktop thingy after installing Windows.
3. I now know that should I ever have the misfortune to have BT as an ISP, I need to consider the router untrusted rather than just allowing a free-for-all in 192.168.0.0/24, when setting up my PC's firewall rules.
Ugh. *sympathy*.
Re TV-thru-the-internet... my immediate reaction is that it doesn't scale... if twice as many people turn on TVs, it costs the same to broadcast. If twice as many people turn on iPlayer, it costs the BBC (roughly) twice as much to send the programmes.....
Seems to me that intelligent PVR-type solutions (e.g. the sky+ box) make a lot more sense. Although on-demand over the net may triumph anyway, once it's cheap enough, because it prevents people from having to think ahead. I note that the abysmal standards of Freeview pictures have prepared us for the level of picture quality that we'd get.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-28 12:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-28 01:33 pm (UTC)