Schools Broadband

[nathan]

I don't normally like to comment publicly about these such things but....

 

We have a primary school that ordered a leased line 3 months ago with Schools Broadband (well, 2 primaries that are still not live but i'll leave the other school out it), we were told by Schools Broadband that the line was a "QuickWin" (as i presumed they were advised by Talk Talk Business and/or BT and so they were to put it on hold until nearer the go live date. A month before the go live date, Schools Broadband took the install off hold and were then advised that the connection was not in fact a "QuickWin". This presented a problem in getting the connection live on our target date, Schools Broadband were then notified it was a "QuickWin" connection and moved ahead with the connection.

 

Now 2 weeks have passed and we still have no connection, The school have no suitable line to put an ADSL connection on and so Schools Broadband supplied a 3G router and we pointed our proxies settings to their filtering. It was a bit of a pain as the router had a dynamic IP which meant we kept having to ring Schools Broadband to allow the external IP but it was worth doing to allow teaching to actually continue. We ran into a data cap issue a couple of times which had to be unblocked at Schools Broadbands end.

 

I've just received a phone call that the data costs are £600 and Schools Broadband won't pay anything else towards it which leaves the school with nothing. This was a decision by their directors.

 

 

Am i being unreasonable asking Schools Broadband to continue to pay this? Why should the school pay for the lack of a service that had an agreed go live date of 2 weeks ago.

 

Although the actual delay may not lay at Schools Broadbands feet, it is one of their suppliers that have caused it so surely they should be paying this and marking it up as a cost of doing business or claiming it back from their supplier. The only blame that can lay at the schools feet are they ordered this with Schools Broadband.

Edited November 14, 2016 by nathan

[FN-GM]

Did they tell you that you would be liable for these costs before they supplied it?

[nathan]

Sorry they are paying the £600 but won't pay anymore. They didn't tell us we would end up paying for anything and there were no limits

[Edu-IT]

What does £600 cover, usage wise?

 

What would the ADSL service be costing a month, if it was installed?

 

It doesn't help now but not having the new service live before your old one, I assume, switched off isn't always the best choice even if you end up paying for two services for a month or two. It gives you the chance to fully test.

Edited November 14, 2016 by Edu-IT

[john]

I would suggest you need to read your T&Cs and other contractual documentation in this instance to see what is / isn't covered.

 

SB have not failed but the supplier to them has, the failure of the line supplier to deliver is usually not covered by the reseller as they are the hands of them and I am sure SB are doing the best they can to get this on and working for you and putting pressure being TTB/OR if its them that have failed

[SchoolsBroadband]

I don't normally like to comment publicly about these such things but....

 

We have a primary school that ordered a leased line 3 months ago with Schools Broadband (well, 2 primaries that are still not live but i'll leave the other school out it), we were told by Schools Broadband that the line was a "QuickWin" (as i presumed they were advised by Talk Talk Business and/or BT and so they were to put it on hold until nearer the go live date. A month before the go live date, Schools Broadband took the install off hold and were then advised that the connection was not in fact a "QuickWin". This presented a problem in getting the connection live on our target date, Schools Broadband were then notified it was a "QuickWin" connection and moved ahead with the connection.

 

Now 2 weeks have passed and we still have no connection, The school have no suitable line to put an ADSL connection on and so Schools Broadband supplied a 3G router and we pointed our proxies settings to their filtering. It was a bit of a pain as the router had a dynamic IP which meant we kept having to ring Schools Broadband to allow the external IP but it was worth doing to allow teaching to actually continue. We ran into a data cap issue a couple of times which had to be unblocked at Schools Broadbands end.

 

I've just received a phone call that the data costs are £600 and Schools Broadband won't pay anything else towards it which leaves the school with nothing. This was a decision by their directors.

 

 

Am i being unreasonable asking Schools Broadband to continue to pay this? Why should the school pay for the lack of a service that had an agreed go live date of 2 weeks ago.

 

Although the actual delay may not lay at Schools Broadbands feet, it is one of their suppliers that have caused it so surely they should be paying this and marking it up as a cost of doing business or claiming it back from their supplier. The only blame that can lay at the schools feet are they ordered this with Schools Broadband.

 

 

 

Hi @nathan,

 

i'm sorry to hear of the predicament you are in. I can look into the 3G/4G dongle usage issue for you and the costs associated to that and will do tomorrow.

 

Regarding quick wins and general installs by ultimately BT Openreach we push and push and push and push and although things are better than they used to be BT Openreach still have BIG issues at the moment and will continue to do so for some time. You'd be surprised at how much work we do in the background constantly hounding them to actually get things done. They in turn often use contractors to deliver new services which doesn't help much either.

 

Having a quick win should be just that where a line can go in much quicker than its supposed to do. I've not heard of a quick win taking about a month to then install. They are normally done within a couple of weeks or even days. Our record is a leased line installed and live in only 7 days. We are again though having to rely on BT Openreach and they often make mistakes.

 

BT Openreach do not hold themselves accountable to any consequential loss or costs incurred to any carrier or customer in the delay of a circuit. The 3G / 4G solution we've come up with is to do best efforts to have something as an interim whilst the other line goes in. I know we do not look to make any profit in dealing with our customers misfortunes here and lend the kit and do not charge for the time out engineers take to install the system.

 

I'm free for a chat as always and am in the office all day tomorrow so please do feel free to give me a call. I can look into what's going on with your installation. I may also be able to send this to the directors office (DSO) at BT although they may reject any application as you still do have some form of connectivity.

 

Our main number is 01133222333

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[nathan]

Hi Dave, thanks for the reply. Can I get in touch tomorrow, apologies for the post it's just been a very stressful time for me and most importantly for the staff at the school. In this case BT have handed the connection over to Talk Talk business after I complained to the CEO of Openreach, although it was a complaints department handling the emails. We are just waiting for handover from Talk Talk Business but I'm told by service delivery there isn't anything that can be done to speed it up, nor is there anyway to escalate it.

 

It means in the morning I have to tell the school they have nothing and I don't know when TTB will handover.

 

I was also told the directors had made the decision to not allow anymore spend on the 3G dongle.

[nathan]

What does £600 cover, usage wise?

 

What would the ADSL service be costing a month, if it was installed?

 

It doesn't help now but not having the new service live before your old one, I assume, switched off isn't always the best choice even if you end up paying for two services for a month or two. It gives you the chance to fully test.

 

There was a plan of overlap but unfortunately delays busted through that, KCOM also wanted £500 a week for the extension with a minimum months contract.

[nathan]

I would suggest you need to read your T&Cs and other contractual documentation in this instance to see what is / isn't covered.

 

SB have not failed but the supplier to them has, the failure of the line supplier to deliver is usually not covered by the reseller as they are the hands of them and I am sure SB are doing the best they can to get this on and working for you and putting pressure being TTB/OR if its them that have failed

 

I completely understand that the issue lay with TTB/BT but the school have no contract with them, they do with SB so complaints should be passed down the line. Although that may be impossible with BT.

 

I know if I sold a service, my customers wouldn't care if my supplier let me down.

[Edu-IT]

There was a plan of overlap but unfortunately delays busted through that, KCOM also wanted £500 a week for the extension with a minimum months contract.

Why was the order put on hold? Why not just proceed with the install? You must have supplied a date you wanted the connection live? Did that allow enough time for issues? Just interested. This is difficult for all involved and naturally the 3G costs can't be allowed to spiral.

 

Has this been sorted now?

Edited November 15, 2016 by Edu-IT

[nathan]

It was advised to get nearer the target date. As the connection came back as a quickwin it should of took around a week. SB can only act in what they are told by BT/TTB. Allowed 3 months total for the install.

 

Not been sorted reallt but we had an update on our leased line. TTB have enabled the line and will test tomorrow so hopefully they will hand over tomorrow or Thursday.

[SchoolsBroadband]

Normally after Openreach has done their work and handed the EAD LA circuit to the telco (BT Wholesale, TTB, Vodafone etc) it then takes a couple of days for the telco to setup the rest of the circuit (VLAN's etc) but sometimes this can take up to 10 working days if any other work needs to be done in the exchange of the telco has some work to do on their network e.g. install new line cards in the exchange.

 

We're nearly there @nathan. The wait will definitely be worth it It was good to speak with you yesterday too.

 

Dave

[nathan]

Thanks for the phone call Dave, had conformation we will be going live tomorrow. Booked in for 8:30 in the morning. It's been a frustrating time and glad it will be over tomorrow.