Now a timely warning. Are you considering Home Highway from BT - their digital (ISDN) Internet connection Service?

If so you might be interested to read the letter I sent them this week:

BT UK Customer Billing
BT plc
Correspondence Centre
T.V.T.E Gateshead
NE11 0ZZ

I am writing regarding my Home Highway installation. I had the system installed on 28 May 2003. 

Almost immediately after the installation my computer started freezing. There was no obvious common reason for this happening – it would occur at any time, using any piece of software or even when the computer was sitting idle. I could not positively isolate the cause and eventually sought the help of David Jones of Autotron who has supplied my computers for the last 8 years. Despite hours and hours of investigation & diagnostics the fault could not be traced. He eventually suggested we clean install a new version of windows. I had been running Windows 2000 Professional so on 20 Aug 2003 I bought a copy of Windows XP Professional and clean installed it – i.e. I wiped everything off my hard disk. Over a period of days I reinstalled  my pieces of software. Everything worked fine until I reinstalled my Home Highway when the computer immediately started crashing – often within less than a minute of the previous crash. I uninstalled Home Highway but the computer continued crashing. Whilst surfing the Internet in search of anything that might help I found a message board with a whole list of complaints about Home Highway. One contained your help line number which I immediately called. This was the first of a large number of calls, all of which have been politely handled but none have helped. I have at various times had new chip set drivers recommended, new BT software and many other suggestions – all of which I have followed to no avail. Eventually your Help desk said they would arrange for a new ISDN box to be fitted. This was done on Oct 14. The system worked fine for 24 hours and then the crashing returned. Again, even after un-installing the BT software, my computer continued to crash.

 The computer is an absolutely vital part of my family’s life – apart from my very hectic and complex life as an airline pilot, self-builder etc my wife and my two daughters are all taking degrees. We simply could not continue like this so in an effort to cure the problem once and for all I bought a completely new Compaq Presario computer on 23 Oct. Over a period of several days I loaded all the essential software we needed except Home Highway. I ran the computer without the slightest hitch for a week. I then decided to load the ISDN software. My computer immediately began restarting for no apparent reason and after restarting it always told me it had recovered from a serious error. I uninstalled the software and my computer ran perfectly once more and has continued to do so. I was contacting your helpline throughout this period and now – certain beyond any doubt that the problem was caused by your software – you arranged for two technical experts to come and examine my new & old computer and all of the installation. The two technicians were Jeff Wyatt & Roger Collins and they spent several hours here on 20 Nov. They confirmed that it was the BT software causing the problem and after consulting the software writers they tried several fixes – eventually leaving several devices disabled but the ISDN working. It failed within an hour of their visit. I phoned to tell them the results and the situation is that we are now waiting for a software solution – no time scale has been given.

 This entire fiasco has caused me enormous inconvenience and cost. Having considered the situation carefully, and sought some preliminary legal advice, I would like you to compensate me in the following manner:

1. Refund all of my Home Highway charges since the installation on 28 May and make no further charges until the problem is resolved.
2. Refund my totally unnecessary purchase of Windows XP Professional £169.99.
3. Refund my totally unnecessary purchase of a new computer £570.99.

I believe this is an extremely reasonable claim as it does not include the enormous cost in terms of my lost time which, if it was included,  would increase the amount claimed several fold.

Yours sincerely

Adrian Thurley

BT's Response

They telephoned me and said they were sorry about the problems I had experienced. They also said they had checked my account and confirmed that I had not been using the digital dial up number. Accordingly they said they would refund my access charges and if the problem continued they would come and remove the system free of charge! However, they but would not accept responsibility for anything else.

I told them that I thought this was totally unacceptable and that I did not accept their offer. I shall continue to escalate my case through the BT complaints procedure & then via the legal system if required. Watch this space & please let me know what you think and any similar problems you may have had.

Plan for next week:

• Plumbers will finish the bathroom installation
• I will complete the skirting, architrave etc

Next Week