BT support finally called me back again today (two days late, but hey) and again attempted to transfer me immediately to the Broadband Talk support department. Before I allowed them to do so, however, I made certain that the person I was talking to fully understood my problem. I believe she did. But she confirmed that there was absolutely nothing that she or anyone else in the broadband support department could do to help me – the problem lay with another department. Despite my protestation that we had been around this particular tree before I allowed myself to be transferred.
As before, the guy I was transferred to at Broadband Talk support had no idea what my problem was and I had to explain yet again, why I was attempting to get support. (As an aside, I find this lack of joined up support apalling. The recipient of the support call should have the full details of the caller’s problem on-screen when he or she takes the call – particularly in cases such as this where the support organisation has actually placed the call). As soon as he realised I was not using a Home Hub, the problem became clear to him. My router is at fault.
Actually, no, my router is fine. It works perfectly for all other services and actually works fine for VOIP services on FWD. But no, BT is correct, I am wrong. To be fair to this particular support person, he offered to provide me with a replacement Hub (an offer I eventually accepted, if only so that I can check its configuration in detail to compare against my ST780).
Maybe I’m overly paranoid, but I get the distinct impression that BT has decided to lock its services to the Hub rather than allow people to use alternative products on its network. I actually prefer to have something that I control, rather than something that BT control. When my new Hub arrrives I’ll dump its configuration and try to figure out how BT are locking out my ST.