I'm trying to get SDSL installed at a customers site and BT have just come back saying they dont supply an SDSL adapter and do we have one they can fit - they are installing the line ...... I'm not aware this is needed and all other BT installs have gone without any query, but this engineer seems to be very 'new' ..... Am I right in thinking when an SDSL line is fitted they install the line and faceplate - we supply the router...

That's also my understanding of an SDSL installation.

cheers...

there is a distinct lack of experienced BT engineers I've come across recently....  suppose these new ones are cheaper? 

Trouble these days - is you can't talk to your regional office / local office like you used to be able to do.

My mother was first a Post office / then BT telephonist - and for those oldies that can remember press button B and before STD - she used to be one of those souls that connected you on your trunk calls.

then Mum worked as a clerical assistant looking after the field technicians - doing their time sheets etc etc. . In those days it was possible to contact your local techies on the phone and have an intelligent conversation with them.

Now of course - BT have "improved " their service - so you can only talk to nameless call centres , never get the same person twice, and often get someone in a distant land that hasn't a clue about European, let alone British culture and ways of working.

My mother was also a GPO telephonist in the 50's to late 60's so I do know where you are coming from. But do you believe things could remain the same. The number of lines in the 50's and 60's would be a very small percentage to what they are today and most would have been high cost business lines.

The time I am really referring is when Mum was a CA - and that was in the 80's and up to early 90's - so not that long a go - certainly the explosion in persoanl landlines must have been in the 60's through to about the late 80's.

And no it couldn't stay the same - but these days BT staff are too remote and detached from their customers.
Which what makes PN so refreshing - we can talk to real people who have names and personalities.

The current system still makes it seem difficult to do things that are pretty simple though.

I have another two phone lines that I want to move from one building to another - whats the betting that I end up with a cease and re-provide charge on each circuit? (When the reality is that precisely ZERO work needs to be done at the exchange, its just a case of re-jumpering them in the street cabinet to move them to the new DP.)

Even an Openreach Engineer I was chatting to this morning suggested that I might be better off doing it myself...

Rob. Did this one get sorted? How'd it pan out?

Which what makes PN so refreshing - we can talk to real people who have names and personalities.

<malicious thought>*
Perhaps all these real PN individuals with names and personalities are all avatars for one crushingly overworked soul in Sheffield or S.A.. 
</malicious thought>


* - triggered off by fielding three sales calls in as many minutes over very crackly lines from gentlemen with strong Indian subcontinent accents whose names were - apparently - Malcolm, Bob and Frank   

yes it's all installed. They put in a standard phone socket, not RJ11 and insisted this was right, so I got a normal modem lead and its fine, but things have changed as before we had an RJ11 socket.....