In cyberspace, no one can hear you scream: The plight of a BT 'fast' broadband user

I realised I must have hallucinated the appointment with an engineer, and apologised

Last week, there was a popular Twitter trend entitled #wecanlandonacometbutwecan't… It wasn't the most catchy of hashtags but it spoke to me big time. You see, I had a major #FirstWorldProblem. I had arranged for British Telecom to install "super-fast" internet. I was very excited about this, as for the past 10 years, like most people in rural locations, I have been surviving on a pitiful speed. As someone who works a lot from home, this directly affects my ability to earn a living. Then someone told me that "fast" internet had arrived in our village. I rang BT in an excitable state.

I live on a farm with outbuildings and the Cotswold stone walls are thick, so I have two broadband routers, one for the office and one for the house. This seemed to confuse BT. They simply could not understand the situation, and the nice English lady on the phone told me that they would only be able to sort out one for the moment. I gave up trying to understand why and asked for the "fast" broadband in the house to be installed as the Minecraft needs of my son come before any work I need to do. I was told to wait in on a Saturday and an engineer would come and set it all up.

Nobody showed on the Saturday. I rang BT and another nice English lady told me that I was mistaken, I didn't have an appointment and there was no need to wait in as the engineer would turn up on Monday and turn it on from outside. I realised that I must have been hallucinating about the appointment and apologised.

Monday came, and I got an email telling me that "superfast" broadband was now enabled. I did a line test – the speeds were even slower. When you ring BT to complain you get a very polite person in India who apologises over and over but does nothing. Someone online gave me the BT boss's email (gavin.e.patterson@bt.com).

I sent him an email. I got one back from Tracy, his PA. She explained that, "Gavin is away and only has limited access to his email." I suggested to Tracy that this might give Gavin a unique insight into the plight of a BT "fast" broadband user. Soon I was in the hands of the "executive level complaints team". An engineer was sent to my house. He rang on the day to tell me he was "coming to fix your broken line". Since he was ringing me on said line I pointed out that it clearly wasn't broken. When he arrived it turned out that he was only booked to turn on the "fast" broadband in my office building. He was not allowed to deal with anything in the house (10 yards away). That would require another visit that I needed to organise separately. I started to weep quietly.

The fast internet was turned on in the office. I checked the speed – it was very fast (about 38 megabits/second). I signed a form saying I was happy (I wasn't really). By evening the speed had fallen to 3 megabits/second.

Consider this a suicide note. I'm mailing this column in.