Bulldog - which has received a barrage of complaints about its unbundled broadband and telephone service - is considering lodging a formal complaint against BT over its alleged failure to migrate punters over to the Cable & Wireless (C&W) owned ISP.

At a shareholders meeting on Friday, C&W chairman Richard Lapthorne touched on the problems that have dogged its local loop unbundling (LLU) operator. In particular, he appeared to blame BT for its "inconsistent" provisioning of new punters.

Said Lapthorne: "In broadband, over the last few weeks, Bulldog has begun to improve customer provisioning. We are encouraged by comments and feedback from customers who are experiencing its 8 meg broadband and telephone services.

"However, in the area of provisioning in particular, the level of service remains inconsistent as we work with BT - after their relatively recent introduction of automated procedures - to enhance the quality and accuracy with which telephone lines are transferred to the Bulldog network.

"This, together with the interest in our new services, has resulted in higher than expected call volumes to Bulldog customer support. We have recruited and trained further customer support staff, in line with our plans, and introduced automated tracking systems to reduce call volumes. We expect to see material improvements over the summer."

However, The Guardian reports today that Bulldog is considering a formal complaint against BT because the telco has failed to meet key performance targets. Bulldog reckons that fewer than six in ten unbundled lines are delivered on time. Of those that are, half had faults.

Bulldog was contacted to comment on the report. However, no one from the company returned calls by the time of writing.

A spokeswoman for BT told us: "There are some provisioning problems but not the kind of problems that would impact them meeting their volumes."

Last week Bulldog announced it had introduced "a major package of measures" to help cope with complaints about its internet and phone service.

The broadband ISP is under fire for its poor customer service with punters up in arms at being left without phone and broadband. The frustration is compounded because of the difficulty contacting customer service.

Now, though, Bulldog says that it has responded to the "demands of its growing customer base" by opening two new call centres last week. It plans to and double the number of customer service staff by the end of the month. ®

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