3 WEEKS BEFORE AN ENGINEER CAN FIX BROADBAND???

my fttc broadband died this morning, phone still works,, flashing purple light, 1 hour on the phone in a queue to report the fault and am being told it will be 3 weeks before an engineer can look at the problem....i am working from home and i am desperate, i have tried complaining but to no effect...is this usual for bt to take 3 weeks to fix a fault,?? anyone any ideas how i can get this fixed, done all the usual stuff plugged in direct replaced the bt hub...help, i am not sure i will live 3 weeks without any connection even if my boss does not kill me..??

Maybe you can use a mobile phone as a Wifi hotspot. Smarty have quite good rates if you can access the Three network.

You can also complain loudly but it may not do you much good in the circumstances. If your employer is a large customer that may help.

There is automatic compensation that will be due, this is meant to try and speed up getting things fixed.

Some areas may have had issues with flooding that will be slowing down fault resolution. Worth checking what others in the area are seeing i.e. is it a wider fault such as cabinet was under 4 feet of water, or had a tree fall on it etc

Why can't the ISP give everyones backup dial up internet like old day but use 0800 instead for emercency only?

because dial-up internet is of no use these days.

HINT: There is a product called Halo that BT have, and can give you a 4G backup device.

There has been many electrical storms of late, swamping Openreach’s workload.

I would follow Mr Saffron's advice!

Check on your "My BT"

You may find BT Halo is a free upgrade. Well, it is for me... If you have a Broadband fault they send you a 4G Modem to use. It may well save your bacon!

It's a solved problem, you can get a 4G device sent to you if you're on a plan with an ISP that includes it.

IIRC, on a BT Business connection the 4G router and its SIM are supplied at Day 1. If a business wants its home workers to have resilient connections the bosses should pay for them. Or at least the cost difference.

If the employee could go to work but chooses not to at the moment, that becomes debatable.

thanks to all who have suggested temporary fixes... i am with bt and am now angry so i will not be paying them extra for halo, there are no major incidences locally (exmouth) and everyone in my road is still online.. , as their tests show no line faults i believe i am on a sin bin (customers fault) engineers visit list hence the delays.. , regarding compensation i believe the compensation has been suspended due to coronavirus? and my plan b hooking up to a nearby bt wifi hub thats out of range ... wow indeed.. next plan is cat5 across the road, to a neighbour ,what possibly could go wrong ?

In reply to a post by jpm:

It's a solved problem, you can get a 4G device sent to you if you're on a plan with an ISP that includes it.

It's not a solved problem because not everyone will have 4g signal available to them even if they have the device.

I am one of them BT/EE etc cant hardly get 2g signal the only one which is fairly solid is from o2 and that is not 4g.

If your working from home yuou need a business connection or enhanced care adding to the account.

Issues across the UK affect all Openreach areas, if they need people from your area to cover another area then that is what happens.

As for this 'sin bin' list you speculate, its called being a residential customer and not taking priority over enhanced care lines and business grade priority connections.

So your choices are upgrade to halo or sort out a backup service via another infrastructure such as 4G or Virgin Media.

I'm currently planning to do some work from home and while I have Virgin Business Broadband currently I'm also getting a Fibre Line installed meaning I will always have connection.

In reply to a post by mortmaru:

In reply to a post by jpm:

It's a solved problem, you can get a 4G device sent to you if you're on a plan with an ISP that includes it.

It's not a solved problem because not everyone will have 4g signal available to them even if they have the device.

I am one of them BT/EE etc cant hardly get 2g signal the only one which is fairly solid is from o2 and that is not 4g.

Well I guess any ISP that is truly dedicated to a backup service will supply you an O2 sim then.

Idea that broadband should have a backup isn't in the contract, its a best effort service not dedicated.

Right, but dial up isn't going to help you either.

There is also the fact that if the line has problems then dial up may not work anyway - without the issue that almost no modern website would work at 56Kbps.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

IIRC, on a BT Business connection the 4G router and its SIM are supplied at Day 1. If a business wants its home workers to have resilient connections the bosses should pay for them. Or at least the cost difference.

Ha, amusing. I work for a Fortune 100 employer, a massive multinational IT corporation, with HQ in the USA. We withdrew any money for home broadband back in 2002 as "everyone in our industry has broadband at home", and they cancelled any corporate installed business services in homes. All countries.

If the employee could go to work but chooses not to at the moment, that becomes debatable.

My employer has decided that offices are staying closed, probably until at least Christmas, as this is safer. I assume the US insane Covid rates are a bias to these decisions. So, even a relatively "secure" employer is not funding business broadband or a backup connection, and also not permitting staff back to offices.

As we get into the winter period, with more rain and likely problematic broadband connections, some employers may remember why having employees in a reliable office environment was preferable!

Edited by jchamier (Tue 18-Aug-20 20:41:21)

Just a thought, I don't suppose there is anyone else on BT near enough so that you can use BT-Wifi?

Edited by sparky_paul (Sat 29-Aug-20 08:57:40)