Openreach - How useless can you get? (Place your bets...)

This is ostensibly about PlusNet - it isn't - it is about Openreach. PN are just the man caught in the middle.

I am one of the refugees from Be who got moved over onto Sky a couple of months ago. I thought I would give them a go, as we were reassured that the product would be identical. That is a farce in itself, especially the billing, 5p a minute on-hold support, "online assistance", Sky thinking an interleave of 96 is Fastpath, and the joys of YouTube buffering. Anyway, I lasted an entire fortnight before deciding to do what I should have done when I heard that Be had been sold - and I ordered fibre with PlusNet.

The order went in on April 30th, with a date set for an engineer's visit on May 19th. A bit of a wait, but I reckoned it would be worth it. The router arrived after a few days. Ironically, that would be the day that BT announced it was recruiting 1600 new technical staff.

The subcontractor (you just knew it wasn't BTO themselves didn't you?) phoned up on the day and turned up half an hour or so later at 2pm with a puzzled expression on his face. He removed the faceplate and plugged in a "clucker" to trace the line. He then disappeared off again to the cab. Reappearing some time later, he couldn't find the line pair in the cabinet. I should say that voice and ADSL were running fine before then, and still are after his visit - for which I am thankful - so the line definitely is connected and working.

After a couple more trips, he asked if we had a mobile phone that he could use. Seriously. A telecomms engineer without his own phone? From what he said, he couldn't find the dial tone on the "D side" (i.e. distribution - the pair to the house) in the cab. After more to-ing and fro-ing and phone calls he declared that there was a fault at the exchange, and BT hadn't connected the data side there. He said he wasn't qualified to work on that equipment and would have to leave it at that. I'm not sure how he made the mental leap between not finding D-side dial tone and an exchange fault, but there you go. He said it was "unlikely" that they would be able to do anything that day and would report back to BT. This was around 3:30pm

He also mentioned that he had had to "borrow" another customers pair to check the cabinet identity. From what I have read, I can only hope that they got their phone line back. I'm sure they did.

The next day, having read all about sub-contractors and also prompted by a "your product change is now complete - welcome to fibre" activation emails, I decided to contact PlusNet myself and see what the situation was. They hadn't heard anything, and nor was there anything on the BT log about this contract. No fault had been recorded to be investigated. However, what was recorded with BT was:

"Additional information:[19/05/2014 16:03:02] - Suppliers have been unable to gain access due to exception circumstances.Caused by e.g. bomb scare, area under flood."

Which I suspect was the closest tick-box to "subcontractors aren't allowed in the exchange"

On Thurs May 22nd an update email from PlusNet informed me that BT would be out inside 2 days to fix the fault.
On Fri May 23rd An update telling me that "the review date for line plant work has been pushed back to 28/05/14". Sigh.
On Weds May 28th An update telling me that "an engineer will be out to fix the fault in the network"
On Fri May 30th an update saying nothing had been heard from BT
On Mon June 2nd an update - something moving at last!: "an engineer has been assigned for 04-06-2014 to resolve the fault at your exchange. The engineer will be attending between 8 AM and 1 PM and our suppliers have advised that access to the property may be required.

Another day off work then.

Weds 4th June 1pm. Waiting patiently for something to happen. Anything.
Weds 4th June 5pm. Waiting less patiently. Nothing happened, ping responder showing no disconnection all day. Ticketed PlusNet asking if anything happened.
Thurs 5th June (today): Reply to ticket: "We have checked the logs with our suppliers as requested and it appears nothing was done on 04/06/2014 as previously advised. The fault still remains open and it has been revised to be assigned tomorrow"

Nice. 2 days off work so far. This is great when you are self employed, as it means you don't have to take annual leave. Of course, you don't actually get paid either.

I should say that PlusNet have been caught in the middle of this. The chances are that any other ISP I had gone to would have experienced the same opacity and soviet-like intransigence with BTO. PlusNet have kept me up to date so far as is possible, they respond to tickets, phone support is good (even if the hold music is deafening) and I actually feel like I am talking to a human being on the other end of the line. That part alone puts them ahead of the rest so far as I can see.

So, anyone taking bets as to whether it gets fixed tomorrow and I can have the delight of waiting another 3 weeks for a subcontractor? It took 3 years of unsuccessful complaining via my ISP to get my unreliable phone line sorted, it was an email to the BT CEO that did it in the end. I'm sorely tempted to try that approach again.

In the meantime, anyone got any inside info on the MYLOF (Mid Yorks Lofthouse Gate) exchange? Cab capacity etc. is fine from what the chap at PN said, so that isn't ths issue.

So, not an issue with Openreach, just their sub-contractors ..........

Which cabinet are you connected to? You can find out here http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/ADSLChecker.addres...

Sounds to me like the contractor has somehow closed the job off (so he gets paid). The job has now gone out as a fault instead of a new install. Due to him closing the install job. Awful, I hope the actual OR engineer that comes out reports this guy.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

So, not an issue with Openreach, just their sub-contractors ..........

Companies are responsible for their sub-contractors...

And Openreach are responsible for the failure to do anything since the initial subcontractor cock-up.

Yup.

BTO engineers did a lift 'n' shift last week on my line and connected me to a duff E-side pair, then closed the job off - interesting (non existant) work verification procedure!

I'm not placing any bets, when my brothers line was stolen by an engineer for another customer it took 3 months to get his broadband back, and that was only after an email to the CEO of BT, then it was sorted in days.

Sadly the only thing that will change attitude is when someone who earns a lot starts charging BTOR at his hourly rate for wasting his time in terms of days taken off.
Once BTOR start getting bills at the rate of £100's of £/hour for entire days then the jobs will start being done properly.

Seeing as BT PLC trading as Openreach and BT PLC trading as BT Retail are all one company, and also own Plusnet, all these companies are actually one company.

So I wouldn't go so light on Plusnet, they are part of BT themselves.

They may be owned by the BT Group, but they are run as an entirely separate company and have to be treated the same by Openreach/BT Wholesale as any other ISP.

In reply to a post by zom22:

Sadly the only thing that will change attitude is when someone who earns a lot starts charging BTOR at his hourly rate for wasting his time in terms of days taken off.
Once BTOR start getting bills at the rate of £100's of £/hour for entire days then the jobs will start being done properly.

Can this be done?

Is there a claim procedure?

You would have to claim against your telecom provider/ISP as they are providing you with the service, not Openreach, who are effectively just a subcontractor.

In response to an earlier post, I am on Cabinet 7 of MYLOF

Update: (Friday 6th June)

A BTO chap was seen up the telegraph pole on Friday morning, coinciding with my TBB pinger showing a disconnection 10-10:30am. Also coinciding with 1Mbit lower line synch rate than usual, but this could be Sky messing around with my connection again. For some reason they seem to have started line training again, with disconnections at 2am each morning.

Having had no update from PlusNet at 3pm, I ticketed them asking if BT had done the promised work, and if anything was in the BT log. In retrospect I should have phoned.

Update: (Monday 9th June 2pm)

Text/Email from PN: "Unfortunately, we are unable to retrieve any new information at the moment as our suppliers systems are currently down to maintenance issues. We shall update you further once these maintenance issues have been resolved."

This Question is now on hold until Tuesday 10th June at 7:00am



Really? Really?

Maybe if they had checked on Friday, there would have been an update and I wouldn't now be waiting while Tuesday. Presumably to hear that there's no information, or another delay. Or somebody can't be bothered to do something.

Sigh.

Today's update:

Received a voicemail message this morning. A human being contacting me must mean progress!

Nah. "BT have detected a fault on the cabinet in your street and will be investigating it today"

So what was the bloke doing up the pole?

Edited to add: This is exactly what they told me 3 weeks ago.

Edited by deleted (Tue 10-Jun-14 17:27:36)

In reply to a post by Zad:

So what was the bloke doing up the pole?

Doing a new install for another property, possibly?

Vaguely possible, but there are no new neighbours and my ADSL dropped for a time around when he was there.

I do love how open, transparent and responsive these ex state-owned monopolies are.

I had the same issue when a engineer was working on the pole my line is connected to (our pole is a metal one), the metal ones are apparently rubbish and rust so much etc that they don't close properly sometimes (the one here is now closed with reems of tape wrapped around it), it turned out that water had got in and corroded the wires so much that when the door of the pole was opened the jarring effect caused the cables to come loose, when the engineer came to fix my line he basically said that he was suprised it was connected at all as the connection pretty much came away in his hand.

In reply to a post by Zad:

I do love how open, transparent and responsive these ex state-owned monopolies are.

As opposed to the state-owned monopolies where?

Fair point, but at least with private companies you have the option of going elsewhere. There's no Virgin fibre here so it is BT or nothing. Openreach hide behind BT's paper walls and seem to have no real world accountability whatsoever, unless you use the sledgehammer of Ofcom.

In reply to a post by Zad:

Fair point, but at least with private companies you have the option of going elsewhere.

However BT IS a private company not state owned. That there isn't a competitor available to you isn't BT's problem so if you are (rightly) angry you should be just as angry with Virgin Media for not investing in your areas as you are with BT.

I'm having a similar problem with BT/OpenReach. In my case I have two ISPs involved, PlusNet and AAISP.

I've got two FTTC lines, both with a common network fault. OR have known since 17th March that they need to dig up a section of the 30 pair cable and replace it. It took about a month for this detail to make it as far as BT, despite me talking to endless OR engineers about it and them talking to their managers to confirm what needs doing.

BT kept sending new OR engineers even when they should have not there was nothing they could do until the common fault was fixed. Most days they send two out, one for each line, sometimes two at a time...

I estimate I've had well over 2 dozen engineer visits or attempted visits (they appeared to stopped bothering to book appointments after a while). In none of the visits did the engineers know the state of play before they turned up.

They have at least stopped doing that, but I've now been waiting for weeks as the keep giving dates to fix the fault that pass without any work happening. The latest date is the 19th June, at which point the faults will have been open over two months.

So despite having two ISPs badgering BT, getting OR to actually do anything to fix non trivial faults seems to be a problem.

Edited by andynormancx (Thu 12-Jun-14 00:22:06)

Have you looked on roadworks.org to see if anything is scheduled presuming it covers your area.

Yes. There is work scheduled on some BT kit a couple of metres from where the fault is.

The work is scheduled for the 3rd September. Hopefully the work isn't directly connected to the fault !

I checked mine, the only work planned on the line route to the cabinet and exchange is resurfacing.

Another one to add to the list...

"I can now confirm that the order has been accepted and the appointment booked for 23-06-2014 between 8 AM and 1 PM.

Please ensure that you are at the property during this period as the engineer will need access to install the fibre equipment. If the engineer cannot gain access, a missed appointment fee of £50 will be due."

So here we are, 3pm on the above date, another day off work, another day with neither sight nor sound of a BT van...

The CEO route is your friend. I too have trod the same well worn route as you. In my cases, lots of missed appointments, promises etc etc. Just took one letter each time to get things moving. So don't delay. It really is the guy at the top of the tree whose job it is to make sure the job is done. Contact him. Who knows, you might even get a nice payout or even a year or so free rental ) Anything to deaden the pain.

But to be honest if I had an alternative to supply my Broadband BT/Openreach would be well down my list.

This is still dragging on. Another month has gone by and still no progress on it at all.

I have been waiting for nearly four months now for Openreach to do some digging to repair/replace some duct work. They have repeatedly given dates for the work to be started, but nothing ever happens.

Their latest reason for not doing the work is that they need to get permission from National Grid because of issues around the gas main.

I've even involved the CEO of Openreach now and despite his promises to try and do something about it no obvious progress is being made. All so frustrating.