Just got an email from the CEO's office as apparently the complaint has been escalated to there.
The case has been assigned to a "manager" in the CEO's office, and I am to get a call over the next few days.
I have been given a name and a direct phone number, so maybe I will see some movement. I have been kicking up merry hell over what will be a 6 week period of navel gazing by TT.

On the other hand, it shows that TT are really lost with this one, which indicates the total lack of understanding between a major service provider and Openreach, if there isn't some line of communication to address this or any other problematic issue.

Just as long as this "manager" doesn't come on and start telling me to unplug my router for 5 minutes etc!!!

Nightmare, well the CEO"s office are usually a fairly good route, hell, if they can't sort it, WHO CAN?

They've rang twice now on consecutive days now. Having allowed me to vent my anger in no uncertain words, I then listened to what he had to say.
They are leasing directly with OR. They are attempting to get the fibre from cab 19 by an unconventional route (can't remember the detail now) but it involved downgrading my connection to ADSL, which was done today. On Feb 10th, they are to do some work on the cabinet, and the following day setting up a full fibre connection from cab 19.

Poorly explained I know, but thats the gist of it. The manager assigned to me seems to have done a bit of work on it, he was able to tell me line tests show I am12km from the box!!, so as he agreed, its been a monumental b@@@sup!
Ill let them do their stuff for the next week or two, though Im not getting my hopes up. Then I will be demanding some form of redress for this whole sorry saga.

Well, here we are again. A further 6 weeks on to reach yet another milestone.

The Chief Executives Office have also proven to be as much use as a chocolate tea pot.
They have been "personally" dealing with this since January.
I was assigned a manager who kept in touch, but usually just for the sake of keeping in touch, with little progress week on week.

First, they advised cancelling the Fibre package and downgrading to ADSL. This would allow them to "reinstigate" the steps necessary to get full Fibre service from Cab19.
TBH, at this point, I suspected they were actually moving to slowly manage me and my issue out the door.
I agreed, and an engineer came out over a month ago. I managed to catch him up at the cabinet, and once again had a lengthy chat. He really just rolled his eyes at the mess, but told me "off the record" that this is what actually happened:

I had full service for phone and 15mb fibre at Cab 4.
Several new FTTC cabs had been rolled out in the general area, with Cab19 nearest to me.
When Cab19 went live, BTOR moved my phone service to it, BUT because I already had fibre at Cab 4, they left my connection at Cab4!! He confirmed that actual work had been done on my cabling outside the box via a manhole cover and my connection was "patched" in some way. I am presuming BTOR did not anticipate that I would lose Fibre completely with their action, but I am exasperated that even via the Talktalk Chief Executives office, they refuse to act on their mistake.
Anyway, last week I was told BT had to amend their records to allow progress to be made. They were not "obliged" to do this, but TT would ask apparently.
I got a call from the CEO office 3 days ago to confirm if I wanted to go ahead with a fibre switch again. When he went to start the process, the line went quiet, then "Oh, let me get back to you on this there seems to be a problem"\I then got a curt call just this morning saying they cannot help me.
I asked again, what justification is being given not only for what has happened re the service I should have been connected to, but why I have ultimately ended up having a fully working 15mbsec Fibre service that I had for years suddenly stopped. I was not given a credible answer.
BTOR are not prepared to do anything and TT cannot action anything else.
They offered 4 months fibre charges as a refund "in full and final settlement"
I have told them to stick it, and I am in the process of writing to the Ombudsman.
An absolute disgrace, and tbh I would find the whole shambles hard to believe if it was someone else telling the story to me.

Edited by deleted (Thu 12-Mar-15 11:41:00)

Good luck with the ombudsman. I've never had to do it for telecoms purposes, but although it took absolutely ages, I eventually got a result (compensation in that case) after Npower seriously messed up my billing and said that "Their system couldn't do anything about it". So, not the same ombudsman and obviously not the same issue, but the process did work eventually and whoever was refusing to sort it out for me (which is the similar part) at Npower was forced to do so by the ombudsman.

Very disappointing that it appears OR simply can't be bothered with you, after messing things up themselves. It might be quite a rare problem but I'm sure it's not unique, and it's exactly the sort of screw-up they claim to be actively interested in avoiding and/or fixing if you read their "love our network" <vomits> -type articles in FEN and press releases.

Edited by deleted (Thu 12-Mar-15 15:06:21)

What a nightmare.
Maybe the only chance you have is to get the press and/or TV programmes like Watchdog involved to embarrass Openreach into sorting things out although it is a complicated story to "sell" to the press/TV . A bit of BT Openreach bashing might be just the sort of thing that some consumer programme would like though.

Edited by Jax2 (Thu 12-Mar-15 15:50:21)

Yes, the term Nightmare would just about cover it.
Its so frustrating because I know it can be fixed, they just won't do it, and are hiding behind the fact that they don't speak to the public directly which makes it hugely frustrating.
Talktalk have been lamentable throughout this, but ultimately I do lay the blame at Openreach. I have it from an engineer that they left my fibre connection at the old box willingly, even doing a packing job of some sort after moving my phoneline to the new cab 19. I cannot accept they would not know the consequences of this. They are bound to have known the actual path my broadband signal took would artificially almost double and my speed would suffer.
I have never ever heard of an infrastructural improvement scheme actually making the connection worse. They cannot claim lack of knowledge because TT have told them. I am presuming because I have a connection of sorts, their attitude is stuff him. Not being able to direct this to Openreach is an absolute scandal.
I am hoping the Ombudsman will address this. I am aware that this can take weeks or even months, but I have sent them a lengthy communication, and if they don't fall asleep reading it, I would expect them to be all over this. I am not after compensation, just a simple connection to a [censored] box only feet from my door!
Next step then will be ordering a brand new line from another telecom provider, and hoping that a new connection from scratch will provide phone and fibre from my new cab. In my mind this should work, but who knows with this lot??

It would drive me nuts.
Good luck, hope it eventually works out.

In reply to a post by Pauli1:

I have never ever heard of an infrastructural improvement scheme actually making the connection worse.

With you saying this, it made me think...

Have you tried getting in touch with the NI Improvement Project directly?

They'd probably love to discover that this kind of problem has been caused by the project - even if just to reduce the risk in future - and they'd probably know the right contacts to help get it fixed. You'd think they'd be dealing with Openreach directly.

I'm not sure who is actually in charge or funding the works. But it might be another avenue.

I got a call today from the TT CEOs office again. Even though they have said they can't/won't do any more, I thought this might be them back with some hope.

No. They were ringing to say they won't issue a deadlock letter, as in a nutshell, "its not their fault, its BTOR"
Pathetic. Talk about trying to cover your backside. I reminded them that my contract was with Talktalk, and letter or no letter, I was taking the case to the Ombusman, I then hung up. I have drafted lengthy letters to the Ombudsman as well as those high up in OR. Lets see what the replies are then.