I was offered visits on a Saturday and a Sunday so I presume the bit about Openreach and weekends is nonsense

Not quite, the customer facing engineers, who do visits like you had, work Saturdays and Sundays, the pole erection unit who do the sort of work the OP mentions, are more your Monday to Friday types.

I hasten to add that I agree the OP's post is generally nonsense. Mistakes happen, I bet the team who made the error on his line have done thousands without making a mistake. It was done with no malice, and doesn't merit the huge song and dance he makes of it IMHO.

We recently came home to find that the pole supply the drop wire to our house was in the process of being replaced. They were at the stage of reconnecting the drop wires. Luckily it would seem they got our connection correct.

However, we had received no prior warning from either BT or Openreach. Our telephone supplier being BT.

That said, back in December 2011 I was advised that on behalf of BT, Kelly Communications would be swapping the Openreach logoed Huawei FTTC Modem for a new version. This to take place in the new year. Over two years on and still waiting. I wonder what the response from BT would be if I tried claiming for waiting in each day for them to turn up? £$£$£$£$

Cheers!

Another one that went to eBay .