Fault Fixing

My telephone service went down on the 20th and was reported early the following day. An email received stated that the holiday period would delay a fix and it was estimated that the fault would be cleared down by midnight on the 27th. Since the fault coincided with work being carried out on the pole that also feeds my property it seems pretty logical to me that an OR engineer needs to visit the 'crime; scene to resolve the problem. Obviously best done when there is daylight.

Zen won't give me an update on the progress of the job nor chase OR until midnight strikes. Meanwhile calls are diverted to my mobile costing me an arm and leg. My mobile signal strength oscilates between 0 and 1 bar, which is why I have invested in a sure signal device. Effectively with no phone service, my connectivity to the outside world is non-existent..

Bearing in mind that it is rapidly approaching a week with no phone service, I can't really understand why Zen are so timid when dealing with OR.. Zen are supposedly a premium provider. Not much evidence of that today! Migrating to another provider now crosses my mind.

Ouch

When ever I have had issues on my line here, I have always phoned BT (with BT as my provider) and its been resolved either the next day or the day after.

I have even had an engineer turn up 07:30 in the morning to connect the tone oscillator on our line and then go up the pole then into the chamber and then to the cabinet.

TBH I have never had BT say to me in a weeks time.

But its all down to the wording...

it was estimated that the fault would be cleared down by midnight on the 27th

So it could of been resolved on the 21st, 22nd, 23rd right up to the 27th.

TBH I would be phoning them on a daily basis for an update.

Paul

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

Ouch

When ever I have had issues on my line here, I have always phoned BT (with BT as my provider) and its been resolved either the next day or the day after.

I have even had an engineer turn up 07:30 in the morning to connect the tone oscillator on our line and then go up the pole then into the chamber and then to the cabinet.

TBH I have never had BT say to me in a weeks time.

But its all down to the wording...

it was estimated that the fault would be cleared down by midnight on the 27th

So it could of been resolved on the 21st, 22nd, 23rd right up to the 27th.

TBH I would be phoning them on a daily basis for an update.

Paul

Update on the 27th [abridged] Harry has been assigned the job.
Further message [abridged] I'm working on the fault,
Next message [abridged] Couldn't fix it. Contact your supplier.

Supplier Zen: We will organise and engineer to attend.

SMS: Next available slot 8am to 1pm on 29th

Me:Lost the will to live.

Next: a power cut lasting almost two hours. ALL mobile hot spots vanished. So no landline, no broadband and no mobile service. Security Gates to the estate inoperable. Please send food parcels..

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

Update on the 27th [abridged] Harry has been assigned the job.
Further message [abridged] I'm working on the fault,
Next message [abridged] Couldn't fix it. Contact your supplier.

Supplier Zen: We will organise and engineer to attend.

SMS: Next available slot 8am to 1pm on 29th

Me:Lost the will to live.

Next: a power cut lasting almost two hours. ALL mobile hot spots vanished. So no landline, no broadband and no mobile service. Security Gates to the estate inoperable. Please send food parcels..

Hold on, wasn't that an engineer that already couldn't fix it?
If so, then they should be telling their manager that they couldn't fix it, not tell you to contact your supplier.

Paul

It did strike me as odd as well. The actual words used were: " Unfortunately the engineer was unable to complete the job. Please contact your service provider." with the time line above it saying "Visit Complete" which was strange in itself because it was stated that access to the premises was not required. A screen dump of the web page was made. I don't know when the page was available to view as it was only discovered by me when I decided to track the job progress just before 4pm. There was no SMS message received to alert me to the current situation.

It does seem strange that if a job cannot be completed on day 1 that the work doesn't automatically follow on to the next day.

When I rang Zen immediately, no further information was available other than access to the master socket was required. I was in all that day, so why didn't he ring my doorbell? It seems that all Zen was able/wanted to do was to push the job back to OR for the next available appointment which was 2 days away (29/12). It will then be 9 days that the phone line has been dead..

To maintain an internet connection, I tethering to my mobile which in turn connects to a WiFi Hotspot and then buying a day pass. All incoming calls are diverted to my mobile at 11ppm. This phone line failure is costing me a fortune.

same problem here absolutely abysmal customer service. reported a fault at the begining of november and it never really went away. just got fobbed off by Asif just now bla bla bla need to carry out more tests(you know the problem has been around since 2 months and you were meant to be monitoring the line anyway) tried to phone back to complain and get them to push the fault forward to BTO and of course they are now shut until new year. the internet is unusable.does anyone have the email or direct phone number of the person in chagre of complaints? every time i've asked in the past they (the front line staff) refuse to give it out.

Asif ive just turned back on the monitoring just in case i'm forced to get lawyers/courts get involved. my contract is with Zen internet, i did enough legwork on your behalf last time and you still dragged your heels in getting things sorted out.

really begining to think the problem isnt with BTO or they would have pushed this fault forward to them.

lets get this sorted before things get moved on further.

Richard Tang is this the kind of service your company gives to people now? you'll be lucky if i dont turn up and complain in person at this rate.

edit. just noticed tech support are open 9am. and Asif i don't blame you at all youve got a job to do. i'll phone in the morning.

Edited by deleted (Fri 29-Dec-17 18:42:56)

My fault was cleared down this morning. I don't have any issues with Openreach, as long as it is not a contractor who turns up, but with Zen not being tough enough with OR to insist that a fault they created was given some kind of priority and not leaving me disconnected for 9 days right over the Christmas period.

I have concluded that paying £55 a month doesn't represent a premium service when equivalent facilities are available in the market place for £20 less a month. I will only continue to run with them if the cost of having calls transferred to my mobile is refunded and a free month's rental is offered. Not sure how long they have been my provider, but it is at least 15 years.

Out of interest, were you given an accurate description of the actual fault, or what was done to clear it ?

On the 20th December an OR engineer was working on another line up the pole that also feeds my property. On his departure I had no voice service.but had to wait until the following day to report the fault. It was obviousto Zen it was an external fault and that no access to my home was required.

I was advised by three SMS messages that Harry had been asigned the job followed by another that he was working on the fault. Come 4pm, I decided to go on line to determine the progress of the job where I found a web page that said he was unable to complete the job and that I needed to contact my service provider! Did that only to find the next available appointment would be two days later and that access to my home would be required.

On arrival the OR engineer dismantled the master socket, made some tests which showed the fault to be 90m away which was about the run length to the pole. Put a tone generator on the line, climbed the pole and about 20 minutes later, returned to say the fault had been fixed, put the master socket back together and I had a voice service once again.

About 5 minutes later the broadband service returned with marginally higher internet speeds.

Personally I feel the fault should have been repaired, if not on the 21st but at least on the 22nd. Instead I was off line over the Christmas period with no phone, internet or mobile signal (I have to use a sure signal device). Zen "kindly" transferred incoming calls to my my mobile for 11ppm but most went to voice mail only to be picked up when I went shopping.

The usual keeping in touch with family in the UK and abroad wasn't possible and of course I had no email facilities at my desktop. On Boxing Day I managed to connect to a WiFi Hotspot on my mobile and then tethered the service to my desktop. But this connectivity was expensive. For while a temporary ethernet link was establised to my neighbour's router by hooking into the WAN2 port on my Draytek router. It worked well for a while but suddendly the connection dropped and was unable to re-establish a connection.

Zen's handling of this breakdown fell well short of my expectations and so I am considering the merits of a number of ISPs to choose one to be my provider for 2018 and probably well into the future. Most are a lot cheaper than Zen.

Is there direct line of site between the DP and your house, as in the dropwire is visible all the way ? (At 90m I suspect a carrier pole between the two) maybe there�s a junction point on your eaves, �Harry� could have put a tone on there ...
It sounds like duff service from Openreach to me .... but you are right also, Zen could have pushed harder too.