Phone engineer - does this sound dodgy?

ruthio12

Bit of background info...
Moved house 28th sept 2012 and have been battling to get a new landline fitted since.
Signed up with talktalk paid a years landline in advance and over 4 months later still had no line due to repeated failed engineer appointments etc. Finally cancelled in jan due to being fed up of the situation.

Signed up with primus and then cancelled 2 days later due to shocking reports on here.

Decided to give talktalk another chance as they are the cheapest and was scheduled an engineer for 26th feb.

Anyway.... today a random unscheduled engineer turns up (I wasn't at home my mom dealt with him) who claimed that we were unable to get a phoneline from anyone except virgin as there wasn't enough space for new wires in the pylon.

Does this sound like a genuine situation / scenario?

TimBear

It's possible that there are no spare pairs at the exchange, but I don't understand the visit you had! TalkTalk wouldn't send out an engineer to tell you that, so a bit odd.

macman

It was a BT OpenReach engineer, not TT (TT do not have any engineers). It's plausible, because VM cable runs on a different network entirely.
I think your Mum may have lost something in the translation though...
OR should report back to TT (you can't contact OR direct) and TT should provide you with a summary of OR's findings.
If correct. VM cable may indeed be your only option-but it should not have take 5 months to find this out.

Roland_Sausage

As macman said, it would have been an Openreach engineer that came out. What it probably means is that there are no spare lines currently available from your nearest pole. Either they are all in use, or some are faulty.

However, there is a thing called the Universal Service Obligation which applies to BT. This means that if you ask for a phone line, they HAVE to find a way to provide it *

This is exactly why Openreach have teams of planners. To find solutions problems like this.

*This is where I am unclear. I am not sure if the USO applies to Openreach (via any provider you want), or if it applies specifially to BT Retail.