BT no phone and broadband for months who can I complain to?

donnalou

Hi There,

Thanks in advance for any help as I seem to be banging my head against a brick wall. Back in November whenever it rained or was windy our phone and broadband went down sometimes for hours sometimes for days but now it has been weeks. I have raised so many faults. 3 weeks ago an engineer found the fault it was copper wiring going into the green box 3 miles away from here. I have just spoken to someone who now tells me that road closures and extensive tree cutting needs to take place before the fault can be fixed so it will probably be weeks yet.

I live in a very rural area with no mobile phone coverage so have to drive 1/2 mile up the road to use my mobile to speak to them. I have 2 small children so having no landline is very scary if there is an emergency.

Is it just one of those things where I have no choice but to wait or is there anything that I can do to speed things up? It took them 9 weeks to discover where the fault was. I can't even go with another supplier when this is resolved as no one else does broadband in the area.

Thank you

Donna

tykesi

donnalou wrote: »

I have just spoken to someone who now tells me that road closures and extensive tree cutting needs to take place before the fault can be fixed so it will probably be weeks yet.

These things take time, the road closures need to have contractors and councils involved for them to happen. Contractors and tree/land owners need to be involved for the tree work to be complete.

donnalou wrote: »

Is it just one of those things where I have no choice but to wait or is there anything that I can do to speed things up?

Pretty much, you can chase but if BT and BTOR (seperate companies) are waiting on suppliers/contractors/other third parties, there will be very little your chasing can actually achieve.

donnalou wrote: »

I can't even go with another supplier when this is resolved as no one else does broadband in the area.

Why would you? They've identified the fault and what is required to resolve it and seem to have started the process of fixing. No other service provider would be able to get things done any quicker so moving supplier in protest would achieve very little and BT wouldn't give two hoots anyway.

macman

donnalou wrote: »

Hi There,

Thanks in advance for any help as I seem to be banging my head against a brick wall. Back in November whenever it rained or was windy our phone and broadband went down sometimes for hours sometimes for days but now it has been weeks. I have raised so many faults. 3 weeks ago an engineer found the fault it was copper wiring going into the green box 3 miles away from here. I have just spoken to someone who now tells me that road closures and extensive tree cutting needs to take place before the fault can be fixed so it will probably be weeks yet.

I live in a very rural area with no mobile phone coverage so have to drive 1/2 mile up the road to use my mobile to speak to them. I have 2 small children so having no landline is very scary if there is an emergency.

Is it just one of those things where I have no choice but to wait or is there anything that I can do to speed things up? It took them 9 weeks to discover where the fault was. I can't even go with another supplier when this is resolved as no one else does broadband in the area.

Thank you

Donna

Yes they do and yes you can-even if you are on a non-LLU exchange, there are dozens of alternative non-LLU providers, Plusnet being the best known.

AJXX

Why move to another supplier? The fault has been caused by an act of nature and delays in repairing it caused by high levels of red tape and bureaucracy with council and land owners - not really BT/BTOR's fault directly.

As inconvenient as it is it also isn't BT's fault that you live in the bot end of nowhere thus have no mobile coverage. If you're that concerned about emergencies occurring then look into a sat phone - although it'll have a fairly large outlay (£300-£500).

Obviously the choice is yours at the end of the day, but IMO it's pointless moving to another supplier as the same thing could end up happening again and again - regardless of supplier.

macman

Complain in writing to your line rental provider. I was going to say, don't email,don't phone, but I guess those options are not open to you anyway...
Otherwise as above, it's an OR issue, not a BTR one. So the provider makes no difference.

donnalou

Thanks for your replies.
My main issue was the 9 weeks that it took them to discover where the fault was and the number of times that they had said that Openreach would monitor the line and contact me but they never did and I'm not 100 % sure that where they are saying that the issue is correct as they have told me that it is affected 200 homes but I have spoken to 3 other people in the village and they are not having any problems including my next door neighbour who would be at the end of the line.

Heinz

[gaspsforbreath]

200 affected allegedly. How does speaking to 3 disprove that?

Spookieuk

donnalou wrote: »

Thanks for your replies.
My main issue was the 9 weeks that it took them to discover where the fault was and the number of times that they had said that Openreach would monitor the line and contact me but they never did.

Well if you move provider the line is still going to be provided by Openreach unless Virgin is moving in to your area. It sounds like the technical team didn't follow up openreach though.

macman wrote: »

Complain in writing to your line rental provider. I was going to say, don't email,don't phone, but I guess those options are not open to you anyway...
Otherwise as above, it's an OR issue, not a BTR one. So the provider makes no difference.

This might generate a letter saying sorry but it won't resolve the problem any quicker as it's with Openreach. The communications provider can't make it go any faster unfortunately.

donnalou

Heinz wrote: »

[gaspsforbreath]

200 affected allegedly. How does speaking to 3 disprove that?

Because if it's wiring from the nearest green cabinet which is 3 miles away so therefore if it affects me then it should affect my neighbours?

donnalou

macman wrote: »

Yes they do and yes you can-even if you are on a non-LLU exchange, there are dozens of alternative non-LLU providers, Plusnet being the best known.

There are not many. I've just checked on uswitch and Plusnet and SSE offer basic broadband but only BT do Fibre.

I was with Sky at my old address and had a great deal but they still won't even supply basic broadband here. My contract ends in May so maybe things will change by then

macman

Both Plusnet and SSE are non- LLU providers running on the BT network, so if BT can provider FTTC, so can they. Uswitch only lists the main national providers, not the smaller ones. Any BT reseller can sell you ADSL, and some may offer you FTTC.
Sky is an LLU provider, and from what you say there is no LLU presence on your exchange, so unlikely that they can offer you anything except the dire Sky Connect (which is simply a resold BTW service).