Broadband activation delay - How to complain about Openreach?

Brevan

I have just moved house and applied for a new broadband connection with a different provider to the previous occupants. My activation date (12 days from requesting service) came and went and no service. And now my provider says the next update will be another 11 days (23 days after requesting service) and that its OpenReach who have to resolve it before a new date will be available. So we are looking at 5 weeks without a service.

Anyone else had similar problems?

Now there does not seem to be any way to get to Openreach to find out why they cannot make a simple transfer of provider, or why it didn't work, or why it takes so long to enable my service.

Nor is there any way to complain directly to Openreach. Between Openreach (who hide behind the provider) and the provider (who have to wait for Openreach) there is no accountability for poor services to the end customer - Us.

Openreach should be forced to give information to broaband subscribers and receive their complaints, and also adhere to standards for these switches, and give proper compensation if they don't. The economic impact of lack of connections must be enormous (We can't spend online until its resolved).

I have asked my provider about compensation (awaiting reply) and if we don't get any satisfactory I will follow up through the formal complaints process and or the small claims court. Are Openreach obliged to answer Freedom of Information Requests?

[Deleted User]

Brevan wrote: »

Nor is there any way to complain directly to Openreach. Between Openreach (who hide behind the provider) and the provider (who have to wait for Openreach) there is no accountability for poor services to the end customer - Us.

Openreach aren't "hiding" anywhere, your contract is between the supplier and yourself. You need to be on their case.

Browntoa

As above

Your contract is with sky/talk talk whoever , not openreach

Mine took 6 weeks to activate with BT when I moved

iniltous

Ofcom ( at the request it has to be said , of the likes of Sky , Talk Talk etc, ) mandated that Openreach do not deal directly with end users, CP's have the end users as customers, and Openreach have the CP's (Communication Providers) as customers...that's why you get your info from whoever you chose to supply your service, and they deal with OR, so any info you get is your CP's interpretation of what OR tells them, you don't say who your CP is, but the better (more expensive) providers tend to push OR , or at least give informative answers to what the problem is, the 'budget' end of the industry probably will fob you off without giving you any info , apart from 'it's OR problem'
Your assertion that 'OR hide behind the provider' isn't really true, a few years ago OR requested that they be allowed to update CP customers about faults and provisions, but Sky and TT veto'd the suggestion , they don't want OR talking to their customers, they want 'you' to get any info from them, not OR directly.
As far as your 'delay', is it a new build property ?, do you have telephony but no broadband , or no service of any kind, has your provider given you any info apart from informing you of when their next update from OR will be ?
Why not use Virgin ?, is it because they don't supply your area ?, if they don't , are you as angry with them as OR ?

onomatopoeia99

As others have explained, you are not a customer of Openreach and you have no contractual relationship with them, so there is nothing to be gained by you complaining to them.


Complain to your provider, it is up to them to deal with their suppliers including Openreach and up to them to chase the suppliers up if stuff is taking too long. A decent ISP won't simply blame Openreach, they will explain exactly what the problem is and a specific person in their customer service will take ownership of your issue and be on at OR every day to make sure it's progressing. I'm guessing you're not with a decent ISP though.

pmduk

As the other posters have intimated, bargain bucket providers can charge cheap prices by providing poor customer service.

Cisco001

I moved to 4G boardband earlier as I fed up with opensearch...