Openreach being useless - what can I do?

Si_Clist

On Friday, while we were out, we lost our internet.  Phoned Now, they detected line fault (even though landline phone OK) and booked engineer to call Monday am.  

Monday morning I phone Now to find out what's what and learn that Openreach have closed case as completed.  We still have no internet, Now book engineer for Tuesday am.

Tuesday, same as above.

This morning, Wednesday, I see Openreach van outside at 8am but it drives off.  At 9am, Now phone me to say Openreach has closed case as completed.  Now still detecting line fault, we still have no internet, engineer booked for tomorrow once again.

At no point have I heard a peep from Openreach.  Given that they will not entertain a complaint from me because I'm not their customer and they are seemingly immune to complaints from Now, can anybody suggest a way forward?

Browntoa

Phone your supplier , ask to speak to escalation team ( if BT then the automatic front end will accept that phrase) 

Otherwise I've had better response from Twitter when my elderly mum had problems with Plusnet. 

Si_Clist

The problem seems to be that a fibre cable got bust on Friday, it's now been repaired but they are waiting for a bloke to reset the gubbins in one of their cabinets.

I only found this out by stopping an Openreach van and asking the driver !!!!!! ...

Jenni_D

That will explain why the phone still works ... it uses the old copper line all the way back to the exchange whereas your broadband splits off at the local cabinet to use a fibre line back to the exchange. Presumably there were lots of broadband fault complaints in your area?

Si_Clist

Don't know, but as of 0830 today we're finally back online.  According to the bloke working on a cabinet at the end of the road, a digger went through one of their fibre cables on Friday, it was mended on Monday, and since then they've been waiting for The Bloke With The Magic Finger to push the right button in a particular cabinet to reset it all.  Looks like he did that this morning.  What a joke that firm is.

Anyhow, NowTV has kindly given us a free month by way of compensation for the loss of service

iniltous

Although it won’t fit in with your narrative, if a fibre cable to the ‘fibre’ cabinet was chopped by a digger , then that major outage is published to ISP’s, ( including Now/Sky ) so that when their customers call to say ‘whats going in ? ‘ they can be advised that there is a major outage but it’s in hand , your ISP , given that you told them the phone is OK ( proving the copper connection ) and only the broadband isn’t working should not have called Openreach out to visit your premises ( there is no point ) , the chances are OR quite correctly cancelled the appointments that Now made, it’s up to Now to keep you advised not OR,  the OR ‘van’ you observed outside may have just been a coincidence, or Now insisted on a visit ( because they are clueless ) but the technician knew it’s pointless , something you probably should be grateful for as a visit in these circumstances could be classed as an unnecessary callout and charges raise. ( Obviously OR cannot charge you , but if they charge Now, they  tend to pass the charge on first to the end user , and review / waive the charge later ) 
The quip about someone was required to come and press a reset button in a cab after the fibre cable was repaired sounds like nonsense , systems re boot themselves once connectivity is restored, if the cable was restored on Monday , check with your neighbours who have FTTC , but supplied from someone other than Sky or Now, to see if they were out until Thursday same as you.
As far as getting something back from Now , so what, they are handsomely compensated automatically by OR for the outage, but OR have the difficulty of chasing the digger drivers insurance company to cover the repair bill.

EssexExile

Si_Clist said:

Don't know, but as of 0830 today we're finally back online.  According to the bloke working on a cabinet at the end of the road, a digger went through one of their fibre cables on Friday, it was mended on Monday, and since then they've been waiting for The Bloke With The Magic Finger to push the right button in a particular cabinet to reset it all.  Looks like he did that this morning.  What a joke that firm is.

Anyhow, NowTV has kindly given us a free month by way of compensation for the loss of service

Our fibre broadband went off after a lightning strike. About 3 days later the bloke with the magic finger arrived, he opened the cabinet directly outside our house and flicked a switch. I've noted which switch and I'm gonna get me a good can opener for next time.

iniltous

EssexExile said:

Si_Clist said:

Don't know, but as of 0830 today we're finally back online.  According to the bloke working on a cabinet at the end of the road, a digger went through one of their fibre cables on Friday, it was mended on Monday, and since then they've been waiting for The Bloke With The Magic Finger to push the right button in a particular cabinet to reset it all.  Looks like he did that this morning.  What a joke that firm is.

Anyhow, NowTV has kindly given us a free month by way of compensation for the loss of service

Our fibre broadband went off after a lightning strike. About 3 days later the bloke with the magic finger arrived, he opened the cabinet directly outside our house and flicked a switch. I've noted which switch and I'm gonna get me a good can opener for next time.

Although you are probably joking, a lightning strike coukd well knock out power to a fibre cab, and a qualified electrician required to restore power , a fibre cable is passive , so cutting and restoring it cannot normally trip anything that needs buttons pressed to restore it

Si_Clist

iniltous said:

 ... a fibre cable is passive , so cutting and restoring it cannot normally trip anything that needs buttons pressed to restore it

Now wondering why the Openreach chap working on the cabinet next to the one at which the fibre terminates told me what he did viz. that the cable had been repaired earlier in the week and the delay in reinstating our broadband was due to the wait for the bloke who could "do the reset".

Whatever, I have now learned from a neighbour that not long after I was talking to that chap working on the "copper" cabinet yesterday, another OR van turned up, a bloke got out, opened up the "fibre" cabinet, did something inside and was on his way again within no more than 7-8 minutes.  Neighbour then realised that he was back in business.

iniltous

Openreach ‘engineers’ don’t all have the same skill set, some work on copper, some work on fibre , some work on both etc, so the ‘copper’ skilled engineer may not necessarily know the processes required in restoring ‘fibre’ services, perhaps they were simply stating what they had heard , without knowing if it’s true or not.
FWIW, there have been ‘fibre’ cabinets absolutely destroyed by vehicles crashing into them and service restored by replacing the whole kit and caboodle in less time than you apparently were out of service, which suggests to me all the facts are not known.
Occasionally service can take longer than ‘normal’ for reasons outside of Openreach control , for example , if a road closure or traffic management were required to affect the repair , notice has to be served to the appropriate authorities , and work cannot start before the notice period.
I would suggest that if it were the case that it was simply a cable was cut , then the repair wasn’t completed much before the service came back up ( and as stated possibly the delay outside of OR control ) or if the cable were repaired on Monday but service not restored until Thursday then there were other issues as well , like ( for example ) if the ‘power’ cable to the cabinet was also damaged by the same digger driver , then your local power company repairs that , and that’s down to their resources, not OR.

matelodave

If a fibre cable (or any other cable for that matter) is cut, it's not a trivial exercise to repair it. the expertise and equipment has to be made avaiable, possibly extra cable has to be installed an,d as said above, depending where the problem is, may involve getting permisiion from landowners or the council to dig up roads or implement traffic control measures.

The bloke who digs holes wont be the same bloke who pulls in the extra cable and wont be the one who has to splice and test optical fibre.