Holbeach Cable theft, any contact from BT?

Orlando34

After a major cable theft (2km) in mid-January from a rural area outside Holbeach Lincs., we were among 2500 premises without phone or broadband for 5 days, some were out of contact longer. Original calls to our provider, BT, (for which we had to drive out of the village to get a mobile signal) were met with automated responses saying the engineers were working on it and we'd be back in 2hrs, then 7hrs, then 'tomorrow evening'. It took days to get to speak to someone who knew and explained how bad the situation was and said when were back BT would be in touch with an apology and compensation, so far nothing. I was wondering if anyone else had a similar experience and whether BT does pay out

TadleyBaggie

Well the outage wasn't actually BT's fault, there might be a get out clause for this type of outage.

Orlando34

There might be as you say a 'get out clause' but I still wonder what other people have found as cable theft seems to be quite common and I think they do owe us some explanation and at least a bill credit.

matelodave

What sort of explanation do you require - TBH getting it sorted within five days sounds like excellent service

I know its pretty frustrating but if the cable was stolen then it has to be replaced. Its not a trivial job especially if the ductwork has been damaged or blocked and has to be repaired or cleared. The new bit of cable may also have to be pulled back a lot further than just the bit that has been stolen - you cant just pull a bit of slack through to join the ends together.

Not only that Openreach may also have to get council permission to obstruct the roadway/footpath to do the work. This also probably takes a few days likewise getting a team together to do the work and obtain the replacement cable.

There's a total lack of understanding of how much effort and resource has to be marshalled to get infrastructure repaired

littleboo

As above, 5 days seems very good to replace over a mile of cable, these people often cause a lot of collateral damage along the way. BT is part of the automatic compensation scheme which provides compensation of £9.98 after two working days. The compensation is paid as a bill credit. This assumes there are no exceptions for an incident beyond reasonable control.