OpenReach struggling to fix fault for over a week

[Granadier]

I've been without a working landline or broadband for over a week now. In 25 years as a homeowner, this is the first time my landline has stopped working, but I'm surprised how long this is taking to fix and how poor the communication is.

One of the frustrations is that one company (OpenReach) runs the infrastructure and employs the engineers, but I can't communicate with them direct, I have to go through my supplier (was Shell, they've just sold their service to Octopus, and it's going to be moved on again to TalkTalk). OpenReach's website is full of bits that say "don't try to talk to us!". So I go through Shell's call centre and wait for them to talk to OR and get back to me.

The line went dead on the evening of 8th May: router status red, broadband light flickering continuously. No internet, no dial tone. Plug phone straight into master socket, still dead.

I reported it the next morning. The earliest available engineer visit was Monday (13th). Engineer attended, inspected my setup, told me the problem was at the exchange and would be fixed.

Tuesday, another engineer phoned to say he was looking into it. Seemed not to know what had happened the previous day until I told him.

Wednesday, I spoke to Shell again. Operator said OR had tried to close the ticket but she could reopen it and would try to get another engineer visit. She phoned back a few minutes later, said OR had "not been very nice" to her and she was going to make a complaint (I was surprised she told me this actually), but she would try to book an engineer for Thursday or Friday.

Later on Wednesday I received a text from OR saying they would allocate an engineer but tests indicated the fault was outside my property (as we knew on Monday).

So here we are, over a week later, they can't seem to fix a fault at their own exchange. I'll get back to Shell tomorrow morning to see if they have any update.

[Panamax]

Any building work going on up the road? Always involves a high risk of trouble.

[Granadier]

There's a house extension being built a little way off, not sure if that's relevant. The line from my house goes from my roof to a telegraph pole across the road, looks like the original setup from 1950! But the engineer who came seemed sure the fault was at the exchange...

[alangla]

Granadier said:

There's a house extension being built a little way off, not sure if that's relevant. The line from my house goes from my roof to a telegraph pole across the road, looks like the original setup from 1950! But the engineer who came seemed sure the fault was at the exchange...

I had a similar problem a while ago with my fibre line, Openreach bloke spent about 2 minutes in the house, muttered something about having loads of faults like this in the area & them all being booked individually instead of as one. Heard nothing back and the fault magically resolved a few days later, presumably when they fixed the faulty bit of kit in the exchange. Maybe your bloke had a book full of similar reports?

[Slowboathome]

Last time I had a problem (router got taken out by a lightning strike) I ended up approaching two OR engineers who were working on a similar problem down the road. There was some kind of mix-up on my ticket so I asked them directly if they would pop into mine and replace the fried socket.

I'm other words, if you see one of them working locally have a friendly word and see what's showing on their system (or systems as it turned out - their internal IT seems to be a right old mess).

[SpidersWeb]

Granadier said:

I've been without a working landline or broadband for over a week now.
...
my supplier (was Shell, they've just sold their service to Octopus, and it's going to be moved on again to TalkTalk).

If it is with TalkTalk then make sure you get your £9.76 a day compensation for it not working - www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advi...

[Gary C]

The inability to communicate with OR is a right pain.

Are you on ADSL or VDSL ?

[Granadier]

UPDATE:

Thanks everyone for your comments.

A third engineer visited this evening and has fixed it! A very nice man. After looking at everything carefully, he said I had been "disconnected underground" but also thought there was a break in the wires at my house. So he's put in a new section of wiring and new master socket at my house, and sorted out whatever it was "underground".

Shortly after he left, I did a speed test and it came out at 10mbps, so I was concerned there was still a problem, but it has now gone up to 33, which is pretty much what I'm paying for. Fingers crossed it all stays fixed.

SpidersWeb said:

If it is with TalkTalk then make sure you get your £9.76 a day compensation for it not working - www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advi...

Still branded as Shell, so I don't think that will apply yet, but will see! Thanks. Shell has already said they won't charge me for the days it wasn't working.

I see this evening I've had an email from them acknowledging my 'complaint', which baffled me slightly as I hadn't asked to make a formal complaint. To be fair, every individual person I've dealt with has been polite and superficially helpful, but the system as a whole has seemed badly organised/managed. And the first engineer who came to my house clearly failed to identify the sources of the problem. It has also been a mildly stressful experience, and everyone in the house has had to rely on their mobile data for 8 days, including me working from home.

Gary C said:

Are you on ADSL or VDSL ?

Sorry, I don't know.

Edited by Granadier on Thursday 16th May 21:18

[Gary C]

I asked because ADSL has a wire back to the exchange whereas VDSL has the wires going to a box nearby then connect to the network over a shared backbone.

Not that it makes any difference now