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Ongoing Broadband Outage - Terrible Experience

chimp_spanner — Fri, 29 Jan 2021 18:42:18 GMT

Hey everyone. Firstly, yes I have opened a fault (well, numerous faults as you'll see), and an official complaint. So I'm aware no resolution is possible on this board. But I do need to share my experience so far in the hope that someone sees it and makes some changes.

I live in a property with two connections; my parents (FTTC) and mine (FTTP).

25th - FTTC connection goes down. That same evening, mine goes down

26th - FTTC connection back up, mine still down. Waited on hold for approx 35 mins, booked an engineer, explicitly stated that a hoist would be needed to check connection to the house, as my initial setup had been delayed by several days due to engineers being sent without one

27th - Engineer arrives, with no hoist. Looks at the box and basically says "the light is red". Another half hour on hold, booked another engineer

28th - Engineer no-shows. Another half hour on hold, booked another engineer.

29th - Engineer no-shows but marks job as complete. Called FTTP faults line I'd been given by an online chat agent.

Waited for 40 minutes, explained everything so far and was told firstly that engineers can basically decide not to come and don't have to inform the customer. And secondly that it's the wrong number and that I need to call the one ending "151". Which is the number I called. They then asked *me* "oh, how'd you end up here then?".

They then said they'd transfer me and gave me the number I need in future. Waited another 20 minutes.

Lady on the phone informed me I'd been connected to orders, not faults. Waited another 20-25 minutes.

Got through to the same person I'd spoken to on the 28th (very helpful guy) who said there were no engineer notes, no activity, nothing. Just a fault sitting there and the fault closed/resolved.

After 2 and a half hours today, I finally ended up with a new case opened and escalated to open reach. Still awaiting a reply from complaints.

I will be stating this very clearly when they do reply, but in case anyone sees it here, it's unacceptable that Openreach engineers can basically just bail on a job and not let the customer know. If I had to have taken time off work or re-arranged plans, I would've wasted the last 3 days. As it is, I work from home and have been unable to do any of my essential tasks since the evening of the 25th. It's also not great that chat and phone agents are passing me to wrong departments and giving wrong numbers. I know services are stretched atm, hard time for everyone, get it. But there needs to be a bare minimum standard of service to prevent people like me spending 2:30 on the phone today instead of attempting to work, as best I can anyway.

Knackered, got a headache, and don't even fully believe I'll have this resolved tomorrow. I'll probably have to drive to my support bubble 180 miles away, where they have cable internet.

Un.Real.

Re: Ongoing Broadband Outage - Terrible Experience

imjolly — Fri, 29 Jan 2021 18:58:04 GMT

As it is your FTTP connection that is the problem are you phoning the FTTP TEAM 08005874787?

Re: Ongoing Broadband Outage - Terrible Experience

chimp_spanner — Fri, 29 Jan 2021 20:20:06 GMT

Hey, eventually yeah. First I asked on chat what the best number was to raise a fault with full fibre to the house, and was given a 150 number. They then gave me a 151 number. Which when I called, patched through to the 150 number. Then they gave me the 787 number, but she then told me THAT was wrong because it was orders, not faults and I had to hold again. Total mess.

Re: Ongoing Broadband Outage - Terrible Experience

pippincp — Fri, 29 Jan 2021 20:47:07 GMT

Which exchange area are you in? Is it one of these? What's the status of the lights on the ONT?

Re: Ongoing Broadband Outage - Terrible Experience

Starwire — Sat, 30 Jan 2021 08:57:27 GMT

The fact the FTTC Connection and FTTP went down at the same time would usually imply the issue was on the Spine Network and or Head End.

Do you know if any of your neighbours who have FTTP are also down, if so and they’re off the same Splitter it would suggest the problem is between the Head End and SASA.

If it’s just you who has a Red LOS Light it would most likely be a problem between your individual fibre from the SASA to the ONT.

Re: Ongoing Broadband Outage - Terrible Experience

chimp_spanner — Sat, 30 Jan 2021 10:14:25 GMT

Hey thanks for the reply Pippin. I'm not sure how I'd find this out - I'm in St Osyth? So it'd be one in or near Essex I presume. Sorry, I know that's not terribly helpful.

Re: Ongoing Broadband Outage - Terrible Experience

chimp_spanner — Sat, 30 Jan 2021 10:13:58 GMT

Thanks Starwise - AFAIK no-one else is affected. I haven't been able to find any kind of reported faults or known issues for my area. It looks like it's just me.

Also just looking at my fault tracker, this is the third engineer in three days to mark the job as "visit complete" and nobody has been. I'm assuming this means no-one is coming, again.

Re: Ongoing Broadband Outage - Terrible Experience

pippincp — Sat, 30 Jan 2021 12:33:40 GMT

Looks like it's an issue with your line as there are no network issues reported for St. Osyth.

Re: Ongoing Broadband Outage - Terrible Experience

chimp_spanner — Sat, 30 Jan 2021 12:37:34 GMT

Yeah just to update an engineer did turn up. Not sure where he is now though. The van is gone and he didn’t say he was leaving or if he’d come back. I presume he might be checking further along the line? Honestly have no idea atm.

Re: Ongoing Broadband Outage - Terrible Experience

chimp_spanner — Sat, 30 Jan 2021 13:28:41 GMT

Small update;

Engineer arrived. There was no hoist (again), and none available. BUT he seemed to think that even if he had one, it wouldn't have mattered because the fault appears to be further down the line. Unfortunately he wasn't trained to look at the equipment, so now it's been passed back to the centre to be assigned another engineer.

Part of the issue, it seems, is that of the 32 people my line is supposed to supply, only 2 are connected. Me, and one other provisional line that hasn't even been installed yet. So there was no-one else to report the fault except me. I did mention to multiple people in my calls that this started on the same day as another line going into my house went down. I guess they probably have to check from the house first and work their way backwards, but I suppose we could've established this a lot sooner if the first engineer had the right tools, and the subsequent two engineers even showed up.

So for now it's bounced back to another engineer. I'd imagine it'll be Monday at the earliest before they can look at it. Will see I guess.

Re: Ongoing Broadband Outage - Terrible Experience

pippincp — Sat, 30 Jan 2021 13:53:25 GMT

Looks like an issue between Headend and SASA. That's a network fault. Could be repaired over the weekend. You being the only one on the SASA is why it hasn't been picked up earlier.

Re: Ongoing Broadband Outage - Terrible Experience

Starwire — Sat, 30 Jan 2021 13:55:25 GMT

Problem when it comes to FTTP the Majority of the Service Delivery (Division who Installs/Fixes Faults) Engineers who do FTTP have only been trained to work from the CBT to the ONT. Basically string up a cable and Splice it.

The older FTTP Trained Engineers who started life doing Blown Fibre are usually the only ones trained to deal with Network Faults between the Splitter and ONT.

If said Engineer who visited doesn’t have the skill set to fix it, he or she should arrange with their Local FTTP Coord Team to send someone who can.

Re: Ongoing Broadband Outage - Terrible Experience

chimp_spanner — Sat, 30 Jan 2021 15:16:34 GMT

Yeah thanks for the replies both - I do feel a little better that there's some possible explanation emerging beyond "the light is red". I'm still annoyed that we could've established it earlier but, we're here now. Ultimately I'm not trying to give anyone a hard time because it's basically rubbish for everyone right now. I'm sure I'll be up and running at some point soon. It's just the overall service experience has been very frustrating up to now. The engineer, I should say, was very friendly and helpful, and sympathetic to my situation. And one guy I've dealt with on the phone (who escalated the case) has also gone out of his way to try and get it resolved. So, some positives I suppose!

Anyway thank you for the added insight - have good weekends and I'll update this story as it goes.