BRONZE ADDRESS KEY

[sally4]

Hello this is my very elderly mum in law's broadband and landline which she relies on.  She has had BT broadband for many years and has been having repeated connectivity problems and engineers have visited a few times and lent her a mini hub but say they can't help as they don't know what the problem is.  I did some digging with an IT friend and found mum in law's phone line is a "bronze address key".  Both her next door neighbours' addresses show as gold address key. Mum in law has had the phone line certainly for over 20 years.  I understand bronze key address is a problem and it is not a good line.  Until recently it has worked adequately (but never v fast) but clearly now has faults which no-one is addressing.  What can we do?  How can we get a bronze address key to a gold key?  How do we get Open Reach or BT to help her fix the fault(s)?  She really needs the line working.  She does live on the edge of a small town with houses all around her - it's not remote but there is no sign of full fibre (FTTP) coming any time soon.  Cheers for any help.

[rbz5416]

My limited understanding is that a Bronze address indicates no Openreach service has ever been provided. What are you using to look this up?

But I suspect this is all a red herring, given that she already has service. Were these "engineers" from BT or Openreach?

[licquorice]

As @rbz5416 the problem is nothing to do with Bronze address Key, that is purely an administrative thing.

Unfortunately intermittent faults are difficult to trace and diligent engineers willing to spend the time investigating are as rare as hen's teeth these days. BT tend to send a Qube or other contractor to check the internal wiring before getting a proper Openreach engineer to investigate externally where the problem almost certainly lies.

Keep reporting the problem to customer services.

[sally4]

I've heard that if you aren't gold key address it is hard to move to another provider.  All we want is the line to be fixed (and full fibre to be installed, giving mum in law brand new overhead cables).  Does anyone know how to apply to BT/ Open Reach to upgrade to gold key address?  What about applying for a 2nd extra BT phone line to the property on a 12 month contract and after a couple of months, discontinuing the first original line (which is not currently on a contract).  Would that force BT to run a brand new undamaged cable, copper or otherwise, to the property and thus give us a gold address key?

[rbz5416]

@sally4 

I asked you where you're obtaining the address information from. You declined to answer.

I asked you who the engineers were. You declined to answer.

Two of us told you that the address isn't the issue, yet that's what you want to focus on. Maybe you should refer back to your IT expert?

Sorry, I'm out...

[sally4]

Hi sorry I've been busy at work this morning.  My mum in law phoned 150 and BT sent engineers to her house. So I don't know who they were.

The address information was from googling to try and find when full fibre would be available.  

[sally4]

My mum in law is 92 so she wouldn't know if the engineers were BT or Open Reach. I live a distance away.

[licquorice]

I have flagged your problem to the mods for attention.

[DavidM]

Hi @sally4 and thanks for posting.

I don't think a bronze address key is the issue here, it's more likely an intermittent fault which has been mentioned. I can run a few test and check what's going on. Please check your inbox for my message and drop me over the details.

Cheers

David