Broadband outage

[Honey23]

Some clarity please. My understanding is that Openreach have agreed with BT that they will fix any faults within 48 hours of notification, after which compensation will be paid at a daily rate until it is fixed. This must be based on their experience of how long the majority of faults are likely to be fixed. We will potentially have an outage for 6 working days. This, one would assume, is because it is a more serious and time consuming fault to fix. Why won’t BT explain why it is going to be out for so long? It honestly feels like this is some kind of planned maintenance that Openreach haven’t bothered mentioning to customers. We are struggling to access the internet via our phones and, with the best will in the world, there is zero guarantee that it will be fixed by Friday. We then have to make plans as to how to work elsewhere next week. If there was more transparency, it would help keep customers on side. We’re currently our of contract and this will decide how we proceed. Any insights would be helpful. 

[gg30340 · Accepted solution]

Obviously some faults can take longer than others to fix and can and often do reveal unforeseen further problems once the remedial work begins. BT retail along with all the other ISP have no control over when and how long a fault will take to fix and rely on Openreach to keep them updated which can be not as often as it could/should be.

See link regarding automatic compensation.

 Automatic Compensation | BT Help

[Honey23]

Kind of you to reply and try to fill in the gaps in my understanding, gg30340.  fairness to BT, they have recently confirmed via Twitter (X),  that there is a problem with Paper Insulated Lead cable (which sounds old) and is resulting in a digging-up-the-road kind of problem and not a 48 hour issue. I’ve already spoken to Billing and they’ve confirmed the mechanisms to get compensation and this document is helpful for further info. Thanks so much for highlighting this. 

[licquorice]

Many of the main cables from the exchanges to the green cabinets are paper insulated lead sheathed cables which are perfectly fine unless damaged to allow water ingress. They are pressurised with air to resist water ingress due to slight porousness.

If they are damaged, whole lengths need to be changed which isn't a 5 minute job unfortunately.

[Honey23]

Thanks @licquorice for the explanation- it is so much easier to be understanding about the issue when you understand the extent of it. Sounds like a Friday fix may be optimistic at this point. We will try and find a workaround.