Ongoing broadband fault which BT / OR can't resolve - how can I escalate my complaints

[johnnythedep]

We get the anticipated speed of approx 60m, though oddly this has dropped literally in the last week.  

Fibre to the box then copper from the box (over ground) to the house.  At least 2 engineers have expressed that it is a long copper run from the box to the house including running along the wall of the 4 adjacent properties.  

[johnnythedep]

Since moving into our house almost 4 years ago we've had 'a' recurring fault whereby our broadband drops connection, sometimes for a minute, other times till we do a full reset.  BT have had multiple OpenReach engineers out and all claim to have resolved the issue and the case is closed... till the next time when the SAME fault occurs and a new engineer attends.  

My wife is required to work from home and her employer supply/require a secure network and log her activity.  At one point (April 2023) they recorded 70 individual drops in service.  Her work rate/load is impacted (unable to upload/download with any certainty) and her mental health due to stress, has started to suffer.  This prompted me to pursue BT more vigorously.  

I won't list my log of every phone call, every broken promise for a call back by management or the 4 different engineer visits since April (another booked next week) but apparently because each engineer has fixed a fault (odd that it is still the same problem that we have), they close the case and our subsequent calls to log the recurring fault is treat as a 'new' complaint.  

Call handlers and supervisors that we have managed to speak to have said that our issues have been escalated but we have no continuity of responsibility from BT and a different person handles this every time, DESPITE promises that individuals will call us personally or will email us to give us direct links/contact.  

How do we escalate complaints when you have to go through call centres on generic BT lines of contact (i.e. registering a fault on the 0800 number)?  

To add insult to injury; at the start of July an engineer visit (#3) resulted in him reconnecting the wiring in the internal BT box (fitted new by them in 2020) and despite saying that the fault codes (OD503 / OD505 or OD501 at various times) indicated an external line fault, he was doing this as a matter of course.  BT then stated that because the fault was internal it meant any claim for compensation was null/void... odd that we still have the same issue and  engineer #4 has attended since #3 did the rewire with a 5th engineer booked for the end of July!  

Sorry for the long message but where do I go, what do I do, who do I turn to?

[Keith_Beddoe]

@johnnythedep 

Welcome to this user forum for BT Retail phone and broadband customers.

What speed do you normally get, when your broadband is working?

Are you sure its an ADSL connection and not an FTTC connection (Fibre to the cabinet and copper to your house?

[Keith_Beddoe]

@johnnythedep 

You have a VDSL connection not an ADSL connection, so I have moved this thread to the correct board. I hav also asked a moderator to help with this, as they are the only BT employees on this forum.

[johnnythedep]

Thanks for that.  I'll repost my question as it doesn't seem to be visible in this thread! 

Since moving into our house almost 4 years ago we've had 'a' recurring fault whereby our broadband drops connection, sometimes for a minute, other times till we do a full reset.  BT have had multiple OpenReach engineers out and all claim to have resolved the issue and the case is closed... till the next time when the SAME fault occurs and a new engineer attends.  

My wife is required to work from home and her employer supply/require a secure network and log her activity.  At one point (April 2023) they recorded 70 individual drops in service.  Her work rate/load is impacted (unable to upload/download with any certainty) and her mental health due to stress, has started to suffer.  This prompted me to pursue BT more vigorously.  

I won't list my log of every phone call, every broken promise for a call back by management or the 4 different engineer visits since April (another booked next week) but apparently because each engineer has fixed a fault (odd that it is still the same problem that we have), they close the case and our subsequent calls to log the recurring fault is treat as a 'new' complaint.  

Call handlers and supervisors that we have managed to speak to have said that our issues have been escalated but we have no continuity of responsibility from BT and a different person handles this every time, DESPITE promises that individuals will call us personally or will email us to give us direct links/contact.  

How do we escalate complaints when you have to go through call centres on generic BT lines of contact (i.e. registering a fault on the 0800 number)?  

To add insult to injury; at the start of July an engineer visit (#3) resulted in him reconnecting the wiring in the internal BT box (fitted new by them in 2020) and despite saying that the fault codes (OD503 / OD505 or OD501 at various times) indicated an external line fault, he was doing this as a matter of course.  BT then stated that because the fault was internal it meant any claim for compensation was null/void... odd that we still have the same issue and  engineer #4 has attended since #3 did the rewire with a 5th engineer booked for the end of July!  

Sorry for the long message but where do I go, what do I do, who do I turn to?

[NeilO]

Hi @johnnythedep welcome to the community and thanks for posting, I'm sorry about the repeat fault with your broadband. I appreciate the inconvenience this must be causing and I'm sorry it's impacting your wife's ability to work from home.

Do you get any noise on your telephone when making or receiving calls?

Intermittent dropping connection faults can be one of the most tricky to resolve and I think it would be worth escalating this with Openreach at this stage.

I'll send you a private message so you can get in touch with the moderators and we'll be happy to help

Thanks

Neil

[iniltous]

Bad new first , although many people rely on broadband to work from home , unless they have a business tariff, it’s a residential service with a residential level of service, no extra imperative over any other residential customer, because strictly speaking if used for business it’s against the T&C’s , anyone ( especially if it’s the employer driving productivity issues) should be paying for a business grade line , however that’s no excuse for failing to repair whatever the underlying issue is.

Your comment about the long cable run along 4 adjacent properties, I presume this is ‘cable on wall’ and isn’t in itself any less reliable than any other cable ( in a duct or overhead ) but it’s unusual in a residential setting , something more seen in say a retail area , where a range of shops in a terrace are served from the same wall block , and the cable to the furthest unit from the block has to run across all the other units in between, this can cause issues with wayleaves, permissions to access  etc ., should access to the cable be required for maintenance etc.
If your situation is similar ( but residential, so possibly terraced housing ) and it’s this cable that is the underlying problem, ( and unless everything else has been changed there is no reason to suspect it is ) and it would be problematic to replace ( each unit along the cable run could refuse access to replace the cable ) it may be necessary, however it’s Openreach that are responsible for the network, if BT were not your provider your issue would be the same regardless of the ISP .

All you can do is report again ( there should be a way to resurrect closed faults anyway if the fault wasn’t fixed ) and if most other parts of the network have been changed out , suggest that this cable on wall is either confirmed to be OK or replaced, no matter how difficult it may be, OR techs have testers that can locate defects to within a few meters, so it’s should be relatively easy to see if this cable is the cause of the problem or not.

[johnnythedep]

I appreciate that I have residential use on my phone / broadband line but is it a case that the millions of people working from home due to recent enforced changes to work practices, have less rights?  Maybe this is something my wife needs to take up with her employer (local government) and her trade union.  

Interestingly this was mentioned by a BT call centre employee (ironically working from home) and when I asked if my wife's employers were forced to change our BT status to business how would that resolve the issue?  Same line same faults! 

My contract is with BT, if I have a problem with the service they contract to Open Reach so they should be resolving this not me... is that not the case?  

"there should be a way to resurrect closed faults anyway if the fault wasn’t fixed" - according to the last BT supervisor that I spoke to, this isn't the case.  He assures me that when a complaint is addressed and an engineer attends, they sign off the job and it is not considered an ongoing complaint even when I have EXACTLY the same fault every single time!  Hence my question, where do I go next, what do I do?  I have started taking contemporaneous notes and I'm now logging dates, times and names of those people I'm speaking to and of the frequency of the faults (20 drop outs in 4 hours just the other day).   

[Keith_Beddoe]

@johnnythedep 

If you reply to the private message from @NeilO , you should get some extra help.

[iniltous]

Complaints and faults are not necessarily the same thing  , although I have no recent experience of it ( I’m with BT but haven’t had any issue for decades) it’s my understanding with a fault report ( not a complaint ) that on a repair a text is send saying something along the lines of ‘ it’s fixed , but if it isn’t,  let us know that it isn’t  ‘… perhaps that’s only if it’s fixed remotely and the consumer doesn’t actually see the engineer face to face , but it’s a little moot anyway , a fault report for the same issue reported immediately after the fault is supposedly fixed is supposedly a ‘flag’ that this problem requires closer scrutiny from Openreach, apart from anything else OR have an interest in fixing faults  first time , repeat fault reports cost OR time and money .

I absolutely agree that as BT are your provider, that they should be pursuing Openreach for a satisfactory resolution

Do these dropouts coincide with poor weather ( raining ) or also during fine weather, water ingress is a common issue , it used to be the case these problems were difficult to locate if the engineer attended while the weather was OK , so the fault wasn’t present, but they have much better testers these days and should be able to see issues even in dry weather 

I suppose the difference with a consumer tariff and a business one , is a complaint that ‘I can’t watch Netflix’ carry’s equal weight to ‘ I cannot run my business’ if on a residential tariff, there is no priority, one over the other , if someone is on a business tariff there is a priority, but that’s because they pay for a business grade response.