How BT Works

One week ago today, the telegraph pole supplying our property and one or two others was knocked over. It was at 7.01 am on the 15th October, precisely at the time the bin lorry came. However, they claim it wasn’t them at all, so despite there being no other traffic on the private lane at that time of day, it’s purely coincidence. An excitable squirrel perhaps. The ever helpful Rother District Council said it was nothing to do with them as a private company carries out the job. I’m not sure that absolves them of their duty of care somehow and I shall be addressing that.

The pole damage was reported to OpenReach at 7:45am and an engineer arrived around 10am to check out the damage. He took all the details and went away again.

On Monday 19th October I rang to chase, as nothing had been done. Without the original reference number, nobody can search their system for a status update. Only the ref number is searchable – not postcode, street name, nothing else! So a new reference was raised and later that day another BT engineer appears. It transpires there was no record of the pole being reported on the previous Thursday, so nothing had so far been actioned. This is a common occurrence I am informed.

On Tuesday morning a helpful woman at OpenReach informs me a pole team will be out to replace it that day.

On Tuesday afternoon, a man at OpenReach informs me nothing has happened as the earlier call was closed and it will likely be another week before anything happens!

On Wednesday a BT chap came out and “surveyed” the pole. (So, that’s three visits so far to just look at a pole).

Today (Thursday), I called OpenReach for an update – twice.

The first call –  the woman said she couldn’t tell me anything I would have to call my phone provider and then hung up on me.

The second call – a chap said he would see what he could find out and ring me back. No call 90 minutes later.

So far, still no word of when it might be fixed.

UPDATE: One week later, the pole was stood back up and cables reconnected. With no update or feedback from BT at all I might add. There appears to be an intermittent HR (high resistance) on the line. Did you know it’s now nigh on impossible to resolve an intermittent fault?

This is how a telecoms company with a monopoly operates.