No internet means….

[Openreachisclosed]

I can’t control my heating easily, I can’t work well, I can’t relay medical info, can’t watch TV. Plus a myriad of other things some are small and annoying ( no Alexa music). Some are more serious- can’t work on my laptop.

I have changed broadband supplier. Open reach have badgered me for the last three days with calls, voice mails and texts confirming my slot today. Did the engineer turn up?? No!! Sky tell me that the next available slot is 3.5 weeks away.

My questions are these-

1. What can I do about this appalling customer service? I took half a day off to be around for the engineer and nothing. I phoned sky and the person I spoke to was totally unhelpful. Could not have cared less.

2. Any suggestions to remedy the situation from either sky or open reach.

3. Any ideas on how to make this work if I really have to wait this long? In this time it falls with half term, dd2 bday and exams for ds1. I work from home and don’t have an office to go to. We will have no TV as we have ordered the sky streaming service.

4. Money is tight( hence the change in providers) so we can’t have massive data bills to hot spot laptops.

I know this is a first world problem but some issues such as the heating, security and medical devices don’t work well without steady wifi.

Any suggestions. Thanks for getting through the message!

Bump- for anyone?

Can you look into 30 day contract with Vodafone or EE for their 5g? Could tie you over

Morning, thank you @Wtfdude I wasn’t aware you could get such short term contracts. Are they plug and go type things that you can get from Vodafone? Would that give me wifi throughout?

Yeah these should be just plug and done routers. You should be able to check your coverage on their website as well. Hope it works!

I would ask sky for a dongle or SIM to hotspot from. You're also entitled to compensation for every day's delay in connecting you. Over 3.5 weeks that will add up to a chunk.

I've had issues every single time I've changed broadband supplier and I now only change between companies that use different infrastructure so that I can keep the old service going until after the new one starts. It's appalling that I need to do this though!

Thank you @Reallybadidea I asked the guy I spoke to at Sky if they could supply a dongle and they said no.

It all felt very “computer says no” kind of thing. His solution to the problem was “pay your current provider for extra days” erm no, I’ve cancelled the DD, I’m skint and finally it’s skys problem to fix.

The compensation will be nice but I will not hold my breath!

This happened to us when brsk let us down and we had a month without internet. We got dongles, but they were useless. Our lovely neighbours saved us by allowing us to use their internet (got them a nice bottle of champagne to say thank you). I WFH a fair bit so it really was a lifesaver.

I got a cheap pay monthly sim and router from Three at very short notice - think it was delivered the next day! It is definitely slightly less reliable and slower than fibre but it's good enough for the moment, til I find a fibre deal I'm happy with.

Thanks- my neighbours are lovely so in a real pinch that maybe something I have to do.

@TravellingJack I’ve had a Quick Look at 3 that’s good to know that they have a quick delivery.

I really don’t know how companies get away with such awful service. It seems open reach do installs for virtually everyone except virgin.

Openreach are a bunch of idiots. <<twitches>> . You have my sympathies.

Can you tell sky you have changed your mind and go elsewhere??? Do they have a 14 day cooling off period 🤔🤔 i use now TV and it's been fine 👾💕

We need the broad and the TV package or I would consider it. I have already taken delivery of the sky streaming hub. I left virgin because they were robbing us blind with the fees. Sky is half the price- however as my mum would say “you get what you pay for”

The new sky puck/hub things are, at the moment gathering dust in their box as there is no broadband to connect to 🙄

How open reach how been allowed to commandeer the market share is beyond me. I thought there are laws against this. Probably wouldn’t be as bad if they weren’t entirely shit!

Thank you for the solidarity 😀

Have you got any contact details for open reach? Ring them and create merry hell. Start the complaints procedure.

Do you have an arial point to at least get normal TV for a while?

Openreach aren't contactable, they even say this on their website. I've tried endless pages and Web forms. I've had to complain to the CEO of BT instead.

We have no aerial point so we can’t even get free view. I’m expecting a call back from sky tomorrow. If they can’t change the date, I’m going to buy an aerial from Amazon and one of the 3 mobile router things that a pp mentioned. I shall then invoice sky for them.

This is the thing, you can’t get hold of anyone at open reach and if you do get through to someone, they just pass you back to sky as apparently that’s who they are contracted by.

it’s truly a mess and someone at open reach clearly knows someone of importance to get the contract of fitting everything for all the suppliers bar virgin.

I will do the CEO thing tomorrow. I was thinking of OFCOM and trading standards too.

Anyone got any choice phrases to go in the email to the ceo? I don’t think “You money grabbing twat” is going to get me far- although it’s what I’d like to write!

They've messed up my fibre and I'm BT. Even the nice BT complaints team seemed exasperated with openreach.

That says it all, if people in their own industry can’t stand them.

Hope you’re sorted now.

If brsk is in your neighbourhood go for it.

Your contract is with sky not openreach

If you buy a dishwasher from John Lewis and the ferry company carrying it fails to dock , you don't chase the ferry company , you chase John Lewis and they have to fix it.

After that is ofcom you need to chase

What do you want specifically from Sky - because generally unless you want all of their channels it works out cheaper to go with the cheapest BB provider you can find for the speeds you want and then just get your sky channels through NOW TV - which has the added benefit of not tying you into a contract.

I regularly pay for a month or so of NOW to binge watch a specific series and then just cancel it. There's also loads of really cheap deals for NOW if you shop around!

Just been through this nightmare myself OP. You can't contact OpenReach. Pretty much ever. Technically we aren't customers of OpenReach, but it's still some bullshit because they are the ones operating the infrastructure. Or failing to operate it as the case may be. I'm never changing supplier again.

Oooh I didn’t catch the post that got deleted - I wonder what was so controversial it was deleted 🧐

I know it’s hard @iloveeverykindofcat we have to be subjected to the subbed out work.

On a positive note- I have had a text from sky saying they’re allocating me a new time. 🤞

I take your point @midgetastic but when I contacted open reach they couldn’t tell me why their engineer hadn’t turned up, where he or she was and when they may arrive again. To use your analogy that’s like a ferry company saying we’ve lost your dishwasher because we don’t know where our ferry is, which port it going to dock next or when. There has to be some culpability from openreach.

They have such a monopoly on the market, they don’t care which ocean their ferries even sale in!