To be extremely fucked off at how ineffective Openrreach are? (100% broadband commitment joke)

[SlowGoer]

I'm completely at the end of my tether. Are there any insiders or employees on here that can explain how and why they're so spectacularly shit?

I live near a village with a fibre broadband connection... Except our row of houses don't have it. It was "within scope" of broadband implementation last year, and we know the work was going to happen this year.. except I enquired over the summer to be told that, despite the government marketing it's "100% broadband commitment".. our fibre connection has been cancelled. No reason, no rationale, no revised timeline.

I've been emailing the "Fibre and Network Delivery" project email address since summer asking for more info, but they only told me someone would reply soon... And then it's been silent. No number to call the rollout team, calling the Openrreach switchboard results in being bounced around to dead ends.

AIBU that getting broadband (or even just an idea of when it might happen) shouldn't be this fucking hard?

I'm seriously considering contacting my MP about the issue, but short of that can anyone advise other things to try? If it were a company I was buying from I could just go to a competitor but there's no Virgin Media cable to our village either.

can't help really, just to say its all I can do to stop DH mouthing off at every OR van he sees on the road....we hate them too....

Thank you!

I feel like this is the sort of bureaucracy "computer says no" that is a running joke in some countries.. but this is in the UK in 2019... And there doesn't seem to be a "process" I can follow in order to get somewhere as a customer.. it's like the customer doesn't matter a fuck here.. none of the normal methods of working for or with or in a company are working.. it's like they actually have an option just to ignore my queries as a service user, and there's very little recourse or rationale as to what the fuck they're playing at.

Ironically there was an openreach van parked across our driveway a couple of weeks ago, blocking us in. When I tapped on the window the guy was filling out paperwork and planning to be there a while. Cowboys??

They operate like it's the 1960s!!

We can’t get fibre either. Bought a new build in 2014. It turns out BT laid only basic copper connection cables to fulfil their legal obligation of providing a phone line. They point blank refuse to come and lay fibre in the street as it’s too expensive for them to do it. If they’d bloody done it when the cables were first laid, it wouldn’t be an issue now. We only found this out because DH badgered the local MSP to find out as he’s transport and infrastructure minister. There’s 50 houses in my estate on the outskirts of a central Scotland town. My friend lives in a massive 200+ estate on the other side of Glasgow and he’s the same. Openreach has been getting away with this for years! Scottish government reckons its a Westminster issue so they won’t pay to sort it out to fulfil their pledge of everyone having fibre. At least I get a 4G reception in the house...

Google Clive Selley. He's the CEO. Send him an email and your request will get raised as an escalation and passed to the appropriate team to pick up.

I'll try it! Can't get any more shite, the situation I mean

Virgin are certainly no better. I was building (having built) a new house in my garden when they laid the virgin cable down my road. One year into the build at this stage. My house wasn't on the plans for a connection. Numerous phone calls, initially low level staff telling me I was wrong that I was on. Couldn't or wouldn't understand that I had spoken with the onsite contractors who told me it definitely wasn't. My postcode said 'YES' so I definitely was. When finally got someone who did understand - I got 3 promises of an engineer's call, which of course, never materialised. Basically, I wasn't on the plans and they had no intention of changing things.

I had previously contacted Plus Net (who I had my contract with) for a phone line, computer says no because my new house wasn't yet on their data base (even though I had been give an address and was on the main database).

I then asked BT just before Christmas and they said 'YES' it will be done by 28th Dec. I said I doubt it as there isn't a sight line to a pole, they insisted it would. On the 28th an engineer came out to connect me - but couldn't because there wasn't a sight line to a pole.

Cue lots of phone calls visits, twatting about, I finally got a line in May. As it happens though I'm still not paying for it, they gave me enough compensation to cover six months so I did get a bit of a win in the end,

They are spectacularly incompetent. Don't even ask.

Well at least a complaint letter to their CEO might be cathartic

And if any openreach social media teams stumble across this, I'm quite sure you're also a shower of cunts just like all the other employees I've interacted with.

I had a different problem with Openreach and tried to complain but they just wouldn't help or give me help to sort the issue. I emailed the CEO - heard back from his office later the same day and the issue that had been going on for weeks was resolved within two days. The emails are read!

I've been sat in all afternoon waiting for their second visit, due between 1pm and 6pm. No phone calls, no visit, radio silence. I'm going to call BT in the morning and after being on hold for 45 minutes I'm going to go ballistic at them.

Before Covid I remember saying to someone that the biggest obstacle to business in the UK was BT. Which Openreach are a part of.

Their behaviour since has not changed my mind.

As for 'between 1 and 6', when anyone says that, I call it an approximation not an appointment.

They damaged my house 3 weeks ago replacing a telegraph pole, phoned up a few times to report the damage but cannot get through to a human just constant messages left with the promise someone will get back to me.

ZOMBIE THREAD

Each time I move house it's the same circus with them