To be really fucked off at being held to hostage by Openreach?

[GimletsGrannie]

We live north of a village which has broadband. Our little collection of houses has never been connected to fibre broadband, because Openreach quietly scrapped the plan in 2019 without telling anyone.

When I contacted their team for information on what had happened, I was ignored, told to fill in a contact form, and basically i think they hoped we'd go away. Unfortunately, lockdown working has made internet access a daily nightmare in our household - 4g signal as a backup isn't great around here so a neighbour has had to go into his workplace during lockdown because he's literally unable to work. We're only just teetering on the edge of sanity / to the point where only 1 of us can be doing a work video call at a time, which is just about acceptable 90% of the time, but by god it's painful.

I contacted their Executive complaint team to try and figure out how we could get fibre installed in the next few years (i'm not expecting it tomorrow, but i NEED to know it's not going to be like this forever). They've pushed me to start knocking on neighbour's doors to try and sell a private contract to the unconnected houses, which i've done (hard during lockdown and working fulltime and dragging DC out at night before bedtime!) without success (most of the folk around here are retired and don't need it for work - one retired woman said she just uses her phone for everything, which is fine for her). Openreach have told me i need to sign up 22 (yes, 22...) neighbours before they can install broadband. i don't even know 22 of my neighbours, we're all dotted around little lanes and collections of rows of cottage houses, etc.. not in a city with (say) a block of flats.

I've just had an update from their "executive complaint" handler basically telling me there's nothing i can do now.

Presumably if i have a spare £167000 they'd happily take my cash and install fibre.. but obviously, i don't. so essentially i can just fuck off.

AIBU to expect a longer term fix for lack of fibre broadband to be available? politicians keep drumming on about how working from home is the "new normal" (....) and how they're trying to get more houses connected.. but I can't be the only one who can't just throw thousands of pounds at the internet crapness that Openreach expect us to put up with permanently...?

AIBU to expect more from the government, from Openreach's monopoly, in 2021?

(I have no idea how nieghbours who are homeschooling are coping on our old telephone (non fibre) broadband line!)

YANBU Openreach are cunts and so are government

I think if you’ve moved to a tiny village (or by the sounds of it not even in the village but surrounding it), you have to accept you won’t have great connective services because you’ve chosen to live remotely.

p.s.i wouldn't mind so much if they had any real accountability, but fuck knows how it can cost £167k to connect 2 houses (i'm not joking, we're literally 30 seconds away from the telephone exchange building, and i know last year they laid an underground pipe for the telephone cables which pops out at our house.. so wouldn't involve digging).

i don't even know how they generated the cost estimate.

it could be 2 grand's worth of work and then £165k on cake for all i am allowed to know - no breakdown, not like working with a normal company where you ask for an estimate.

emilyfrost we were supposed to get broadband from Openreach in 2018. but they ran out of cash apparently and didn't do our houses. then i only found out in 2019 when i wondered why we hadn't been done yet.

So, we were "in scope".. but they silently decided not to connect us because of no funds/not enough profit.

So it’d cost £167,000 to have it installed?

I have a non-fibre Openreach line and it's very good - actually better than my Virgin Media cable line because it's much newer. Is there any scope to upgrade your existing line?

Have you looked at Ofcom's website for advice about this - I know there was a government select committee report only a few weeks ago about the slow roll-out of 5G and I think there was something on rural broadband too.

@GimletsGrannie

emilyfrost we were supposed to get broadband from Openreach in 2018. but they ran out of cash apparently and didn't do our houses. then i only found out in 2019 when i wondered why we hadn't been done yet.

So, we were "in scope".. but they silently decided not to connect us because of no funds/not enough profit.

When did you buy the house?

Could you try asking those neighbours with children how they are coping and see if they want to sign up?

I can't be the only one who can't just throw thousands of pounds at the internet
There has to be something in it for Openreach too. They are a business, after all. They need enough customers to make it worth their while. Supply and demand and all that.

@emilyfrost

I think if you’ve moved to a tiny village (or by the sounds of it not even in the village but surrounding it), you have to accept you won’t have great connective services because you’ve chosen to live remotely.

My grandparents live in a tiny hamlet in the middle of nowhere and have fibreoptic broadband to the house - their speed is phenomenal. And also totally wasted on them!

they said it would cost £167k for 22 houses around here (I never even got more than 1 neighbour on board to sign up).

then when i asked about me and a neighbour, they said it would not be cost effective and the original estimate was their response (but no specific breakdown of what 2 houses would cost, just that it would be too expensive to install - as the government funds wouldn't begin to cover it unless we paid privately).

Openreach are not a charity. You want it, you pay for it....or try lobby government to pay for it. If it's going to ruin your life move to somewhere that has fibre. And FYI....the monopoly only exists because no other profitable business wants to buy it....because running services in your area are clearly loss making! Why dont you write to Virgin Media and ask them why they are not investing in your area either? I know it must be frustrating but Openreach owe you nothing! You are entitled to be frustrated, but at least get frustrated at the right people!!! Write to your MP and ask for local authority funding for improving connectivity in your area. You might find that they can help....or try satellite broadband. I'm told it's very effective.

We moved in late March 2018, when the Openreach rollout plan included our houses.

There aren't any children close by except 1 who has a pre-schooler, and a farmer's wife with 3 kids who was sending her kids to school still (she works part time in the NHS, clinical front line, so key worker). I believe she is not sending her kids to school now, so presumably her "we're not interested, we don't need better broadband" answer might have changed. I haven't knocked on her door in a few weeks to ask about it. I think some of my neighbours thought i was trying to sell something to them as if i worked at Openreach (!).

What do the other people use in your area ?

Hot spot to their mobile phone ?

Or

Buy a dongle for a mobile phone hot spot ?

What Sometimes123 said. The level of entitlement is a little weird here.

We moved in late March 2018, when the Openreach rollout plan included our houses.

Okay, but presumably you didn’t move on the condition you would have great connective services.

As others have said, they’re a business. They don’t owe you anything.

My grandparents live in a tiny hamlet in the middle of nowhere and have fibreoptic broadband to the house - their speed is phenomenal. And also totally wasted on them!

WatchWatch That’s great for them, but unusual for a remote area and not at all to be expected.

Get your MP involved

YANBU.

Is this site any help: gigabitvoucher.culture.gov.uk/

At work we sacked off Openreach over the summer (including paying the £££ cancellation fee), in part because their behaviour and attitude was so appalling. It included quoting me an eye-watering sum (over 10k) for cancellation, which still worked out in the business case because everyone else was so much cheaper, only to turn around after I had cancelled to tell me it would be more than double that. I spent two hours in a total sick-feeling panic that I'd cost the business thousands, only for the local rep to laughingly tell me he'd made a mistake and the original quote was right, with no apology.

Rant over. I'd also try complaining to your MP and local council (district or county, if you have them).

As my needs required fibre broadband I wouldn’t move out in the country.

You took a gamble on their proposed plan and it didn’t pay off. I’m sorry, and it completely sucks, but you can’t expect a private company to run at a loss for several years (if not decades) to subsidise your usage needs.

If you expect to WFH for the foreseeable the property you’re in unfortunately doesn’t meet you needs anymore.

They are only obliged to give you 10Mbit/s down and 1 up, are you getting that? If so they don't owe you anything more I'm afraid.

X-posted with your updates. Definitely get your MP involved. I think I also read something in Private Eye magazine about telecoms companies reneging on deals to roll out rural broadband - might be worth contacting them to see if they'll run a story on it?

I'm with you OP. Openreach are the worst and the fact that there is no competition means you can't do anything!

We live rurally, I have lived here for over 30 years well before internet was a thing). The lane is about 3 miles long and there is 4 houses on it. Either end of the lane are A-roads both of which have fibre running along them. Tbh its been frustrating but I lived with it and my spectacular internet speed of 1.2mbps .

Then last year the absolute jokers closed the road off for 6 weeks and installed fibre. Fantastic you think, oh no. This is a leased line and it runs to a reservoir which has just been refurbed. There is now a fibre line which contains the leased line and 9 other spare fibre lines 12ft away from my main socket, but I cannot use one. I either have to pay £400 per month for a leased line on a 5 year contract or pay £87,600 to have normal fibre installed.

I complained (politely) to the executive team because for the life of me I cannot understand whys its better to have 9 lines not being used just because it belongs to a different department. They suggested we do a community fibre set up, but we need at least 20 people to sign up to this. There isn't bloody 20 of us. Openreach helpfully suggested I ask the local village despite it being 5 miles away and ALREADY HAVING BLOODY FIBRE!!!

They then offered me a 4G box from BT with unlimited internet, and said that if it didn't give me speeds of 8mps (ha) then under some government initiative they would have to look at providing me with fibre (Cost dependant obviously) under some government scheme to provide every rural place with decent speeds.

The box came, I got speeds of 16mps, but if more than one of us went on it slowed right down, or even better just kept dropping out completely. It worked about 20% of the time. I rang and queried it. Oh apparently the mast it bounces off is due for an upgrade / repair. When? No idea the estimated completion date was 2019 ...

Ok so cancelled the 4G within the 14 day grace period as no intention of being stuck in a 2 year contract for something that doesn't work and contacted the email I was given to say 4g didn't work and enquired about costing for fibre. Oh but you need to try a booster box and mast they say. Noone told me about that say I. Go back to BT who have no idea what I am on about. Go back and forth. Give up.

I hate them with a passion.

Wow that was long and ranty! Thats how much I hate them!

I suppose you might be able to use Starlink satellite broadband soon.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-55625071

yanbu
fast and reliable internet is so important these days and you have been expecting the roll-out as planned.
fuckers.

has there been a public consultation of tge change in internet provision?

I agree with contacting you pm. possibly even other broadband companies.
or could you get internet via a satelite dish?