Openreach say they need planning permission to fix a fault seemingly caused by them

[#1]

 On Monday morning noticed an Openreach engineer working in the chambers in the pavement nearby on  the residential street where I live and taking meadurements between the chambers. This work has nothing to do with my connection which to that point was working fine.

Went out for an hour or so to find telephone engineer no longer there but my service, phone and broadband gone, no dialtone at all. Call Plusnet support who confirm a network disconnect and advise OR have given a date of Wednesday 15/1 to resolve.

That has passed and no update from PN so call tech support again this morning. They say that OR say planning permission is required to fix the fault and check for next update on 23 January.

Maybe they are trying to upgrade somethiing on the street but I can't for the life of me see how we have gone from them possibly misconnecting something when investigating in a nearby chamber to requiring planning permission to fix it. 

Surely they can just reconnect whatever they did in the chamber prior to doing the bigger job whatever that is.

Meanwhile having to pay much increased Pay as You Go charges to maintain voice and broadband contact with the rest of the world.

Would appreciate a staff member getting me an answer as to why my service cannot be reconnected  pending the larger job as it does very much seem that OR did something in the chamber during their investigations.

Thank you       

[#2]

Try contacting them via CHAT.

[#3]

Thanks for getting in touch @ballancejl

I'm sorry to hear that this has happened.

From what I can see our suppliers have advised us this is a common fault affecting a number of lines.

It may just be a coincidence that it happened whilst a engineer was carrying out some work but I'm afraid we won't know for certain until the fault has been fixed.

I'm afraid we can't request our suppliers look at reconnecting you even if the common fault isn't the cause as the common fault would take priority due to the large number of customers affected.

[#4]

Thanks for taking an interest Matthew.

We are at the end of a cul de sac and from talking to neighbours haven't found anybody nearby who has reported a fault EXCEPT our next door neighbours BT customers who also like us lost service at the time of OR engineer visit.

From this It is clear that he did something to our lines while investigating whatever he was investigating.

Not professional at all to cut service to me and the neighbour without telling us.

Still think a quick reconnection of wires is probably all that is needed pending whatever the  other job is and so frustrating they won't reveal what it is especially with other near neighbours not having previously reported any fault. 

If I knew what the greater fault was I would perhaps feel less frustrated.

Regards   

[#5]

Hi @ballancejl

I'm afraid we wouldn't gain visibility of common faults as they don't relate solely to an individual customer of ours - as Matt has advised, BT Wholesale and Openreach will be looking to resolve this as a priority.

Best wishes

Dave

[#6]

Now in the 12th day since phone and broadband service was diconnected seemingly by OR intervention and no update from Plusnet following the second follow up date passing yesterday.

In response to your advice that you can't fo anything because it is a common fault I have now talked to further neighbours on our cul de sac and still cannot find anyone who has reported a fault again with the exception of the next door neighbour who also lost service at the time of an OR engineer working in the chamber outside our houses on 13th January for work unrequested by either of us.

Once again I request the courtesy of Plusnet finding out from OR what this common fault is and communicationg it to me because a fault is not apparent to any other  neighbour I have found so far on the line of wiring around the cul de sac.

And of course some reassurance that restoration of service is imminent.

Regards   

[#7]

Thanks for getting back to us @ballancejl 

I'm sorry to see you're experiencing problems with your service.

While I understand what you've said we can only pass on information we've received from our suppliers. On the 13th January we reported this to Openreach and we were given an estimated response time of by 15/01/20 23:59:59 and an engineer went out the same day on the 13th advising that this is a common fault.

We chased this up with our suppliers service management centre(SMC) after the response time on the 17th January and we were advised the job is with what's known as the "dig and aux" contractors team for duct work and an A55 was submitted (These are generally for traffic management and/or planning permissions).

When A55's are submitted the time-frame is generally within 5 working days for an update and as there's no update yet at least we can see I've got back in touch with our suppliers and I've been advised the following:

"I have checked the details of this fault and can see that this job is linked with the common fault and I can see that at the lead fault the job is with the contractors and the Duct work is required. However I have checked the notes and can see that 'PLANNING AIM TO PROGRESS WITHIN 3 WORKING DAYS'. So I would suggest you to please check back on 28/01/2020."

Unfortunately they don't have anymore information than this, so we'd need to check back on the 28th for an update. I'm taking this on personally moving forward which means I'll follow this up with you next week.

[#8]

Thanks Gandalf for taking a personal interest and I look forward to your update on the 28th.

I appreciate that PN are entirely in the hands of OR on this. However it rankles that  both myself and my neighbour (BT customer) are having difficulty with  the OR contention that they sent out an engineer on the 13th subsequent to the original unrequested engineer visit to street which was coincident with our service being cut and led us both to then report the diconnect to our suppliers. Nobody round here witnessed any subsequent engineer visit on the 13th.

No need for a reply to this. Just venting, hopefully for one last time!

Regards        

[#9]

No problem it's a mystery although an engineer may not have physically gone out to the site on the 13th, from what we can see the job was assigned to an engineer then. It's possible they remotely identified the fault was related to another in the area and linked the jobs together.

Having said that, that's pure speculation and I may be wrong so don't quote me on that please.

Hopefully we make some progress next week. 

[#10]

The service is finally restored after 2 and a bit weeks however in a manner that backs up my original speculation that OR  perhaps inadvertently cut the service to me and the neighbour on 13th January and could simply have come back and made a reconnection very  soon after the fault was raised by both of us.

Instead they said permission for roadworks was required leading to the significant delay. However they reconnected our service by work in the chamber outside on the 28th with no digging involved anywhere around here. They did return to the street 2 days later yesterday the 30th to do other work which did involve digging.

Plusnet report to me that OR have not provided a cause for the fault experienced here. Hmmm!

Regards

[#11]

Thanks for getting back to us @ballancejl 

I'm happy to see you're back up and running now. I'd like to sincerely apologise again for the issues you had for so long and if you have any further issues, please feel free to let us know so we can investigate this.

[edit]

I've also added the credits to your account to cover your downtime and a goodwill gesture as agreed.