Openreach engineer arrived near property waits 15 minutes and then drives away

[#1]

As the title says, has this happened to anyone else?

27th July

Engineer arrives around 16:15 leaves just before 16:30.

Around 18:15 I contacted PN support to see what happened and apparently I refused him entry to my house, which is a puzzle to me as he stayed in his van talking on his phone. I requested more information on why the openreach engineer misrepresented events and to book a second visit as I was unable to during this phone call, PN to phone next day.

28st July 10:30

Conversation with PN and I was told the engineer has been working on my issue until 19:30 have you still no dial tone? Where this came from confused me as my reported issue was noisy phone line resulting in drops in my internet connection.

1st August 08:00 to 13:00

Next openreach appointment.

This is really poor service, what was the openreach engineer playing at and where did PN go wrong with the feedback I requested?

Dan

[#2]

I feel for you mate the last engineer I had here wouldn't do anything apart from tell me all he was here to do was a b and c tests I said that's not going to fix my problem of loads of random drops in my connection is it he said to me his hands are tied and plusnet haven't authorised him to do any work so what was the point of him coming out as the problem still persists bad engineers who are lazy and can't be arsed and seems to be more n more of it happening as of late so my problem isn't fixed but just putting up with it cause the bt engineer said everything is ok lol what a joke I feel for you mate

[#3]

It would be helpful to clarify if these were BT Openreach’s own engineers or subcontractors. Whilst the vans all look like BTOR vans, many have the phrase “Working on behalf of” in small letters. http://www.revelationtracking.com/media/1113/mjquinnpic.jpg?width=750&height=422&mode=crop&a...

These are subcontractors - some are fairly Goid (MJ Quinn) but one in particular is rubbish. The bad one has been known to do exactly as described and also to pinch one persons working line to fix a fault on another’s...!!

[#4]

Thanks for your comment, it shouldn't really matter who they work for they represent Openreach. For the record it was an Openreach engineer.
Dan

[#5]

I do not disagree, but the reputation of some of the subcontractors is highly variable.

I hope that the next visit is more productive.

[#6]

So do I!

I was hoping for a response from Plus Net as Openrearch do not have a simple complains procedure.

Dan.

[#7]

Sorry to hear this.

We've raised a complaint with Openreach regarding this but these can take up to 28 days for us to hear back

As soon as we know more we'll update you further

[#8]

Although I didn't see anything, I did once have a similar experience when I waited all day by my front door, watching and listening, only to be told the engineer had arrived and been unable to get an answer, so it does happen.

I suspect they're given more jobs than they can really achieve in the day, so they have to get no answers at a few. If that doesn't happen and they get behind it's probably the easiest way to catch up. Why drive to the address and wait there? Possibly the vans are equipped with tracking devices.

It's what you get when an industry is structured so the only real opportunity for competition is on cost-cutting and price, rather than quality or reliability.

[#9]

It's what you get when an industry is structured so the only real opportunity for competition is on cost-cutting and price, rather than quality or reliability.

But there is no competition, the price is the price and there is no quality or reliability.  BTOR / BTw do what they do (or don't do) because if you do not have the option of Virgin Media, you have no alternative, thereby CPs / ISPs and end users are stuck with what they get.

[#10]

I'm wondering do other countries have similar telecoms infrastructures or were we the first and everyone else has learned from our mistakes.

[#11]

@Strat,

I think that our key issue is that the management of communication faults is so very far removed from the customer … and that BTOR is all too well insulated from the reasonable complaints of end users.  Think of an egg and bacon breakfast - the pig has its ass on the plate, the chicken has just one of several eggs on the pate - in this scenario BTOR is the hen and the ISPs are the pigs.  BTOR cocks-up and the ISPs get a kick in the ass., which can only be raised after the job has (finally) been completed.There is a long communications chain between a customer with a fault and the BTOR agency on the ground sent to repair it.  If the engineer does a bad job (or no job at all) there is a long chain through which a formal complaint would have to travel, which even if raised is likely to be ignored.

If having encountered a fault in the delivery infrastructure the repair / management / customer liaison became the direct responsibility and obligation of BTOR, we would see a 2-fold order of magnitude improvement in service.  Such would not be dissimilar to the power and gas networks.  One might raise a fault report to the entity who performs the billing, but it is thereafter dealt with direct between the network provider and the end consumer.  It is also possible to raise a fault report direct to the network provider … and they have an end user complaints process.

Thanks to Ofcom BTOR is far too protected from the heat of having to deal with real customers.  It is for example barking mad that each and every CP needs to build their own phone line test toolset.  Such should be available to end users from the Openreach website - such used to be available, but that got hived off to their friends in BT Retail.

[#12]

Competition would work better if people could switch between the Virgin and Openreach systems (where both are available) without facing huge upfront fees. These currently lock a customer into one or the other. I know there is obviously a cost when an engineer has to go out to run cables and connect them, but that cost, passed on to the customer, prevents real competition because it deters switching.

How that cost could be covered, if not passed on to the customer - well, it'd have to go on the monthly charge, I suppose, but that would also incentivise the providers to value loyalty, because churn would cost them more and make them less profitable or competitively priced.