Open Reach.

Since many slag them off on here, a happy result for a change.

Broadband was working as normal this morning. Went out for lunch, and noticed an amber LED flashing on the TrueCall unit when I came back. No dial tone. And no broadband. Had noticed a couple of Open Reach vans at the end of the road where the cabinets are, so thought they were perhaps working on a known fault.

About 3PM I went to the end of the road to post a letter, and they were packing up. Asked one of the guys if I should now report the fault. He asked for the phone number and a few minutes later came to the house and plugged in a line tester thingie - then went back to the cabinet. Shortly after, all sorted.

Now I know they probably cause the problem by dislodging something in the cabinet, but to go back and fix it there and then after packing up was more than I'd expect. Nor would he take a 'drink' from me either.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)
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We're getting FTTP Lightstream at last next month which is the fastest in the UK.

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Reply to
Simon Mason

It's only a quarter of the speed of another provider claiming to be the fastest, I'm sure if you got your wallet out you could get a 10Gbps connection ...

Reply to
Andy Burns

Second thing I do when the phone line fails here is to take a 1 mile drive in the direction of the exchange. More often than not there will be an Openreach engineer fiddling about in one of the joint posts or chambers. Quiet word and when they have sorted the fault they are working they sort mine.

I've always found the guys and gals down holes or up poles friendly and helpful. I'm always sympathtic that the problem is really the old aluminium cable and not their fault for disturbing it.

Much prefer doing this than doing battle with "Customer Services" and jumping through all the hoops they insist on.

First thing I do? Look across the road to see if Openreach are in that joint post. B-)

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

I think my last fault was an engineer shutting my cables in the lid of the box while shutting it after doing some work on another line. I imagine if they'd known about it soon enough they'd have been happy to rectify their mistake informally :-)

Reply to
Clive George

En el artículo , Dave Liquorice escribió:

I've been entertained for the last few weeks by OR turning up with a a few vans and a bunch of guys/gals. They lift up a manhole cover across the street (always the same one), erect their little barrier thing, then stand around peering into the 'ole having a chinwag. Occasionally someone will grab his gas warning meter and pop down to take a look.

Some time later, they all pack up and drive off, only to come back a few days later and do it all over again. I keep meaning to pop over and ask what's going on but it seems rude to spoil their fun. And my line hasn't gone off :)

Reply to
Mike Tomlinson

when they did somethink like this last week outside our house, they needed to have traffic lights, too.

Reply to
charles

Mike Tomlinson expressed precisely :

My guess would be they are venting gas so as to avoid explosions. Any gas leaks near those cable ducts, will seep into those ducts and be a risk.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

I had the same kind of fault. Guy in India insisted there was nothing wrong and said he'd ring me back. He didm't. I phoned again and had a conversation with a lady who said they'd fix it within 72 hours. I said I said TotalCare. She said "Yes, 72 hours". I said "But I have TotalCare" and she said "Yes, 72 hours". I told her to ask her supervisor what TotalCare was, and (this was at about 2130) she said an engineer would call. He did - at 2140 - and we arranged that he'd come round in the morning. He arrived at 0800.

Reply to
Bob Eager

Yes. This chap was particularly pleasant. Made me think he was happy in his job - not so common these days.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

MY last fault is the blokes erecting te scaffolding next door tore down my phone line yesterday.

Its lying on the ground twisted together as a temporary bodge

Oddly it is faster than its ever been for broadband. I reckon before it snapped all the corroded joints were stressed and scraped and are now bare metal...

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

En el artículo , Harry Bloomfield escribió:

A good thought. There's lots of gas leaks around here, the utility is forever digging up the same part of the street as they seem unable to fix them.

Reply to
Mike Tomlinson

and, if the gas in in the old cast iron pipes, I doubt if the y ever will. The pipes will need to be replaced.

Reply to
charles

I have to deal with Openreach fairly often at work, and they always seem either quite happy, efficient, and well motivated, or the total opposite, never anywhere in between. I'm usually the first to knock them, but they can be very good indeeed.

Reply to
Chris Bartram

Some years ago an organisation I worked for had lots of dumb terminals connected over BT private wires with a modem & mux. One particular office would bomb every time it rained; we reckoned there was an exposed joint in a duct *somewhere* that got soaked.

Reply to
Chris Bartram

utility is

Or lined, shove a plastic pipe through the old cast iron, much cheaper and quicker than opening a trench. Still have to dig holes where service pipes connect but if they are going to the trouble of lining the main they'll probably line or replace (mole in) the service pipes anyway.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Yes I like TotalCare as well makes Openreach jump. Possibly jump too much, they'll send who ever is free which may mean some one who doesn't know the area. Around here "local knowledge" is very important, no point in looking for a working spare pair in our cable, there aren't any. Didn't stop one out of area engineer spending 2 hours trying. Even after telling him where to find the joint post at the distance his TDR was saying there was a problem and that it's old ali cable. He gave up and handed the fault back, Openreach then pulled an engineer, with local knowledge, off a job in Stockton. He arrived in not much over the time it takes to drive, checked with his TDR, went away, came back 10 mins later, line fixed...

TotalCare is well worth the money for faults fixed within 24 hours(*)

365 days of the year. (*) Might be by 1800 of the next day, note "next day" not "next working day". No exclusions on "next day" either so that includes Christmas Day.
Reply to
Dave Liquorice

charles used his keyboard to write :

All of of our gas main pipes were replaced 18 months ago. The final leg to the consumers meter were replaced in around 1983 with plastic. The old steel pipes ran along the back of the houses. Rather than disturb what everyone had built at the rear, they ran their new pipe along the road. For several years before, they came along regularly with the sniffers probing the ground for leaks.

They would seem to be replacing all of the gas pipes in the village, in a rolling program. Since the pipes were replaced, we have had them dig up several times to carry out repairs - they have the road up again at the moment for pipe repairs.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

It's actually rather sad you have to pay extra to have faults fixed quickly. To me, it would mean you must have lots of them.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

hours(*)

TotalCare is extraordinarly expensive at £4.00/month inc VAT. I've yet to find any other service provider that will fix things by the end of the next day, *any day of the year*, for £48/year. That barely pays for the engineers time, even if he fixes the fault in 30 mins he may well have driven for the best part of an hour to get here and another hour back...

About once a year, the frequency has dropped and the line quality (for ADSL2) has risen over the years. I guess it's a combination of old jelly beans being replaced when a wire drops out and a (slow) program to replace all the old chamber bullets with modern ones and remake all the joints. Last time I spoke to a couple of engineers down a hole doing that they were remaking a cable joint that was "direct buried" two foot outside the chamber to inside it...

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

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