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[Dusty]

Guess what its now 25 days since we actually had telephone service.

Think we will act on some advice already given, like contacting an MP, media publicity etc. I've had enough of being nice.

BT have changed their excuse so many times I don't know which it is at the moment.

1st it was a Health and Safety problem with the track adjacent to the pole. Farmer might come along and swipe them off their ladder :-/

2nd it was the electric cables running along the same poles. The ladder might accidently touch the wires

3rdly it was a decaying pole, that a ladder could not be placed against. Look for a large red 'D' they said. It indicates a wrotten pole. No D spotted, so BT say, no our mistake. It's something else altogether

4th The poles are too short only 5.2m tall

5th back to the original excuse, the track that the farmer uses about 3 times a year. Could not park a Cherry Picker there (van with crane) as they would need traffic calming!!!!

So the situation as it stands is that BT simply refuse to give us a temporary repair, even though they admit they can do it in 10 minutes, on the grounds of health and safety.

How dangerous can this be. This has happened 5 times since we have owned the house (4 years) and they've always repaired it with no injury or deaths!!!

I really hate what 'Health and Safety' has become. It was originally used to save people from extremely dangerous situations, now it is used as an excuse, to cut out the slightest possible risk.

We are not asking anyone to do anyting remotely dangerous, we have come to a brick wall.

See you all in a few months time

[waspy]

I hope whilst you don't have a BT line, your not paying them rental  :exclamation :question

[Mr Skrunts]

I hope whilst you don't have a BT line, your not paying them rental  :exclamation :question

rental.

I was thinking compensation is in order. :-/

[Ken T]

The engineer in me says its a shame you can't find a friendly BT engineer, and slip him/her a contribution for a few pints, job would be done in no time, and as far as BT were concerned "it fixed its self !".

Hell, if I'm not mistaken its only 2 cores, and its AC so it can't go the wrong way round. Do we know anybody who used to work for BT ?.

Rules are meant for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.

Ken

[Dusty]

I hope whilst you don't have a BT line, your not paying them rental  :exclamation :question

It is not just line rental ,we are also paying for an ATM machine we can not use and internet connection we can not access.

We have tried to get an independent Telecoms engineer to reconnect, but seems they are all connected to BT in some way. They do not want to bite the hand that feeds them

Anyone know of any other way? :-?

[Mr Skrunts]

I hope whilst you don't have a BT line, your not paying them rental  :exclamation :question

It is not just line rental ,we are also paying for an ATM machine we can not use and internet connection we can not access.

We have tried to get an independent Telecoms engineer to reconnect, but seems they are all connected to BT in some way. They do not want to bite the hand that feeds them

Anyone know of any other way? :-?

I once tried to get an engineer to dril a single hole to mount the wall bracket on the phone he supplied after putting a new line.

Complete waste of time, got every excuse in the book from insurance to hidden cables in the wall.   :-/

[Ken T]

The other way, which would probably get a response is to follow Skruntie's suggestion. You are obviously having your business disruppted and loosing at least £500 per day, due to their inability to fulfill the contract they entered into. Plus the effect this is having on your business reputation, you wil require substantial compensation for this. Get heavy, get a lawyer's letter and threaten to take them to Court if they don't reconnect quickly. Excuses like the wind is blowing in the wrong direction are irrelevant. That's their problem, if they can't do the job they should not be in business. And press a claim for substantial compensation. Unfortunately big companies only tend to listen when they risk loosing money, or being taken to Court.

Best of luck,

Ken

[Mr Skrunts]

The other way, which would probably get a response is to follow Skruntie's suggestion. You are obviously having your business disruppted and loosing at least £500 per day, due to their inability to fulfill the contract they entered into. Plus the effect this is having on your business reputation, you wil require substantial compensation for this. Get heavy, get a lawyer's letter and threaten to take them to Court if they don't reconnect quickly. Excuses like the wind is blowing in the wrong direction are irrelevant. That's their problem, if they can't do the job they should not be in business. And press a claim for substantial compensation. Unfortunately big companies only tend to listen when they risk loosing money, or being taken to Court.

Best of luck,

Ken

Good idea.

We set up a small business December 05, being interent based from a commercial property etc.  BT promiced us a phone line within 5 working days, all was fine and they had an emergency and cancelled.

Quite lacsy daiy they said it would be 2 weeks and then we may even had to wait till the new year.

5 mins after we opened the letter, we were on the phone and telling them we were losing a £1000 a day in profits and they would also be reponsible for the running costs incurred due to lack of business.

15 mins later they were asking if they could attend Saturday morning.  The letter arrived Friday AM.

[Dusty]

It's been getting on my nerves and I can't see a way out of this problem.

It was a minor inconvenience, (line coming down), made into a major problem by BT and Health and Safety code (which has little to do with why it was brought in in the first place.

[Marks DTM Calib]

The engineer in me says its a shame you can't find a friendly BT engineer, and slip him/her a contribution for a few pints, job would be done in no time, and as far as BT were concerned "it fixed its self !".

Hell, if I'm not mistaken its only 2 cores, and its AC so it can't go the wrong way round. Do we know anybody who used to work for BT ?.

Rules are meant for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.

Ken

Lol, not nearly as simple as that.

Its likely to be a 2 wire circuit but, you do need to get the wires the right way round. But they would be colour coded so easy enough!

A phone line has AC and DC operation....

[Varche]

I can understand your frustration. This will be tumbling from dept to dept. When can we have a cherry picker? Can someone go out and survey how many other poles need changing as well as this one.?Can someone see if we can move them into the field so that future faults can be fixed safely? When is the pole erection crew in the area? have we got any of the new field poles/ and so on?  

Here is a suggestion. Ask them to loan you a 3G phone (or whatever) which you will undertake to use "normally".  You use it instead of the landline until it is reinstated. You win- you have service. They win as they have a happy customer.

You may need to go into an office to arrange such a thing.

If you are claiming loss of business I hope you are paying business line rental!

- keep records of every contact.
- What was said, ask for the name of the individual and so on.

I hope you get a resolution.

varche

[TheBoy]

The engineer in me says its a shame you can't find a friendly BT engineer, and slip him/her a contribution for a few pints, job would be done in no time, and as far as BT were concerned "it fixed its self !".

Hell, if I'm not mistaken its only 2 cores, and its AC so it can't go the wrong way round. Do we know anybody who used to work for BT ?.

Rules are meant for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.

Ken

Lol, not nearly as simple as that.

Its likely to be a 2 wire circuit but, you do need to get the wires the right way round. But they would be colour coded so easy enough!

A phone line has AC and DC operation....

Local loop is not polarity sensitive.  There is a correct way, but any approved (green circle) equipment has to cope with both.

The smaller overhead cables up until 20yrs ago was not colour coded.

I would estimate that 20% of lines have incorrect polarity.

[TheBoy]

Guess what its now 25 days since we actually had telephone service.

Think we will act on some advice already given, like contacting an MP, media publicity etc. I've had enough of being nice.

BT have changed their excuse so many times I don't know which it is at the moment.

1st it was a Health and Safety problem with the track adjacent to the pole. Farmer might come along and swipe them off their ladder :-/

2nd it was the electric cables running along the same poles. The ladder might accidently touch the wires

3rdly it was a decaying pole, that a ladder could not be placed against. Look for a large red 'D' they said. It indicates a wrotten pole. No D spotted, so BT say, no our mistake. It's something else altogether

4th The poles are too short only 5.2m tall

5th back to the original excuse, the track that the farmer uses about 3 times a year. Could not park a Cherry Picker there (van with crane) as they would need traffic calming!!!!

So the situation as it stands is that BT simply refuse to give us a temporary repair, even though they admit they can do it in 10 minutes, on the grounds of health and safety.

How dangerous can this be. This has happened 5 times since we have owned the house (4 years) and they've always repaired it with no injury or deaths!!!

I really hate what 'Health and Safety' has become. It was originally used to save people from extremely dangerous situations, now it is used as an excuse, to cut out the slightest possible risk.

We are not asking anyone to do anyting remotely dangerous, we have come to a brick wall.

See you all in a few months time

That is frustrating, and something that wouldn't happen in my day.

I have climbed D (covers a whole host of problems, from decayed to too near a spiked fence) poles, put my ladder through a electric cable (fortunately only 240v, and fortunately it sliced the insulation whilst I was climbing, so it didn't kill me ), and disobeyed every bit of safety they taught us.

Alas, times have changed within BT now - I still have many friends there, and it seems the 'engineers' are not allowed to use their own discretion, and are treated like kids.

I would send a written letter to the chairman, not sure who that is now since Dutch Boy left, but it will be the BT Centre, 81 Newgate Street, London address.  That normally gets the middle, and then lower, management jumping into life.


Obviously, there may be valid reasons why there is a delay. As I said in a previous post, if it needs wayleaves for new poles on private land, that needs solicitors involved, and sometimes payments to change hands, and that can take a while.


But after that length of time, assuming it doesn't go across a ploughed field, I would be demanding the problematic section goes underground.

[Kevin Wood]

Alas, times have changed within BT now - I still have many friends there, and it seems the 'engineers' are not allowed to use their own discretion, and are treated like kids.

Familiar story these days. Take people on, train them, an then don't allow them to use their skills, nor any common sense.

I would complain to BT's regulator, whichever quango that is these days, and copy it to head office. Even if the line has to be rerouted in the long term, I can't see why someone can't temporarily repair the existing line or put something temporary in place. It's unbelieveable.

Kevin

[TheBoy]

Alas, times have changed within BT now - I still have many friends there, and it seems the 'engineers' are not allowed to use their own discretion, and are treated like kids.

Familiar story these days. Take people on, train them, an then don't allow them to use their skills, nor any common sense.

I would complain to BT's regulator, whichever quango that is these days, and copy it to head office. Even if the line has to be rerouted in the long term, I can't see why someone can't temporarily repair the existing line or put something temporary in place. It's unbelieveable.

Kevin

In my day, running a bit of jumper wire along a ditch to give temporary repair was the norm.  However, I think BT are worried about someone tripping over it, and sueing  


As to discretion, I had a blazing row with my boss the other day over working on a bit one evening during a major DNS/Radius outage.  I don't get anything for working over, but he still moaned at me for not seeking his approval beforehand.  Good job he doesn't know about the early starts I do for swapping out 'publically used' servers, which need to be done before the UK internet usage ramps up (so before 7:30am)  

I think a lot of UK middle managers really need a reality check