back to article Ofcom to BT Openreach: From now on, you'd better kill 70% of gremlins within 2 days

BT faces strict new measures to speed up Openreach repairs on its aged copper infrastructure from the start of next month, the UK's communications watchdog said today. Ofcom warned BT that it will be expected to fix around 70 per cent of phone and broadband faults within two working days over the course of a year. That …

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  1. Carl Thomas

    FTTP - see Verizon, JT, etc

    Who knows, maybe if Openreach had deployed FTTP on their own tab seriously rather than it looking more like a moderately sized trial they'd have less of that aged copper to maintain.

    1. M_W

      Re: FTTP - see Verizon, JT, etc

      Agreed - although it gets worse than that. If they hadn't been such cheapskates after privatisation in the 80's and put so much aluminium rather than copper underground, it wouldn't be in such a crap state either.

      Only way we'll get FTTP now is with govt investment. Openreach will never do it off their own back.

      1. AndrueC Silver badge
        Meh

        Re: FTTP - see Verizon, JT, etc

        Agreed on the ally cable but fibre is a bit more tricky.

        First-off they did offer to roll fibre out to the entire country back in the 80s. Unfortunately Margaret Thatcher refused to let them. They wanted to have broadcast rights but Maggie thought it better to open it up to rivals and that's when the cable companies(*) came from. Of course it's unknown whether 'the entire country' was an honest goal but they did make the offer.

        These days the problem is cost. It's bad enough with their half way FTTC solution (the industry is struggling to find the funds to get that out to everyone) but full fibre everywhere would be vastly more expensive and even now it's hard to justify it. BT have done a good job(**) sweating the value in their local loop so who's to say what the situation would be if it had all been converted to fibre back in the 80s? It's sometimes nice to think that telecoms should be a service without a price tag but it isn't a realistic view. The money BT has saved by prolonging the life of their metal(***) might have had a beneficial effect.

        We are getting there - anyone connected to an FTTC cabinet will soon be able to upgrade to fibre if they have deep(ish) pockets. A lot can already and more exchanges will go on that list over time. Unfortunately the pricing for it is a bit painful and that's going to be the next battleground I expect.

        (*)Yes, there used to be more than one back when they thought they could make money off it.

        (**)Read to the end of the sentence then think before you criticise me about that :)

        (***)And of course as many of my fellow commentards like to say, it was 'given' to them by the PO. Those commentards have to either agree that throwing it all away would be wasteful or else they have to claim that it wasn't really worth much anyway. You can't have it both ways :)

        1. rhydian

          Re: FTTP - see Verizon, JT, etc

          "If they hadn't been such cheapskates after privatisation in the 80's and put so much aluminium rather than copper underground, it wouldn't be in such a crap state either."

          The GPO/PO telephones used aluminium and even worse stuff (copper coated steel was probably the worst) when copper prices shot up in the 60s/70s. This was before privatisation.

          And as for BT being ready to "fibre up the whole country" in the 80s, that would have killed any competition stone dead. I also doubt they were serious, they had only just started installing system X and system Y digital exchanges in the early 1980s, and were only starting on shifting their backhaul over to fibre.

          1. AndrueC Silver badge
            Thumb Up

            Re: FTTP - see Verizon, JT, etc

            And as for BT being ready to "fibre up the whole country" in the 80s,

            I think they'd have fibred up roughly those bits that VM currently serves. Unfortunately VM and its predecessors didn't make any profit until a couple of years ago and still have painfully large debts to service so I too am sceptical that BT would have replaced the old metal local loop everywhere by now. It's possible we'd be looking at a larger footprint than VM at this point but poor ol' Bill living in Much Dribbling would still be without high speed internet. They might not even have DSL if BT felt/knew that the future was fibre.

            Mind you - all the new builds of the 90s and 00s might have been fibre fed so that would have increased the footprint. Maybe enough such that reduced maintenance fees could add yet more.

            Meh. No-one will ever know but I think you'd have to be optimist and BT fanboi to think that the entire country would be fibre by now.

          2. Cynic_999

            Re: FTTP - see Verizon, JT, etc

            Copperweld (copper covered steel) was not used to save money (at least not directly), it was to provide more strength to overhead open wires so as to achieve longer spans and thus less telephone poles. An alternative was to suspend copper cables from a steel wire.

            1. rhydian

              Re: FTTP - see Verizon, JT, etc

              My uncle (Ex GPO) said it was between copperweld and aluminium for the worst stuff ever to be used for phone lines. After it had been in place for a while, corrosion would make it so brittle that it would crumble in the junction boxes.

  2. rhydian

    About bloody time

    Its about time Openreach were made to offer a better service level for domestic customers. They are by far the worst utility for installation and repair delays. Even business response can be slow due to Openreach's wide reaching organisational incompetence. Their reluctance to fix known, long term faults is legendary.

    My only fear is that MBORC (Matters beyond our/openreach's reasonable control) will be invoked far more often to make up the shortfalls.

  3. Scroticus Canis
    Unhappy

    I'll believe it when I see it

    Not that I am a pessimist but silk purse from a sow's ear comes to mind. Not holding my breath on this one!

  4. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

    Do they still charge for technical support calls?

    Excellent revenue stream. 45 minutes minutes of dull music waiting for someone to answer the phone and tell me to call the other number. 45 more minutes waiting for someone to tell me to try the first number again. So Ofcom say they can only keep this up for two days. What is to stop them fixing the problem, waiting a day then breaking it again?

    1. rhydian

      Re: Do they still charge for technical support calls?

      Half the problem is you can't call openreach unless your an ISP/Communications provider. You have to go through your own ISP/CP, who then call Openreach, who then screw up, call the ISP/CP back (if you're lucky) who then call you (only if you're very lucky).

      1. Boothy

        Re: Do they still charge for technical support calls?

        Quote: "Half the problem is you can't call openreach unless your an ISP/Communications provider. You have to go through your own ISP/CP, who then call Openreach, who then screw up, call the ISP/CP back (if you're lucky) who then call you (only if you're very lucky)."

        I got this type of run around with Sky when trying to find out when/if my local cabinet would be upgraded/replaced with a FTTC one.

        The phone line is from Sky, but of course installed by BT Openreach.

        Sky: "erm, we don't have any information on Openreach cabinet update plans, you'll have to call them yourself.".

        BT Openreach: As you mention, won't even talk to customers directly, and their web site contains nothing of any use regarding future planning.

        And of course I can't talk to normal BT, as the phone line is listed as being Skys' !!

        So at the moment, I'm stuck on ADSL, despite almost every other cabinet around Town being upgraded. And this is in a new estate, where instead of dropping a nice new cabinet in the middle, they wired everyone up to some old cabinets on adjacent streets!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Do they still charge for technical support calls?

          You could always try asking a question on the Fibre Broadband forum at ThinkBroadband.com

          There are people there who can get the information you seek.

          1. Boothy
            Pint

            @ Brian Morrison

            Thanks for the heads up, haven't been on the ThinkBroadband.com site for years, will give it a go.

            One virtual beer for you, thanks.

    2. AndrueC Silver badge
      Meh

      Re: Do they still charge for technical support calls?

      Excellent revenue stream. 45 minutes minutes of dull music waiting for someone to answer the phone and tell me to call the other number

      That's not Openreach. That sounds like BT Retail. Never get the two (or indeed the third almost invisible partner 'Wholesale') mixed up. That only serves their purpose. Sadly most faults end-users encounter lie within either Wholesale or Openreach's remit and end-users aren't customers of those companies so they won't talk to us.

      It sounds like a great scam (and in a way it is) but it's not really their choice. Ofcom forced the triumvirate on us and it's Ofcom that insists they stay separate. With very good reason to be fair - it's done wonders for competition in this country. Unfortunately the various BT divisions are also very good at hiding behind their Chinese walls.

      1. rhydian

        Re: Do they still charge for technical support calls?

        My personal approach would be for openreach to become more like the regional electricity suppliers (SP energy networks, Western Power distribution etc).

        You'd contact/pay Openreach directly for your Copper/Fibre line back to the exchange , and deal with any faults/upgrades with them directly (i.e. the line rental part of the service), then pay an ISP for internet access/calls or whatever. The line rental cost might rise (to cover Openreach having to invest in callcentres etc.) but at least you'd be able to contact them directly in a fault case.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Do they still charge for technical support calls?

      "Excellent revenue stream."

      BT Retail has been using 0800 numbers for all customer service issues for a few years. Openreach the same.... top notch assumptions/misinformation on the go from Flocke Kroes.

  5. Creamy-G00dness

    Toothless watch dog passes demands to massive telco........

    And when BT drag their feet or just do nothing, what will Ofcom do?

    Gum them into submission of course ;)

    1. AndrueC Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: Toothless watch dog passes demands to massive telco........

      Ofcom is not toothless. Incompetent sometimes but certainly not toothless. If BT don't do what Ofcom is telling them to they will suffer. Ofcom effectively has control over BT's profit margins. It can (and often does) squeeze BT until the pips hurt.

      1. Creamy-G00dness

        Re: Toothless watch dog passes demands to massive telco........

        Citation please.................................or it didn't happen.

        1. AndrueC Silver badge
          Happy

          Re: Toothless watch dog passes demands to massive telco........

          You want a citation?

          Here Ofcom tells BT to reduce its charges..

          It's very much cat-and-mouse as you'd expect but Ofcom has considerable control over BT. It was Ofcom who pressured BT into splitting into separate divisions in 2006.

          This is why we can't talk to the people fixing the line faults.

          For now BT's FTTC is being left largely alone to encourage take-up but that's going to change some time in the next couple of years. And it'll be interesting to see what Ofcom does especially about pricing for FTTPoD.

          So just because a particular person or organisation doesn't support your preferred viewpoint or position doesn't mean they are toothless(*).

          (link courtesy of Wikipedia).

          (*)It might mean they are wrong of course and I've questioned a number of Ofcom's choices over the years.

  6. Linker3000

    OpenWretch

    So, I'll no longer face situations like when one Openreach 'engineer' stole our landline from up the pole to provision a new line for a neighbour and it took ten days for them to come and put me back online.

    Oh goody.

    Now - about the FTTC that was slated to go live in our village in March this year....?

    1. rhydian

      Re: OpenWretch

      That's a classic case of the Openreach Merry-go-round. Where openreach has more customers than working lines in a given area (usually rural).

      What happens is that if someone reports a faulty line, Openreach will simply swap the faulty line with a neighbour's (working) line. That neighbour then reports a faulty line, and its passed on again...

    2. AndrueC Silver badge
      Stop

      Re: OpenWretch

      Hah - it could have been a contractor. And that's a possible downside of this ruling. BT use third party companies sometimes and they are pretty awful. It is of course still BT's fault since they choose to employ a sub-contractor but that's little comfort.

      Frankly I'd rather wait an extra day for a genuine BT engineer than risk priority service by some odd-job bloke they picked up at a yard sale.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: OpenWretch

        It might still have been a BT engr. Thank productivity stats for that. Being pushed to get the install in because there are another 3 to do today. The pair prove wasn't done or records show a spare pair when there aren't any. You've already pushed the pair through 2 footway boxes and 3 spans of dropwire. You only have one ladder because some thieving pikey bastard stole the other one whilst you were toning pairs out near Brampton on Sunday, at least they left my oscillator hanging on the pole steps so that's something. Can't leave it until tomorrow as there's an Openreach Roadshow to go to that tells us how everything will be solved by some new stats and an iPhone app.

        Cynical? Me?

        Anonymous because I want to keep my job.

  7. adam payne

    A good goal but i'd like to see better customer services on the phone and an end to all the excuses they come out with.

    Sending an hour on the phone being transferred through nine departments only to put back through to the first person I spoke to was ridiculous. Being told after all that time that the internet package we have doesn't support DNS was funny but not helpful. Google search and found in 30 seconds on their own forums.

    1. Phil W

      You should of asked if your package also lacked supported for TCP/IP.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        AAARRGGHH

        Should HAVE!!!

    2. AndrueC Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      A good goal but i'd like to see better customer services on the phone and an end to all the excuses they come out with.

      That would be a different company ;)

      Mind you if BT Openreach improved their service there'd be less need for other companies like BT Retail to invent excuses and fewer calls for them to deal with.

  8. Shannyla

    Bye bye to OpenReach

    Only 4 more weeks until we have an FTTP network go live in our village, no thanks to BT or OpenReach of course. It will be one of the more joyous moments (got to get small pleasures where you can...) to tell BT to take its landline back and stick it up its fundament.

    £48 a month for 200Mb/sec or £60 for 1Gig? Don't mind if I do. Small improvement on the 700K/sec that BT manages to supply...

    1. Pat M

      Re: Bye bye to OpenReach

      How did you get fttp? We could do with a 3rd party supplier in our village.

  9. John Crisp

    OpenReach are a bunch of incompetent idiots. The engineers and their immediate bosses are ok (usually) but above that are rows of bean counting drones.

    They get away with it because they don't have to face the fury of their customers.

    This ruling means they will focus even more on the urban centres to keep up the percentages and ignore more rural (time consuming) ones.

    Had this row with BT a short while ago. I pay the same as a townie. I accept I might not get the same speed but do expect I don't get bounced down the queue 'due to lack of resources' i.e. read 'bugger you, I can fix 10 jobs in town in the time it takes to fix you'.

    After 2 missed appointments ('if there is no one at the premises we may charge you'. 'So what will you pay ME if you no show....? Ah. Bugger all. That's fair then').

    I screamed and screamed and screamed at BT, and despite being told no one could make it that morning due to the inevitable excuses, I told them if I was chair of BT I'd get it fixed immediately. 'Give me solutions, not excuses'. An engineer arrived 2 hours later and the first question was 'how did you manage that ?'

    'Perseverance'....

    OpenReach should be entirely independent, and CONTACTABLE by users. Until it is they will never change.

    The current system is a clusterfuck of epics proportions.

    1. rhydian

      Been there, done that....

      I've had countless similar experiences with openreach. Their crowning glory was during an office phone system install.

      I'd ordered a phone system from BT (an Avaya IP office), in late June/early July, for fitting before Sept 1st. To cut a long story short BT would only offer an installation date of late september. That was until I said I was cancelling the order and going with a local independent supplier. Suddenly the install date moved from late september to late august, but I told them to stuff it, but to keep the ISDN2 line order in place, scheduled for a mid-august Wednesday.

      Fast forward to that Wednesday, and I'm waiting at our new office for the engineer to arrive. When 4pm rolled around and I didn't see a van or an engineer I got rather annoyed. After calling up BT it seems that Openreach hadn't assigned the job to an engineer, and the best they could offer me was to re-schedule for 3 weeks time.

      I unsurprisingly hit the roof, asked to speak to a manager, but as it was 4:55 "none were available". I demanded a call back before 10am the next day, threatening to invoice BT for my wasted time, the holiday I would miss sorting this out and look to move our five figure annual spend to another supplier. Surprisingly enough they seemed a bit more attentive after that. I was called at 9:30 the next morning saying an engineer was on his way. 11am I had an openreach engineer on site to hook up the lines, who apparently had been told to get to me "bloody quick".

      Another classic is not being able to handle addresses on new installs. Twice I've had new line installs delayed (one by two months) because Openreach are convinced a given address/postcode does not exist, despite there being active lines there.

      Openreach need a very hefty kick up the backside. They still act as if they're an internal maintenance division, and the ISPs/Communications Providers are left to take all the flak and take a dive in the OFCOM user satisfaction surveys. If Openreach was listed separately in those surveys I would bet they'd top ANY of the ISPs by a massive margin.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    BT and Openreach are useless bastards

    We've recently moved into a brand spanking new build multi-million pound building. We gave BT 8 months notice that we wanted fibre putting in and gave them the opening date so they'd have plenty of notice and to ensure everything was up and running before moving into the new building. "No problem" they said. Bollocks !

    We've been in here 2 months now and still we haven't got our lines installed. We've had to bodge together comms and Internet using microwave links. We ring the buggers up every day and all we get is excuse after excuse and promises that it'll be done next week which then never happens. The inefficiency is amazing. They send out a small team to do one small part of the job then we have to wait several weeks for the next team to come out to do the next small part of the job.

    "It wasn't done due to delays in getting planning permission from the council."

    "It wasn't done due to delays getting permission from the other utility companies."

    "It wasn't done because your building's address doesn't exist." (Its a bloody new build FFS of course it doesn't exist yet).

    Bloody useless.

    There. You've gone and got me started now.

  11. James 100

    A few years ago now, my office line was cut off by mistake. (I'd asked for a tariff change, moving from one BT Business package to another, a few days later the line went dead. BT Faults said 'but you requested ... oh. Whoops. That shouldn't have happened. You'll have to order a new phoneline now.')

    After weeks of messing around - apparently, reactivating the line somehow required an engineer visit, they thought, and the engineer got sent to the wrong address the first time - I dug around and got hold of someone sufficiently clued-up and connected that he just phoned through an urgent re-patch to the exchange building (fortunately, it's also the local Openreach office, so easy for him to get someone) and the line was live again in minutes.

    Then I had a fault on my home FTTC line - which took SIX Openreach visits before another bit of BT eventually tracked it to a faulty backbone linecard. That whole finger-pointing mess was getting ridiculous: at one point, I had a BT Wholesale manager phoning the Openreach guy, then setting up a three-way conference call, just to figure out how to get the paperwork done!

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