Langton Matravers Homes Left Without Broadband and Phone for 3 Months

Owners of several new homes in the rural village of Langton Matravers (Dorset, England) have been struggling to get access to a working phone line and broadband for around three months due to a problem with blocked cable ducts on BTOpenreach’s telecoms infrastructure.

The village itself is home to around 900 people and the nearby Swanage telephone exchange appears to be reasonably well supported by FTTC and unbundled (LLU) broadband connections from the major ISPs, although admittedly the best that many village residents can receive is up to 7Mbps on a bog standard ADSL2+ line.

Despite this the village has recently seen some expansion with the construction of four new homes on Old Malthouse Lane by MPR Projects (UK), which consisted of two 3 bedroom semi-detached houses and two 4 bedroom detached houses; the latter are valued at around £600,000 each. It’s worth pointing out that these homes replaced some older buildings that had been demolished.

The first new residents started to move in earlier this year and were shocked to find that, despite being in an area with existing infrastructure, they could not get a working broadband and or phone line. Worse still, the problem has gone on for months.

One frustrated local, Barbara Esam, told ISPreview.co.uk:

“I am being driven mad by a total lack of any influence or ability to get BT Openreach to install a landline and internet in our new home in Dorset. We moved in at the end of April. We have been waiting more than 3 months and still have no indication of when they will put in the necessary cables for connection.

We only get excuses from our provider, [Sky Broadband]. It affects 4 new properties in the same development and we have different providers but none of us are making any headway.”

The situation is sadly nothing new and indeed such problems have cropped up many times before, with Openreach previously claiming to have been swamped by “a huge surge in demand for new housing connections” and pledging to do better in the future (here); they’ve also setup a page for related gripes: http://www.openreach.co.uk/newhomes.

A spokesperson for Openreach has since confirmed to ISPreview.co.uk that the problem in Langton Matravers stemmed from an issue with blocked underground cable ducts. But the good news is that they’re now hoping to get the situation resolved by the end of this month.

A Spokesperson for Openreach told ISPreview.co.uk:

“We are sorry for the delay in getting Ms Esam connected.

Unfortunately we have encountered several engineering challenges, including blockages in our underground ducts which our cables run through. This has impacted on the delivery of service for these customers.

We recognise this is frustrating for the residents and we do apologise. We have escalated the case and Openreach is working hard to fix the problem and hopes to complete the work before the end of August.”

Unfortunately some problems, such as blocked ducts, may only become apparent after engineers have been asked to install a service and that can create significant frustration for home owners. On top of that smaller rural areas aren’t always given the same sort of priority as larger urban ones, which means that related delays can sometimes carry on for an unpleasantly long period of time.

In the meantime Barbara reports that a number of vans and workmen are now busy in the area, so hopefully their ordeal will soon be at an end.