Here's a sad tale of just how wrong Openreach can get it when attempting to switch a copper line to fibre.
So.....
My girlfriend is with Primus (good basic ISP), and we decided to move to fibre (20 times faster!).
I phone Primus, and they say "we'll give you an appointment within the next 10-14 days", and sure enough, 10 days later, we get one.
On the day, a surprisingly young looking guy arrives from Openreach. A friendly type, he smiles and asks "So you're going with TalkTalk then?"
I tell him "No", so he asks, "did Primus send you a Router?
Again, I tell him "No".
He looks perplexed.
I ask him "So have you brought an Openreach Fibre Router, or should I have got that from Primus?"
"I haven't got one" he says, looking a little downcast.
"Actually", I reply, "I do have one from a previous install (two years ago) at a previous address. Would you like to use that?"
"Ooh, yes please" he enthuses.
I get it, and he proceeds to connect it to the currently installed Primus Technicolor router.
After 15 minutes, he is looking perplexed again. He can't get it to work.
He turns to me "Well, on my system, it says you are Talktalk, so I tell you what - I'll fit you a Talktalk Router - they are REALLY good!"
He gets one from his van "These are REALLY new - this is the first one I've done - don't even need the Openreach Fibre router with this - does it ALL itself!"
After another 15 minutes he announces "There we are all done - you just have to wait 20 minutes for that red light to go out"
I say "but what if it doesn't go out?"
"Oh, it will" he happily announces.
(Now I realise that I was hit by a bout of stupidity at this point, because I accepted what he said, and let him go off to his next "pro" install. Could have asked him for his mobile number, but I didn't. Stupid.)
Needless to say, half an hour later, the light was still glowing a lovely shade of red......
So....
"Best ring Primus" I mutter to myself. But Primus do ALL their communication over T'interweb, and I don't currently have any access to their details, including the required telephone number. Grrrrrr.
But, wait a mo...the Talktalk router is sending a message to my PC with a "report a fault" telephone number....
When I ring it, obviously, they can't find my account, because, despite what the young boy's system told him, we are NOT with Talktalk. He tells me that the Talktalk router will NEVER work for a Primus account. Fortunately, the kind person at Talktalk has a number for Openreach.
I ring Openreach, and after negotiating a good ten minutes of "menu choosing" and another ten minutes of "we are very busy at the moment", I get through to a chap who sounds to be sitting in a marketplace in Marakesh, who basically tells me to f*** off (because I can't access the internet to give him an order number!!). He does, however, give me a number for Primus. Unfortunately, it is a US number!
I now fall back on old technology, and ring 118 118 and get the UK number for Primus.
When I get through, a very nice man tells me that the Talktalk router WILL work - it just needs configuring - he proceeds to talk me through how to do it. Unfortunately, the IP address he asks me to use is incorrect. We get nowhere.
He tells me he can't help further.
I ask him if anyone else can. He says "The XYZ department are the ones you need to talk to, but they don't take telephone calls".
Eventually, he tells me that Primus will get the CORRECT equipment to me by tomorrow.
And do you know what? They did.....
And when I opened the packaging, I found the EXACT SAME router as I already had. NO Fibre router (they obviously DO expect Openreach to supply one)
And it took me all of THREE minutes to successfully install it.
Openreach, bless them, FAILED to bring a Fibre router with them (which they SHOULD have provided), and they failed to tell their young boy installer to PRESS THE RESET BUTTON on the Primus router - because, if he had, it would have bloody worked!
So I spent half a day ringing worldwide call centres and a day without web access.
And I now have a spare Primus router AND a Talktalk router....... Anybody want one?
Stupid, ill-trained, wasteful and unnecessary.
OPENREACH:crap::crap::crap:
So.....
My girlfriend is with Primus (good basic ISP), and we decided to move to fibre (20 times faster!).
I phone Primus, and they say "we'll give you an appointment within the next 10-14 days", and sure enough, 10 days later, we get one.
On the day, a surprisingly young looking guy arrives from Openreach. A friendly type, he smiles and asks "So you're going with TalkTalk then?"
I tell him "No", so he asks, "did Primus send you a Router?
Again, I tell him "No".
He looks perplexed.
I ask him "So have you brought an Openreach Fibre Router, or should I have got that from Primus?"
"I haven't got one" he says, looking a little downcast.
"Actually", I reply, "I do have one from a previous install (two years ago) at a previous address. Would you like to use that?"
"Ooh, yes please" he enthuses.
I get it, and he proceeds to connect it to the currently installed Primus Technicolor router.
After 15 minutes, he is looking perplexed again. He can't get it to work.
He turns to me "Well, on my system, it says you are Talktalk, so I tell you what - I'll fit you a Talktalk Router - they are REALLY good!"
He gets one from his van "These are REALLY new - this is the first one I've done - don't even need the Openreach Fibre router with this - does it ALL itself!"
After another 15 minutes he announces "There we are all done - you just have to wait 20 minutes for that red light to go out"
I say "but what if it doesn't go out?"
"Oh, it will" he happily announces.
(Now I realise that I was hit by a bout of stupidity at this point, because I accepted what he said, and let him go off to his next "pro" install. Could have asked him for his mobile number, but I didn't. Stupid.)
Needless to say, half an hour later, the light was still glowing a lovely shade of red......
So....
"Best ring Primus" I mutter to myself. But Primus do ALL their communication over T'interweb, and I don't currently have any access to their details, including the required telephone number. Grrrrrr.
But, wait a mo...the Talktalk router is sending a message to my PC with a "report a fault" telephone number....
When I ring it, obviously, they can't find my account, because, despite what the young boy's system told him, we are NOT with Talktalk. He tells me that the Talktalk router will NEVER work for a Primus account. Fortunately, the kind person at Talktalk has a number for Openreach.
I ring Openreach, and after negotiating a good ten minutes of "menu choosing" and another ten minutes of "we are very busy at the moment", I get through to a chap who sounds to be sitting in a marketplace in Marakesh, who basically tells me to f*** off (because I can't access the internet to give him an order number!!). He does, however, give me a number for Primus. Unfortunately, it is a US number!
I now fall back on old technology, and ring 118 118 and get the UK number for Primus.
When I get through, a very nice man tells me that the Talktalk router WILL work - it just needs configuring - he proceeds to talk me through how to do it. Unfortunately, the IP address he asks me to use is incorrect. We get nowhere.
He tells me he can't help further.
I ask him if anyone else can. He says "The XYZ department are the ones you need to talk to, but they don't take telephone calls".
Eventually, he tells me that Primus will get the CORRECT equipment to me by tomorrow.
And do you know what? They did.....
And when I opened the packaging, I found the EXACT SAME router as I already had. NO Fibre router (they obviously DO expect Openreach to supply one)
And it took me all of THREE minutes to successfully install it.
Openreach, bless them, FAILED to bring a Fibre router with them (which they SHOULD have provided), and they failed to tell their young boy installer to PRESS THE RESET BUTTON on the Primus router - because, if he had, it would have bloody worked!
So I spent half a day ringing worldwide call centres and a day without web access.
And I now have a spare Primus router AND a Talktalk router....... Anybody want one?
Stupid, ill-trained, wasteful and unnecessary.
OPENREACH:crap::crap::crap:























