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How do you complain to Openreach and who regulates them?

Morning

I'm posting this as I am genuinely confused as to who Openreach is responsible to.

Our issues started when we moved 1 mile from old house to our new house in August 2017 where we had Broadband with BT on an Infiniti 1 package (36Mbps down and 17-20Mbps up). A BT move order was raised (as BT is our ISP) to transfer our services from House A to House B.

On the day of the move activation (21st August) we received emails stating it had all been completed but didn't have dial tone on the line and the broadband was incredibly poor for an FttC Infinity 1 service 900Kbps Upstream / 4Mbps downstream and dropping service so we contacted BT and they created an Openreach trouble ticket. Openreach engineer 1 appeared and swapped our Master Socket and did 'something' on the network to get dial tone, but couldn't fix our broadband as he was a PSTN engineer not Broadband.

So another ticket was raised after 2 more calls to BT and some chasing. Openreach then dispatched another engineer this one to investigate broadband. He arrived changed our pair and our speed slightly improved (1Mbps upstream 12Mbps down) but no where near what we had previously, and it was not dropping as much. So we were told to raise another ticket and so we did, BT raised another fault with Openreach and they dispatched another engineer on 18th Sept.

This chap knew what he was doing and tested at the cabinet which is 534 metres away where he got 55Mbps Downstream, at the Distribution Point (DP) at the end of our street it’s 37Mbps, and at our house it’s only 12-16Mbps downstream and 1-1.3Mbps upstream. He swapped pairs changed wet joint boxes and changed fibre ports and still got the same result so put it down to the cable quality. His efforts also increased the Internet drops that we experienced and further calls to BT couldn't pin point what was causing them possibly a line earth fault.

The engineer advised Openreach would not replace the cable and that we should raise a Chairman/Exec level complaint.

So we did that and got a 'deadlock letter' stating we were free to exit our contract with no penalty and move to another ISP as Openreach could do no more.

Now this is where the process falls down as we live in an area ONLY serviced by Openreach so leaving BT as an ISP would mean we would have no Internet or phone services, and if we went to another ISP they would use the same infrastructure.

So I tried to complain to the Ofcom who told me they couldn't as they don't look at individual complaints and sent me to the Ombudsman.

The Ombudsman said it was an Openreach issue and they only dealt with complaints for ISP's, so try my MP.

My MP raised a complaint to BT Executive Level Technical Complaints team and they basically said Openreach wouldn't change or upgrade the cable unless it was hard down/beyond repair and referred us to the deadlock letter.

At this point I even asked for a quote for how much it would be to replace the 530m of copper or run in a fibre and got nothing back.

I then tried complaining again to Openreach direct and got no response after chasing 3 times.

So what am I missing here?

Openreach supply the utility, who I can't complain directly to, the regulator can't look into my complaint as I'm an individual, the Ombudsman can't handle the complaint as it's with Openreach not an ISP, the MP gets referred back to the ISP deadlock letter.

ANYIDEAS WELCOMED!?
 
My first question would be what is your expectations of the service speed wise and what was you quoted as a speed estimate?
 
OP,
Since Openreach's customers are NOT the general public, then I'm not sure you could complain against them - your complaints would have to be directed against your ISP (BT) who are customers of Openreach.

If (and its a big if) your speeds fall less than than those quoted on the DSL checker for your new address, then it would probably be worth moving to AAISP and taking up their offer of

Give us a month and we'll sort your problem broadband line or your money back
If you are migrating your service to us, even though you know you have a problem with your broadband line, we'll take on the fault. We'll tackle the problem and get it fixed within one month. If we don't then you can migrate away and owe us nothing for your migration to us and your service charges for that month.

https://www.aaisp.net.uk/broadband-trial.html

You really have nothing to lose by trying out AAISP and everything to gain.
 
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[cough] get someone to steal the cable[cough]
 
My first question would be what is your expectations of the service speed wise and what was you quoted as a speed estimate?

Well considering we were not quoted a 'speed' as it was a home move, and we have only moved a mile in our village from one serving cabinet to another off the same exchange I'd expected at worst 12Mbps upload and 20-22Mbps download on FttC Infiniti 1 (an that is absolute worst case) otherwise we might as well be on ADSL.

The 1Mbps upload and service 'dropping' is the killer, it means you can't stream or use online services properly.

The fact they have offered us a deadlock letter means that BT as an ISP can't do anymore with Openreach and don't expect Openreach to do anymore. They won't even push them.
 
OP,
Since Openreach's customers are NOT the general public, then I'm not sure you could complain against them - your complaints would have to be directed against your ISP (BT) who are customers of Openreach.

If (and its a big if) your speeds fall less than than those quoted on the DSL checker for your new address, then it would probably be worth moving to AAISP and taking up their offer of

Give us a month and we'll sort your problem broadband line or your money back


https://www.aaisp.net.uk/broadband-trial.html

You really have nothing to lose by trying out AAISP and everything to gain.

Problem is that although they (Openreach) aren't open to the general public it is them who is supplying the physical service to our property, and BT say not their problem and it's Openreach at fault. An Openreach who won't do anything and we have no other infrastructure provider so why can't I complain to them? At the end of the day it's their cable at fault and their responsibility/ability to fix it.

I don't say speak to someone when Openreach need physical access to my house to diagnose a fault with their equipment/infrastructure?
 
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BT and OR have always had an "interesting" relationship; even when they were fully part of BT, it was usually the smaller ISPs that got OR to do the work, and BTRetail who whined that it was impossible.

As mentioned before, try another BT based ISP, like A&A; they know which OR buttons to push.
 
I don't think you've anything to lose by just speaking to A&A. If you explain things, briefly, you should manage to speak to someone technically qualified, not merely a salesman; and they can probably give you a better idea of what might be done, and what can't, and may even have some ideas on diagnosis. A&A are expensive as an ISP though, and this is a reason.

Lots of us suffer with dilapidated cabling, especially underground. It doesn't mean nothing can be done, an identified fault can be repaired. But there's no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow to do everything we want, or even that would appear to be "sensible". A&A are I suspect the best intermediary you may be able to get if you are prepared to pay their prices, But they have no magic wand, and no pot of gold either; it's really like the rest of life; it's more about persuasion and canniness than searching for and waving the big stick. After all, how would any of us behave if it was our job? We've have to act within the rules and the resources available to us, the formal ones and the administrative ones/conventions. We're using voice line infrastructure to deliver broadband over the local loop and it can vary, quite a lot even within the locality. FTTP is a dedicated network and takes out a lot of the uncertainty, which is why it's the answer. But it isn't an overnight job, and couldn't be further from it.
 
[cough] get someone to steal the cable[cough]

Thinking ouside the box! If the dropwire is hazardous then they have to fix it, or face legal consequences if injury or death should result. This happened to the OR line to my property some years ago. After I pointed out it was dangerous they removed it the following day. Now, I suffered no loss of service as I had switched to cable some years earlier, but had I been a customer, they would have had to fix it.
 
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