BT & Openreach rant

ntg

ntg

ntg

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24 Nov 2008
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In 2011, BT needs more than a month to activate a new phone line.

In 2011, we need to wait an unknown time (probably 1 month) for Openreach to do whatever it does before a new address is recognised in retailers' and utilities' systems so that they can deliver services and goods.

Absolutely ridiculous.

I'm moving into a newbuilt flat and I need to install a new phone line. The developer could not foresee that people will need to install phone lines and inform Openreach in advance to do their "area studies", so now I have to wait for 9th January to get my line activated, with my order placed on 8th December (partially because BT would not recognise the address online until I called them up and they manually overrided their system, or something similar).

I need to wait 2 weeks after that for internet to be activated as no internet provider recognises the new post code (despite it being live on the royal mail website). That's not a major problem but a severe nuissance especially over Xmas and when needing internet for working from home most days of the week! I have to resort into buying a smartphone with tethering in order to work now if I need to (which I probably will).

Eon energy is the electricity provider at the newbuilt development, but it will not recognise the address when I try to move my current address' electricity supply (which is with Eon as well) to the new address. Madness!

Retailers such as John Lewis do not recognise the address online or in their inhouse system. IKEA does not accept the address online (only at their store). Sky does not accept the address online (need to call and see). None of them will deliver services or goods unless they can override their systems - and most cannot. So I have to wait until Openreach blesses me with their survey completion and I get a phone number so that everybody who is looking up their database can connect me.

Apparently looking up Royal Mail's database is not done by most services/retailers and no one will initiate the survey request with Openreach because it costs money (that's why you pay £130 when installing a new BT line). Other phone providers that can install phone lines have the same waiting time due to Openreach.

When trying to contact Openreach to see if they will graciously update their database with the new address I get the reply that they do not deal with individuals, only businesses - and of course businesses will not deal with Openreach as they all wait for BT to assign a number.

Welcome to 2011.

/rant over
 
Openreach have managed to run up £2650 in Excess Construction Charges on a building with an existing fibre installation for one of our clients.

It wouldn't be so bad if the fibre wasn't already run to exactly where they wanted it, and only needed terminating at either end.

Incompetent is an understatement.
 
yea they are useless backward companies full of people bound by a computer script.

watchya gonna do though? bend over and take it like the rest of us.

enjoy
 
Ok so you're in a new built flat on a new build estate, and BT are only going to take a month to get everything in place. Nice one :)
 
Heh, I had openreach come round to 'install' my broadband once.

Funny thing is, it worked before they came....Yet they STILL changed the master socket plate for some reason
 
Sounds like the same kind of problems I had when moving into a brand new house. Most places still don't think we exist after 2 years of living here. We were lucky as we didn't move straight into the new house so it wasn't *that* urgent to get stuff sorted.

Don't get me started on developers, David Wilson had the foresight to install the cabling for sky in every house but didn't think about those that wanted Virgin, so at some point all the lovely block paving that was put down is going to have to come up when Virgin get round to it.

EDIT: Just checked Google maps, and finally our street is on there. They've got a couple of the road names wrong and missed off a major part of the estate, but they are getting there.
 
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Whilst I understand your frustration, you are essentially complaining because you have moved into a new house!?

Do you really expect everybody in the whole country to know it has been built and occupied? I think your anger is a bit misdirected! Royal mail can't update their records until the developer tells them the property exists, once that is processed it takes time for it to filter through as AFAIK Royal Mail only issue periodic updates to their databases that companies subscribe to. Maybe your developer should have registered the address earlier, but otherwise that is one of the pitfalls of buying a brand new development, man up, live with it and it'll settle down in the new year once the database info filters down.
 
Isn't this more down the building company than BT Openreach?

Yes Openreach are useless, but this is hardly their fault, that's the time. They do not work over Christmas so it's just how it is.
 
network.addressing @ openreach.co.uk

Try pinging off an email to this address.

When I moved RAF bases in September I started off the process of getting a landline fitted into my room in the barrack block. I rang up Sky (My provider on my old base) and they said the block didn't exist (Even though there is a working phone line in here for emergencies) and I would have to contact Openreach to get my block "Put on the system".

They gave me a number to ring up Openreach and I rang them up and got the reply "We don't deal with individuals, Sky has to sort it." So I told Sky what they said, got put on hold for ages and thrown between different departments and supervisors until one guy gave me that email address.

I sent an email with my address and 3 days later I get a reply saying my address had been updated on the system, so that very night I rang up Sky and got the ball rolling. A week later the Openreach engineer was here fitting my line.
 
Yup BT/Openreach are horrendous... they somehow managed to cancel our telephone and broadband services instead of my brothers (who was cancelling his) - my brother only shares the last name and lives in a totally different town, different phone number, different account number, etc. etc. were totally uninterested in expediting reconnect even tho it was their mistake, tried to charge us a years early cancellation fee even tho we'd been out of contract 2 years, weren't interested in getting us our original number back - which we did after escalating it - and charged us for a wifi dongle they sent us "free of charge" as a temp measure. Still took almost 2 weeks to get phone and internet reconnected even with it being speedtracked after my brother used his BT Whitehall contacts to lean on them.
 
Failing to see why its a BT & Openreach rant, since you complain about other utilities and retailers.

If the building company has not correctly submitted the information then that is where the problem lies, we use a post code look up system at work and we only get updates on a monthly basis.

So does not seem that unreasonable to assume other companies get a similar update schedule for their databases.

Openreach are the install engineers and go by what BT tell them, so if the information is given incorrectly to BT then passed onto Openreach with no doubt a foreign call centre in the middle its not suprising

Kimbie
 
I agree that it's pathetic to have to wait for a month for a phone line at a new property, but I'm surprised it wasn't longer than that, since when I moved into a flat 3 months ago that was not new and had a deactivated phone line already from the previous tenant, it took 3 weeks for BT/Openreach to give me a line, and a further 2 weeks after that for internet from my ISP.

I see no reason why activating a phone line should take more than a couple of working days, and installing a new one more than a week tops.
 
I've just moved into a new build completed 1st of dec and i ordered my sky package in november.

I guess your developer is rubbish?
 
Redrum said:
I agree that it's pathetic to have to wait for a month for a phone line at a new property, but I'm surprised it wasn't longer than that, since when I moved into a flat 3 months ago that was not new and had a deactivated phone line already from the previous tenant, it took 3 weeks for BT/Openreach to give me a line, and a further 2 weeks after that for internet from my ISP.

I see no reason why activating a phone line should take more than a couple of working days, and installing a new one more than a week tops.
Click to expand...

I agree, I made my order to move my BT phone and broadband package into a new address on the 19th of November and closest appointed they had for an openreach engineer to come to the flat was the 5th of Jan next year, that's 7 weeks, 7 weeks!, I already have a deactivated line here, can't honestly believe it takes that long for an engineer to come around.
 
vertica said:
Whilst I understand your frustration, you are essentially complaining because you have moved into a new house!?

Do you really expect everybody in the whole country to know it has been built and occupied? I think your anger is a bit misdirected! Royal mail can't update their records until the developer tells them the property exists, once that is processed it takes time for it to filter through as AFAIK Royal Mail only issue periodic updates to their databases that companies subscribe to. Maybe your developer should have registered the address earlier, but otherwise that is one of the pitfalls of buying a brand new development, man up, live with it and it'll settle down in the new year once the database info filters down.
Click to expand...

Well, first of all, I stated that the Royal Mail database IS updated with the address, so that's not the problem. The developer has informed them and the address is live.

I do not expect any retailer to know that I'm occupying a property. However, since ALL retailers and/or utilities either subscribe to the Openreach database (majority by far) or to the Royal Mail (pretty much no one), I would expect that Openreach can pull their fingers out and update their databases with the new addresses a bit quicker. Especially when they know the grief it creates for people moving into new houses.

How would you feel if you were to move into a new flat and couldn't order furniture, white goods, tv services or even change utility supplier because "your address is not on our system, you'll have to wait for Openreach to update their records" ??? Would you "man up" and live in a virtually bare flat full of boxes for more than a month? Get real.

Nikumba said:
Failing to see why its a BT & Openreach rant, since you complain about other utilities and retailers.

If the building company has not correctly submitted the information then that is where the problem lies, we use a post code look up system at work and we only get updates on a monthly basis.

So does not seem that unreasonable to assume other companies get a similar update schedule for their databases.

Openreach are the install engineers and go by what BT tell them, so if the information is given incorrectly to BT then passed onto Openreach with no doubt a foreign call centre in the middle its not suprising

Kimbie
Click to expand...

As above, developers have no obligation to inform Openreach (well, it costs money so that's why they don't do it. They wait for the individual to order a phone line and pay the installation fee which includes registering on Openreach), and all retailers seem to update their records based on Openreach's database, so yes I put the blame with them. Given that this must affect a massive number of new homeowners the whole process should be streamlined. I shouldn't have to wait 1 month to get a phone line + 2 weeks for internet etc. in this day and age, it's ridiculous.
 
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