Communication breakdown in Antrobus

2:10pm Friday 15th March 2013 in News Photograph of the Author By Gina Bebbington

Residents had to resort to mobile phones in a village with patchy reception. Residents had to resort to mobile phones in a village with patchy reception.

A VILLAGE was cut off from the modern world for a month when its phone lines went down without explanation.

Antrobus households were left without internet access and phones, leaving home businesses struggling to operate, schoolchildren unable to complete online homework assignments and families struggling to keep in touch.

Debbie Sutton, from Sutton School of Dance, was dealt a double blow as not only was her business affected, she also missed out on the excitment of her daughter Freya’s professional theatre debut in Hairspray.

“I missed Freya’s launch on Facebook because I couldn’t get on the internet and that’s something you can’t replace,” she said.

“I couldn’t see any of the write-ups about her performance or any of the pictures put online after first night.”

Some residents did not discover family members had been taken ill until phone lines were returned at the end of February and one woman only found out an operation had been cancelled when she happened to ring the hospital the day before.

Around 37 homes were affected in The Old Orchard, Knutsford Road, Manley Close, Lowe Crescent and School Lane, although the level of service differed from house to house with some residents losing both phone and internet throughout February and some losing just one.

The network as a whole is maintained by Openreach, although residents use different service providers.

Alex Dodgshon, of The Old Orchard, said: “There was a total lack of communication, not specifically from BT but all different providers trying to get information from Openreach.

“Problems happen, things break and they need fixing, we understand that, but it felt like we were being strung along and fobbed off – that’s not service and it’s not what we pay for.”

A spokesman for BT said a section of underground cable was accidentally damaged and Openreach engineers had to replace 140m of cable.

She said: “It is regrettable when we suffer any kind of damage to our network. Our priority is always to restore services to those affected as quickly as we can.

“Unfortunately, due to a combination of factors, this repair took longer than we would have wanted or expected, for which we are very sorry.

“However, engineers encountered unforeseen delays due to the location of this fault – on a busy road – and underground blockages which had to be cleared before the new cable could be fitted.

“Temporary traffic lights were required to enable the repair work to go ahead safely.”

Comments(16)

onered says...
11:40am Sat 16 Mar 13

People in Davenham have also been cut off from the B.T. Network for over a month. B.T. with their Customer Services Department must be the worse Company in the World to contact, it is a total nightmare trying to make contact with them to report faults and to try and establish how long you will be off line.

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rogers-t says...
1:16pm Sat 16 Mar 13

Many readers will be unaware that they are entitled to compensation from their service provider for the period that they suffered loss of service. This usually starts from the first working day the fault was reported to the point service was restored (partial or in this case full refund of a month's line rental and the cost of any diverted calls)

You do not get automatically compensated for your outage, you have to make a request for compensation.

Guardian, you should have included this in your report. Many will be left out of pocket as a consequence of this major outage!

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onered says...
5:35pm Sat 16 Mar 13

You have to do more than request Compensation, you have to be firm and you have to fight your corner to obtain the Compensation you are due.

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rogers-t says...
5:41pm Sat 16 Mar 13

No 'onered' you are incorrect. As part of the terms of various operator (PTO) license they obligated to compensate the subscriber where a fault is reported on the network side which isn't the subscribers fault. OFCOM code is quite clear on this and in the unlikely event that your operator tries to wriggle out of doing so, then report them immediately to OFCOM with a full statement of facts and they will come down hard on them!

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onered says...
5:52pm Sat 16 Mar 13

rogers-t I am not wrong, I am speaking from this weeks experience dealing with B.T.

You are pushed around the World with the difficulties associated with talking to people who don't use English as their native tongue. You may be offered a Line Rental Rebate, but you have to press for further compensation for having to use alternative arrangements to keep in contact with people.

OFCOM were to be my next call.

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rogers-t says...
6:02pm Sat 16 Mar 13

You are simply NOT entitled to claim from them for incurring costs by having to use alternative means of communication (ie. mobiles) You are only entitled to claim for the period that your land line was out of service (ie. apportionment of the line rental) and for the cost of any calls that may have been diverted from your land line number to an alternate number (ie. mobile) for the period of the outage.

I know this because I work in the telecommunications industry for the past 20 years!

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onered says...
8:14pm Sat 16 Mar 13

rogers-t

Incorrect again, you are entitled to more than Line Rental, we have what we required and we are now happy, end of story.

Working for 20 years in the Industry you have been "Brain washed" are you are out of date with reality.

Have a nice day.

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rogers-t says...
9:54pm Sat 16 Mar 13

Please retrain from personal insults. I hope this is not how you speak to call centre agents trying to help you!

I have spent many years in BT and I can tell you that BT would be more than happy to compensate you for period that you lost your land line service in the way of an appropriate rebate of line rental and any call charges that were incurred on your BT account if you requested call diversion to be set up to a mobile number.

What BT Wholesale or OpenReach will not do is pay you for the expense of having to use a third-party mobile during the period that you had lost your land line service.

You can jump up and down in a hissy-fit as much as you want to OFCOM, your local MP, etc., etc. but BT are not required to do so plain and simple.

If you are lucky enough (indeed if you are polite enough to them) you may get a 'good-will' payment but if you write to them indeed as you respond to the likes of me, I'd very much doubt you'd get anything at all from them. :-)

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onered says...
10:17pm Sat 16 Mar 13

I worked in the Customer service Industry for more than 50 Years, I am more than than capable of seeing through Companies who are taking their Customers for a ride in the way they deal with them.

As I said, we are happy with the Compensation we have received.

My message is stand firm and don't be taken for granted, Companies will always start with the lowest compensation, stick out what you will be happy with.

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rogers-t says...
10:57pm Sat 16 Mar 13

Taken for granted? For goodness sake what on earth are you talking about!

Compensating you on the grounds that I have just explained to you is standard practice amongst telcos in the UK and is backed by OFCOM. It's not the 'lowest compensation' as you put it, it's what you are duly entitled to. Why should an operator pay your third-party mobile phone bill for example, all because you have had to use an alternate communication medium.

Sounds like you are milking it for all it's worth. You'll be lucky to get a goodwill payment with your arrogant attitude.

The point I originally was making was that many readers of this paper and indeed those that suffered the major outage are unlikely to be aware that they would not get automatically compensated for the period they were left without their landline service. They would get nothing unless they requested it and The Guardian failed to point this out.

Many are left in the dark over this!

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onered says...
11:14pm Sat 16 Mar 13

The original offer did not comply with the OFCOM Code of Practice, the offer subsequently made is more acceptable, need we say any more?

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rogers-t says...
11:35pm Sat 16 Mar 13

BT nor any other operators in The UK, are required to compensate a subscriber BY DEFAULT - who has suffered an outage, where it is no fault of the end-user! They are NOT required to offer compensation by legislation to do so - SIMPLE!

The subscriber must make the first move by making a request for compensation in order to receive appropriate rebates/credits to their account with respect to the length of the outage caused.

Any subsequent 'offers' as you put it, are regarded as a 'goodwill' gesture but you are not entitled to that as a matter of course.

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onered says...
11:40pm Sat 16 Mar 13

onered says...
11:14pm Sat 16 Mar 13

The original offer did not comply with the OFCOM Code of Practice, the offer subsequently made is more acceptable, need we say any more?”

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rogers-t says...
11:45pm Sat 16 Mar 13

So YOU say. But I do urge you to get your facts right as you're misleading others!

Again, once a request is made for compensation covering the length of the outage. The operator acknowledges the request and compensation is made then the operator is operating within the bounds of OFCOM code.

Any 'other' offers made AFTER THIS are regarded as merely goodwill gestures and are at the discretion of the appropriate line managers within the organisation. YOU DON'T HAVE AN AUTOMATIC RIGHT TO ANYTHING MORE THAN THAT!

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onered says...
11:49pm Sat 16 Mar 13

onered says...
11:14pm Sat 16 Mar 13

The original offer did not comply with the OFCOM Code of Practice, the offer subsequently made is more acceptable, need we say any more?”

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rogers-t says...
12:10am Sun 17 Mar 13

You are extremely LUCKY to receive a goodwill payment given your command for the English language :)

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