An0ther Full Fibre Nightmare

[Paul65]

In September I  received an email saying I could upgrade to Full Fibre so I ordered early October and received an activation date of 14 November. The week before that I received a text from Sky saying BT needed to lay some casings to protect the new cables. 2 weeks ago contractors came and laid some pipes under my front lawn from the back of pavement. No boxes have been installed yet. Last week the same contractors spent 3 days digging up the street outside and laying pipes  ad grids, during which they completely severed the existing copper cable bringing my landline and internet to my property. One of the workers (not an engineer) managed to splice together the cable to try and restore the landline. They said they had reported what had happened to BT and were hopeful that because of the problems BT would treat the fibre installation as a priority. They then resurfaced/tarmaced  everything (they said they would be fined if they did not cover everything up) and left. My internet is now terribly slow and keeps dropping out and I have no landline phone connection at all.

I phoned Sky four days ago to ask for an update and the rep said that according to her records BT were due to review the situation in February 2025! Unbelieveable.

I explained that it seemed to me that there were two options EITHER BT send an engineer to fix the damaged copper cable, which would involve re-excavating the work that has recently been completed and presumably obtaining a further permit from Council OR BT and SKY expedite the installation of the Full Fibre, which would make the damaged and buried copper cable redundant. She said someone would get back to me. Nobody has. My "Order Progress" information still says Activation Due 14 November.

They really cant expect me to tolerate slow and intermittent internet and no landline for another 3 months can they? Any suggestions as to what else I can do at this stage please?

[TimmyBGood]

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@Paul65 wrote:

They really cant expect me to tolerate slow and intermittent internet and no landline for another 3 months can they? 

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Unfortunately, yes: your only leverage point might be the absence of voice calls, which is a statutory requirement (although that obligation is on BT as the Universal Service Provider telco rather than Sky or any other ISP)

Note that for the sake of clarity it's Openreach and their subcontractors who carry out all digging and cabling on the national network, not 'BT'.  BT Group owns Openreach Ltd, but Openreach is required to be operationally independent of BT.

If it's any consolation, you should be due a considerable sum in compensation for loss of the landline and delayed activation of the fibre broadband.