Appalling broadband service

[Cookie233]

We live in the countryside.. North of Bedford - not dramatic rural but 15 mins to nearest town.. broadband is awful here and since sunday 70 houses in our village have been without wifi... what's worse is that we don't even have 4g... so cannot make emergency calls and many people are vulnerable here.. told it won't be fixed until at least Wednesday!!!!! 

How are people to work from home or make a simple phone call? This is unacceptable and I cannot reach you by phone as I have no reception!!!!

[daveNOS]

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@Cookie233 wrote:

We live in the countryside.. North of Bedford - not dramatic rural but 15 mins to nearest town.. broadband is awful here and since sunday 70 houses in our village have been without wifi... what's worse is that we don't even have 4g... so cannot make emergency calls and many people are vulnerable here.. told it won't be fixed until at least Wednesday!!!!! 

How are people to work from home or make a simple phone call? This is unacceptable and I cannot reach you by phone as I have no reception!!!!

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@Cookie233 The standard target time for faults is 2 working days, so Wednesday would be about right, working from home won't get you any priority especially as Sky are providing you with a service that is for domestic use only.

[Cookie233]

The village has many vulnerable residents with no Internet! This makes it urgent mate! 

[daveNOS]

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@Cookie233 wrote:

The village has many vulnerable residents with no Internet! This makes it urgent mate! 

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@Cookie233 If any are registered as vulnerable with their provider then they will be getting the necessary additional support offered, everyone else will be subject to the standard target fix time of 2 working days(weekends don't count towards that target time).

[Cookie233]

Yes so 2 working days is end of play Tuesday..  not wednesday 

[GD1]

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@Cookie233 wrote:

The village has many vulnerable residents with no Internet! This makes it urgent mate! 

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Are they Sky customers? If not why is that Sky's issue?

I'm not sure what you expect any ISP to do with a network outage (regardless of any vulnerabilities) as it is not the ISP that fixes the faults, it is Openreach.

When did you report the fault?  As this is the time compensation kicks in as per Ofcoms own guidelines

If you report the problem on...	Your compensation will start from...
Monday	Thursday
Tuesday	Friday
Wednesday	Saturday
Thursday	Tuesday
Friday	Wednesday
Saturday	Wednesday
Sunday	Wednesday

[TimmyBGood]

@Cookie233 

Unfortunately while almost everyone now relies on internet access, regulation and support mechanisms have not caught up for what was just a minor hobbyist platform only a few years ago.

Realistically, it's also the case that none of us pay enough on domestic subscriptions for 24/7 fault resolution to be in place.

[Daniel0210]

@Cookie233 

Perhaps compensation isn't at the forefront of your and other villagers thinking at the moment.

Sky usually quote 2 WORKING DAYS as a potential fix time because that’s the service level agreement in the UK between ISPs and Openreach for fixing a domestic fault.

Some repairs take longer, for example when a pole or cabinet has been damaged or the road needs to be dug up (once the required permission from the local council has been granted).

▪️

This link explains the OFCOM agreed auto compensation scheme which Sky operates for when there is a TOTAL loss of Sky Broadband or Sky Talk for UK based customers.
https://www.sky.com/help/articles/auto-compensation

If you have a total loss of service and it isn’t fixed after two full WORKING days from when Sky are notified of the fault, you will become eligible for it. This auto compensation is applied 30 days after the fault has been repaired and will come in the form of a credit appearing on your Sky account (from April 2026 the rate increased to £10.34 for every complete day).

▫️There is no equivalent scheme for customers in the Republic of Ireland.
▫️There is no automatic compensation for TV services affected by a broadband fault.
▫️There is no automatic compensation for shorter outages.
▫️Sky broadband discussed here is a domestic service so whilst Sky allow customers who work from home to use it for that purpose they won't receive additional or quicker support.