Fibre delay from Openreach, how to get Wi-Fi in meantime?

[Jaqx]

Hi, moved into house a month ago. Had prebooked our Sky package including Talk, Fibre Broadband & TV and were given installation dates by Openreach & Sky. 
When Openreach came he found the copper cable to the house had been buried under a porch extension so couldn't pull through the fibre. He fitted the outside box & cable into the house and said a surveyor would need to assess the work to dig up path/garden to attach us to the fibre laid in our road. I phoned Sky to discuss and after two calls was told an update would be provided in two weeks. This has passed and the update just received says exactly what we already had been told and Sky say there is no timescale provided by Openreach...  due to update again in a week. Told I will get auto compensation and that my bill will be adjusted for lost services but only once the problem is resolved. So at the moment we have no Wi-Fi or talk and limited TV as can't use apps like Netflix, Disney etc 

main issue for us is no Wi-Fi as our area has poor signal and very intermittent 4G. Trying to set up all our new bills, change of address etc is challenging and my husband is in poor health and struggling to make the required online appointments complete health forms.
we have purchased extra data from phone provider O2 to try and help when we have 4G.
No O2 hotspot near. Bought 1 day of BT hotspot and managed to back up my phone but the hotspot  only lasted couple of hours so not worth paying for more if intermittent. Asked Sky to reconnect the copper cable which the previous owner used for broadband but Sky said no ad they can't have two requests open on one account so to do that I'd have to cancel the fibre. This seems ridiculous! Surely connecting the copper is easy? Does it require Openreach or can it be done remotely? The neighbours are still on copper and say internet is fine so I'm torn on how to proceed. Can I ask another broadband provider to give me copper connection in meantime if Sky won't budge? We are getting desperate for consistent usable internet. 

[TimmyBGood]

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@Jaqx wrote:

Asked Sky to reconnect the copper cable which the previous owner used for broadband but Sky said no ad they can't have two requests open on one account so to do that I'd have to cancel the fibre. This seems ridiculous! Surely connecting the copper is easy? Does it require Openreach or can it be done remotely? The neighbours are still on copper and say internet is fine so I'm torn on how to proceed. Can I ask another broadband provider to give me copper connection in meantime if Sky won't budge?

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Typically an ISP will not provide broadband over copper while waiting for Openreach to resolve a full-fibre problem because that would result in the ISP being charged two sets of fixed wholesale provisioning fees which your subscription would not cover over a minimum term, so potentially turning the account loss-making.

One workaround might be to order FTTC from another ISP who do not have a minimum term (these do exist, but are rare), although note that's typically quite expensive due to a high initial set-up fee.  I'd suggest not going to Now Broadband though, because that's Sky by a different name and could well complicate things even more.  Unfortunately FTTC will typically have ten day lead time for activation.

[TimmyBGood]

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@Jaqx wrote:

He fitted the outside box & cable into the house and said a surveyor would need to assess the work to dig up path/garden to attach us to the fibre laid in our road.

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I'd advise you that when we required such work, it took three months to actually happen.