No Broadband for a week now - fibre broken

[rottie]

Been given total runaround by SKY Bots, SKY operators and Openreach and getting so very annoyed now.

Fibre broken in storms a week ago. Problem is extremely obvious - overhead fibre is lying in a heap on the road verge mangled and broken.

SKY Bots - useless - I get to a point where it says SKY knows there a problem and should be fixed shortly but may take one or two days. Ha .. .that was 7 days ago!

SKY Operators - "We can see there is a problem and Openreach say they are fixing it today" ... this has been the same message for last 5 days I think.

OpenReach - "We do not comment on breakages, speak to your ISP". 

Seriously ... how do I get any real answers or even any reassurance somebody will look at this sometime? At least BT customers get themselves a 4G solution to tide them over!  I work on some very critical systems remotely from home and have consumed my PiggyBank mobile data points at a huge rate over this past week ... even tried asking SKY for some piggy bank points ... "No we cannot do that" ...

The whole fault reporting and monitoring service seems to be designed for people who have never touched a router before and need stepped through hand-to-mouth how to find an on/off button or similar, and to completely block you if you know what you are talking about, or can see the fibre sitting broken on your verge.

What an earth to do to progress this? I have to work, people depend on me. Many elderly folks in village downstream from me are also disconnected Internetand Voice.  Piggy Bank points all but gone now ....

[Chrisee]

@rottie this is frustrating but until Openreach get round to repairing the fault you are stuck. There is nothing you or Sky can do to speed this up which is why Sky divert your calls as their agents would be wasting both their and your time by taking the call. You will be due compensation once the job is complete see Customer Auto-Compensation | Sky Help | Sky.com

You are right that EE/BT customers can get a back up mobile service but that currently costs an addiitional £7 per month. Talking to Sky they tell us demand is low as most customers simply use their phone's hot spot rather than pay a premium. 

[Daniel0210]

@rottie 

What you've been told by Sky and Openreach is correct. Openreach aim to fix faults within 2 working days and claim to achieve that in more than 80% of cases. If it also entails digging up the road or pavement to replace a pole for example they have to seek permission from the council then arrange a crew to carry out the work. After the storms of last week their workload will have increased dramatically.

In case you aren’t already aware, the following link explains the Ofcom agreed auto compensation scheme which Sky operates for when there is a TOTAL loss of Sky Broadband or Sky Talk.
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 you notify Sky of the fault, you will become eligible for it. It’s applied 30 days after the fault has been repaired and will come in the form of a credit appearing on your Sky account (from 01/04/24 the rates are £9.76 per day).

[rottie]

Chrisee, Daniel, thank-you for your rapid responses.

Not really interested in compensation ... pales into insignificance compared with lost connectivity.

Interesting you think SKY reckon there is little demand for the 4G service and people use their Piggy Bank points. All my (lucky) neighbours are with BT and am giving them advice how best to use their 4G which they are all pursuing vigorously.

If SKY think piggy bank data is the way to go, it is a little presumptuous you have SKY Mobile as a start ... I do and I quite like it apart from the international roaming fee that O2 doesn't have - sorry I digress, if SKY think customers are happy with using Piggy Bank points in this scenario, then I am OK with that, PROVIDED they supply the piggy bank points until your service is fixed. i.e. I pay for a fast, unlimited service .... happy to accept limited speed due to the emergency so long as I can still work, but the piggy bank points in this case should be unlimited until problem fixed. A simple easy solution??

[TimmyBGood]

@rottie 

Adding data to a Sky Mobile account in the event of a Sky Broadband outage is a feature of the Broadband Boost and WiFi Max subscription supplements.  The text for both those add-ons specifies 2GB, without any indication if this is one-off or recurring.

[Chrisee]

@rottie I can only tell you what the product manager told us when we asked the question at recent Superuser event. Sky do research what customers want but respectfully asking people during an outage might get a different answer than "asking would you pay £7 a month on the off chance the line goes down? " 

Sky staff do read forum posts so you point of view will be seen. 

Sky's business operation do offer a range of  products aimed at small businesses see https://business.sky.com which do offer the type of priduct younare talking about.

[rottie]

I've just chomped though 100GB of 4G data this week whilst my SKY Broadband is offline. Which is why I am getting extremely worried there is no sign of a fix. 2GB doesn't even scratch the surface. AND my wife has been banned from Netflix all week - now that is real stress for me!

[rottie]

I wouldn't pay £7 month thus far but mainly because of my now shattered illusion that a break fix might take 1 or 2 days.

1 week and counting is very very different ... mobile phone plans don't cater for this, my hard won piggy bank stash saved for next year's holidays - gone, home workers don't allow for this and as for all the people downstream of us, also out of action .... many scenarios spring to mind, but also accumulating a large compensation bill methinks.

It is simple. On contract renewal next April, it is BT Broadband for me. Or anybody else who promises a 4G fallback solution (unlimited, not derisory 2GB per day)

[rottie]

and another day without broadband ...... fibre broken/snapped/dead/lying loosly in the lane outside our house since 7th December. Many others downstream from us are without as well.

As you cannot talk to an actual human being who knows anything about this problem, how do I know it will ever be fixed???

How do I know if I am an oversight, being ignored??