No internet for 2 weeks, no resolution in sight

[displayname1]

My internet went out completely on 24th May. I called Sky. They said it was an issue outside of my home and an Openreach engineer would be scheduled. They said it usually took 2-3 business days. 

2-3 business days passed. I called again. They said it was a fault in the area affecting 500 homes and that an engineer was scheduled for a week later. I waited. Nothing changed.

I called Sky again today. They said it's under investigation and hope it will be resolved as soon as possible. 

I am spending a fortune on mobile data. I cannot do important work from my home. Sky won't do anything, saying it's an Openreach problem and I will receive some vague compensation in the future.

Has this happened to anyone before, and how long might this drag out for? Does switching to another provider change anything?

[Daniel0210]

@displayname1 

It depends what and where the fault is. With 500 odd homes affected you'd expect Openreach to be treating it with some urgency. If the road or pavement needs digging up, Openreach will have to obtain authority from the local council then arrange a crew and equipment to do the job.

Regarding compensation, the below 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 the fault is first reported to Sky, 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 (new rates apply from 01/04/24 of £9.76 per day).

[displayname1]

Thanks. 

What does "urgent" look like to Openreach? Two weeks have gone by with no communications from anyone. Is it possible I'm going to continue being without internet for weeks to come? 

[jamesn123]

@displayname1 

Changing provider wont help at all unless you move to a non-Openreach provider. Unfortunately you will just need to be patient.

I would also note that if you are reliant on working from home because you cannot travel to an office/place of work then you should have a backup in place.

[Daniel0210]

@displayname1 

You'll have to periodically check with Sky for updates although they will be relying on Openreach providing one. 

[displayname1]

So to summarise:

• It is impossible to know when I will get my internet back
• I should not expect any proactive communication or support from Sky
• If/when the fault gets repaired, then 30 days later I will receive £9.76 per day from two days after I reported the fault to Sky
• Switching providers only solves my problem if the provider is non-Openreach (there are none in my area unfortunately)

My view is this is unacceptable and both Sky and Openreach are letting their customers down with this opaque resolution process.

[Daniel0210]

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@displayname1 wrote:

So to summarise:

• It is impossible to know when I will get my internet back

It's impossible for fellow customers to know when the fault will be repaired.

• I should not expect any proactive communication or support from Sky

Sky won't contact you. The onus is on the customer to instigate contact.

• If/when the fault gets repaired, then 30 days later I will receive £9.76 per day from two days after I reported the fault to Sky

Basically correct (2 working days) so including the Bank holiday I think you're on day 8 today so nearly £80 so far.

• Switching providers only solves my problem if the provider is non-Openreach (there are none in my area unfortunately)

Correct. Any outage will likely be affecting all ISP's on the Openreach infrastructure.

My view is this is unacceptable and both Sky and Openreach are letting their customers down with this opaque resolution process.

Its an Ofcom approved compensation scheme.

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[TimmyBGood]

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@displayname1 wrote:

My view is this is unacceptable and both Sky and Openreach are letting their customers down with this opaque resolution process.

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With respect, for the £1 to £2 per day which we all pay for domestic broadband, that's realistically all the service we can expect from Sky or any of their competitor Openreach ISPs.

A business leased line would come with defined support levels, liaison in the case of outage, and more compensation, at about ten times the monthly subscription cost.

[displayname1]

With respect, I pay £0 for e.g. banking services and get much better communication and transparency when issues arise.

[TimmyBGood]

@displayname1 

The banks get to keep our money and earn from it.

Domestic broadband could absolutely be more robust and have better support, by costing more.  However consumers largely choose to go for the cheapest offering, which then drives the market towards minimum cost provision.

Personally I pay rather more per month to have failover to cellular data.

[displayname1]

You're just describing business? Things are better if you pay more. Great. Except I can't pay more and I don't have any alternatives.

Cellular dongles and hotspots are not a serious alternative. I cannot use my Sky TV services fully without broadband, I cannot use my Sonos speakers which require wifi, I cannot do regular video calls, the list goes on.

Sky and Openreach are providing a poor product and a poor customer service experience. I don't need to know or care about their business model.

And honestly, something as simple as proactive communication goes a long way. 

I first wrote to this forum to see if anyone else had had a similar experience I could learn from. Now I am writing to express my displeasure in hopes that someone from Sky sees and fixes things for the future.

[jamesn123]

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@displayname1 wrote:

You're just describing business? Things are better if you pay more. Great. Except I can't pay more and I don't have any alternatives.

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Your not being serious right? There is literally 100s of ISPs to choose from & many cost more than Sky because they offer a better service level than Sky. There is also many business line options to choose from, Sky even do one themselves which would inherently come with better SLAs, communication & likely a backup connection.

Cellular dongles are certainly serious alternatives, many cellular options can often be more reliable than fixed broadband options, depending on the location. 

Like it or not Sky are a budget ISP so you get what you pay for. For example I choose to pay for Zen Internet's services which are on average around 30+% more expensive that Sky's broadband packages. I do this because I value the level of service & communication they can provide me over what Sky does. Saying you don't have any alternatives in such a huge market is naive 

[displayname1]

I think you think about internet more than the average person does (and frankly should need to). Uswitch shows me 2 other providers, BT and Talktalk, both of which use Openreach which is the root issue here. 

If you'd like to be helpful rather than condescending, I'd love to be pointed to alternative providers. 

Thanks!

[Chrisee]

@displayname1 you are excluding the many companies who can sell you a mobile broadband service which often can be faster and cheaper than fixed line services if mobile signal in your area  is good enough and there is always Starlink whose low orbit satellite service just requires a clear view of the sky but is quite pricy.

Once Openreach can stop cars hitting their cabinets, thieves knicking copper cable, digger drivers digging in the wrong place, storms damaging lines and any of a hundred other things that can disrupt their 60 million plus lines they will be able to offer all of us a better service.  Until that day unfortunately there will be outages. 

[displayname1]

"Once Openreach can stop cars hitting their cabinets, thieves knicking copper cable, digger drivers digging in the wrong place, storms damaging lines and any of a hundred other things that can disrupt their 60 million plus lines they will be able to offer all of us a better service.  Until that day unfortunately there will be outages."

Yes, you're right, there is no possible way they can communicate with their customers what is going wrong and when they will try and resolve issues, and it is completely reasonable to expect British households to all have Starlink backups.

You all need to expect more from your critical infrastructure providers.