15.57
Bredonborough.
The BT engineer’s appointment is for this afternoon, after 6 weeks without broadband connection. At 08.50 the engineer telephoned to say he was checking the service to the line; and arrived at 09.05, believing himself to have a morning appointment. When his call had come in at 08.50, I immediately checked the broadband & found the service resumed. As the engineer came through the front door, I congratulated him on restoring the service. He replied: “I haven’t done anything”. How is it that an engineer’s telephone call, seemingly by itself, restored the service?
And technically, the BT engineer is not a BT engineer: he is an Openreach engineer.
BT Admits ’Mistakes’ In Openreach
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This is a result of BT making its lines open to any service providers, who then compete with each other to supply the end-user with the most consumer-friendly product. If & when the service fails, the same company – Openreach – supply engineers on behalf of each of the service providers. If the fault is within the home, the responsibility lies with the end-users to fix, not the supplier, so the engineer leaves. This leaves the problem behind with the unfortunate end-user, whose problem is their own. Engineers are dissuaded from helping to fix the problem if it is not directly related to the service provider.
The cost of the engineer’s visit is borne by the service provider, if the fault is theirs. If the problem is the end-users, they pay the call-out charge of £80. If the charge is around £20 a month, this equates to 4 months of lost income. If broadband is provided free (eg Carphone Warehouse) the provider has no rental income to offset the callout charge. I wonder if this has any connection to a wait of 5 weeks for an engineer to visit.
16.03 And just now a gentleman has called from BT to make sure that everything is fine, and it is.
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