Landline has gone dead

[#1]

Deleting the message (once sent) will not have any effect on your issue, @caulbox , but unfortunately the way support requests via the forum are now dealt with means that there is an unwelcome delay, especially where an outside agency - in this case  Openreach - is involved.

Hopefully your issue should get some proper attention soon, but how soon is anyone's guess.

[#2]

@James_B 

Can the processing of this thread be reviewed please.  One would have hoped that this would have been referred to normal support and a line test.  Follow up with the customer via the ticketing system (not direct email) if an on premises visit is required.

Normal BT fault fixing should be 72 hours.  A 5 day wait for an email catch / reply would be two days into automatic compensation.

[#3]

I thought of the compensation angle just after I closed down, @Townman - you beat me to it.

[#4]

Hey @caulbox 

Apologies for not picking this up sooner, I have run a line test on the landline and it has found a fault which is external. I have raised this with Openreach, who have advised they are expecting it to be resolved by 06/11/25. This is only an estimated time. It is likely to be resolved sooner however, once we have an update from Openreach, we will be in touch

[#5]

Thanks for picking this up, @Marsh .

@caulbox You should be due for some automatic compensation on this - it was reported 27/10/25, so already outside the 72 hour 'fix' window.

[#6]

@Marsh 

Josh, thank you for still lurking, catching this and pushing it through the right channel.

@James_B 

Nudge on the request to review prior management of the case.

[#7]

Just a final (I hope) update. And possible food for thought?

My phone is now working again   - I've already accessed my online banking account with no problems. Sincere thanks to all who may have helped to speed up my landline fix to make that possible (especially @jab1  and @Townman )

On a less happy note, I have to admit that I also found the whole support request pattern a bit odd. I'm now wondering if the manner of processing my request for help in this thread, could even have resulted in an eventual visit by an Openreach engineer (this morning) who seemed to have an incorrect notion of whatever he was (or should have been) tasked to do?

When @Peter_JW  first made contact with me, I was left with the impression that he was more interested in logging my personal details than fixing a fault "Good evening! I've just spied your thread around your recent landline issues, and am keen to see what options we could have available for logging this."

 When I later questioned whether details in private messages are totally secure, I think I was less concerned with the make-up of private messages per se, but more troubled as to whether some less than secure database of customers' logged personal details could exist somewhere. - In the realms of AI for what it's worth.

My internet connection went down at 9.30 am this morning, and was still down about an hour later when I got a visit from the Openreach engineer. However he was adamant that It was not a possibility that I had broadband. He said he was sent here just to repair a dead phone, and continuously insisted that I was wrong to think I had a broadband service! He was not at all interested, when I tried to show him a Plusnet screenshot  (which I'd taken earlier this morning) detailing my current contract info. After repeatedly telling him he was mistaken because I DO HAVE BROADBAND, I asked what he was intending  to do with my setup. He answered by telling me in a very unsympathetic tone that he could only fix the phone, and I must be left with no internet. He said if I wasn't happy he would leave at once, and report what he implied was MY unsociable attitude. I'd like to think that I'm actually a very polite friendly person, but I admit that I may have raised my voice just a little (much less than shouting) when the facts of my having a broadband connection were repeatedly denied and thrown back at me.

I politely requested of the engineer that if he must leave the job early, could he please leave things untouched (so that at least I'd still have broadband albeit with a broken phone). He then seemed to finally begin to realize that just maybe I might have been correct all along about having broadband, and he was mistaken. He then left for a short while again, and finally returned when (at last) in a much more friendly relaxed atmosphere he seems to have repaired everything. The Openreach Master Socket 5C remains fixed to my wall, but now seems to have been extended with an openreach MK4 which allows me to plug in my phone directly without the need for the Micro filter I used to employ. 

[#8]

@James_B 

Would it be possible to get a review of what happened here please?

User with a dead phone line and no mobile phone. Not an entirely rare situation.  Unable to engage with the now SMS only faults bot leaves no other route to support than here.

Under the new team unspecified personal information is needed to pass across to a team leader.  There’s no indication of if or how a team leader engaged, though there’s excellent engagement from one of the old team.

The reported disposition of the attending BTOR engineer is a tad strange - understandable that they might be a POTS only engineer not able to do anything in relation to a BB fault, but that’s not what they were there to fix.  The resultant NTE configuration sounds unusual.

Further in the context of automatic compensation at what point does a fault reported here, passed on by the team into the business set the clock running?

[#9]

Hi @Townman,

I'll make sure our operations team review this particular case, including the Openreach interactions, to see if there are any learnings we can take away.

Thanks

James

[#10]

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@Townman wrote:

@James_B 

Would it be possible to get a review of what happened here please?

User with a dead phone line and no mobile phone. Not an entirely rare situation.  Unable to engage with the now SMS only faults bot leaves no other route to support than here.

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I do not know if it is still the case (and am no longer able to test this myself) but it used to be that you could specify the landline number to test when using the BT or PN line SMS test bots. Also, the BT test redirected to PN for a PN landline.

The thought being that somebody without a mobile could perhaps ask a friend with a mobile to test their line?

BT Line Test: Text PHONE <landline> To 61998

PN Line Test: Text PHONE <landline> To 07800 008121

[#11]

I seem to recall that being the case.

The necessity to use the bot from a phone referenced on the account is a major obstacle to its use.