More OpenReach woes - any of their engineers here?

I've had problems in the past and not had a speedy resolution. I bought a Tenda 4g router and use the unlimited SIM from my phone when there's a problem. Good luck.

We have an OR engineer who lives on our street I've had him up a pole with in 10 mins of our internet going down 😉

Zen should be sorting for you. They raise the call with OR and yes 2 day turn around to first investigate. Sky used to give me a reference # and would book the slot for me on the OR system. I would then either get a call from OR engineer or they would turn up at the agreed time.... by which point by neighbour usually would have sorted.

Most internet services are a 48hr SLA agreement. unfortunately my new provider is 72hrs 🙁 but I am hoping that as it is brand new  full fibre in to the house it shouldnt go wrong any time soon.

It's more than likely not OpenReach doing the work - it'll be a contractor 'working on behalf of OpenReach'.

When we moved last years we had five visits from these muppet contractors to sort our broadband - when they finally authorised an actual OpenReach engineer he was great and fixed it within 30 mins.

It was comical with the contractors - they'd come into the house, fiddle with wires, press buttons on their iPad thingy and look perplexed. So I'd ask if they were going to check the cabinet (literally outside my front window!) - "naah, sorry not authorised to touch that mate". 🙂

That's not filling me with hope! 🤨

apparently OR are transferring to more reliable (hah!) equipment in the local exchange. Nobody else in my village has lost their connection, just us,

You may be FTTP but there will be others on your run of fibre so it seems strange that you're the only one affected yet the issue is withing the local exchange!

That was my argument to Zen this morning. Surely others would be affected as my understanding is that the fibre connection from the exchange (approx 6 miles away) would probably serve the whole village as it'd terminate in a cabinet locally. The days of a twisted pair coming from there to my house are long gone, so WTF has happened?
Nobody appears to be able to give me an answer...

I think it's Zen letting you down not OR to be honest. In the last 5 years I've had two faults with my cheap ass Plusnet connection - both times Plusnet have managed to get an OR engineer on site (and issue fixed) the same day that I reported the fault.

Nobody appears to be able to give me an answer…

Zen can only relay to you what they have been told.

There are usually too many folk (and companies) in the chain but your contract is with Zen - remind them.

Weird. As you say if it was a physical backhaul fault between your cab and the exchange the local pitchforks would be out.

Not sure if the zen interconnects in the exchange would be physical (zen) or just part of a cluster of carriers running over OR kit and routed back to Zens’ POPs.

Also strange that they are quoting 48 working hours, thats a weird metric.

Zen are usually excellent at this bit, so maybe reload both barrels and call again.

Edit: the point you make about it occurring in the early hours would indicate some exchange work rather than anything outside if the exchange. It’s all fibre splices and virtual networks so no more punchdowns.

would indicate some exchange work rather than anything outside of the exchange

Yes, apparently it's internal to the local exchange. I'm not 100% convinced that OR even know that there's a problem and have no idea what kind of problem would result in just me losing connection (I'm not a telecoms engineer), and quite possibly won't be working on a sunny Friday afternoon or over a sunny weekend. The assumption being that nobody who works from home has to work the weekend (big assumption!).

I think Zen are having you on. Its their kit in the exchange and their router in your house. Openreach maintain the cables between. Either they raise an openreach fault for you, or they raise their own fault for their kit. They don't want to raise an Openreach fault if they know it's their kit that's faulty as they will get charged.

If there is a known major outage with Openreach where they don't want to get swamped with separate fault reports, it will be listed on the service status on the Openreach website, and Zen presumably have the same.

I feel like a bit of a s##t as I gave the poor lass at Zen both barrels this morning, and I know that it’s obviously not her fault

Classy.

You feel like a bit of a shit, I expect she feels worse.

Email the OR CEO. I did this on a Friday arvo some years ago, and had a response on Saturday at 7am and the chief engineer by 9.30am. It was a shame it came to that, but they were absolutely brilliant in fairness after I raised merry hell. Good luck OP.

Email the OR CEO

Bit OTT when Zen haven't even raised a fault!!!

Classy.

You feel like a bit of a shit, I expect she feels worse.

I think most us have lost it at some stage.

Again, when moving house last year my old energy supplier was adamant to the point of being rude that I'd not let them know about my house move. I was holding in my hand a letter from them, posted to my new address, welcoming me to my new home!

 I expect she feels worse.

I accept that, I did apologise to her and she was fine about it not being personal, we had a joke about the forthcoming weekends football (Zen are based in Manchester I think, anyway, she got the reference), but after having spent many hours over the past three days listening to their hold music...

Hang on. No, you're right, there's no excuse and call centre work is hard enough as it is. I'll do better next time, it's not their fault. Thanks for the comment, noted! 🙂

If Openreach or a.n.other company need to be contacted then that's down to Zen to sort out. You're a paying customer of Zen, you have no relationship with Openreach. Even if you do get hold of Openreach ("email the CEO," ROFLcopters) they're perfectly within their rights to tell you to bog off.

Honestly, I'm surprised at Zen. I was with them for a few years, they were nothing other than excellent. I only left because I jumped ship to Sky for the TV package.

I work from home and just need a reliable connection.

If you're reliant on it for work then I'd suggest some sort of 4G/5G backup solution as Murray suggested (though Tenda left a bad taste in my mouth).

Are you sure you've understood "48 working hours" correctly? That seems bizarre. Did they mean two working days perhaps?

Hang on. No, you’re right, there’s no excuse and call centre work is hard enough as it is. I’ll do better next time, it’s not their fault. Thanks for the comment, noted! 🙂

I worked in a call centre, my first tech job was public-facing Tech Support.

As much as it pains me to say it, she's probably used to it. It's shit and it leads to burnout, the turnover in Tech at the Time was 200% - ie, the lifespan of a typical support engineer was about six months. But if you've rung up and gone "RAAARGH!" then unless they're a new starter you'll just be another shouty idiot who's going to get the least amount of help that they can get away with providing. Sorry.

Back then, we invented a game called Screamerball. It was a bit like, you know those pass-the-parcel toys where there's a water balloon inside? We'd take a call, get as far as "thank you for calling..." to be met with "RIGHT THEN YOU MOTHERFU-" - "OK sir, please hold" and slam them straight back in the call queue. Which obviously did wonders for their mood. "There's a screamer in the system!" Then we'd wait to see who got Mr Angry next. "Thank-" - "GRARGHH!" - raises hand I've got him! - "please hold" *click* rinse and repeat.

FTTP runs over shared infrastructure, the only bit that most likely isn't shared is the cable from the pole into your premises. From the pole back into the exchange, multiple customer services are carried over the same fibre pair and equipment.

Zen might only have a single customer in the area so couldn't with any accuracy confirm/deny that you are the only one affected.  Only other way is if you are the first person on that particular fibre pair with its associated equipment.

As others have said your contact isn't with BT Openreach, it's with Zen so you should be continuing to give it to them both barrels.  Also for planned works BT would have advised ahead of time,  so Zen should have known if it was truly upgrade work,  also whatever it was it should have been minutes or an hours outage at most, not days.

Someone's comms isn't too good,  or there are porkies going on as someone doesn't want to admit the true cause.

I’d suggest some sort of 4G/5G backup solution

The issue with relying on the mobile network for 3/4G is that there is no mobile signal in my house (or at my end of the village) unless, like now, I'm set up in an upstairs bedroom with my laptop tethered to my phone which is balancing in the Velux window opening (precarious?). If I put it anywhere else there's no signal.

I think I was less shouty idiot and more "I'm-close-to-weeping-frustrated", having spent nearly an hour listening to the hold music. She might have had a different view though. 😔

Honestly, I’m surprised at Zen

Hitherto, Zen have been excellent, there's a reason they've been rated the best ISP with Which for years. All the more reason why I don't think they're misleading me, although a man only has so much patience...

I’m set up in an upstairs bedroom with my laptop tethered to my phone which is balancing in the Velux window opening

So there is some signal then. Maybe some sort of high-gain antenna on the outside of the wall might work?

And yes, I know you shouldn't have to, but if it's something you rely on...

There might be other providers out there that would have sent you a 4/5g hub by next day delivery to get you back online...