I am placing this here as we seem to have no category for those companies that use BT?Open Reach lines.

It took me about 7 phone calls (over about 3 weeks) - some lasting well over an hour, to TalkTalk to complaining about a faulty line/dropped connections on broadband, before they would get Open Reach to come out. They even got me to change my IP address = a total waste of time. The fact was that the BT/Open Reach line to my house was faulty - only during damp weather. It is clear that Talk Talk were reluctant to call Open Reach - presumably because they would incur costs if it was not their fault.

Open Reach seem to be very poor at maintaining the system to prevent faults from happening. If you look at their poles, you will often see the plastic tags attached by engineers indicating that something need replacing. These seem to stay on the poles so long that often the writing fades in the daylight. The required maintenance must be logged with them yet they fail to take action.

I wish OFCOM would get this situation sorted. People in my area are switching to Virgin due to problems with the BT/Open Reach lines.

should be lucky that you can switch to virgin most people cant and stuck with openreach!!

You seem to be complaining about Openreach (Open Reach) although you problem is with TalTalk.

I am complaining about the system we have where Open Reach don't maintain the infrastructure properly and then we have a load of companies such as Talk Talk who are reluctant to contact Open Reach in case they get billed for a wasted call out. That is why I say that OFCOM need to get it sorted.

Openreach will only action a visit on the instruction of one of their customers (in this case TalkTalk). If the problem is found to be outside of their remit, such as a fault with your internal wiring or a device connected to it, a cost will be levied to the customer, who then decide wether to pass on to the end user (you) or absorb it.

As has been pointed out your beef should really be with your ISP. Although having said that it is arguably not helped when certain ISPs are charging next to nothing to provide services that support becomes next to non-existent.

One issue is that ISPs like TalkTalk are driving costs down. They want to pay Openreach the bare minimum and they don't want to spend money on their own operations too, so both will suffer. As you're a TalkTalk customer you presumably agree with that.

You can keep blaming Openreach if you like, but you need to blame TalkTalk too for refusing to contact Openreach to get things sorted. A quality ISP doesn't hesitate to contact Openreach to resolve issues with their side of the network. TalkTalk aren't a quality ISP, though.

Does any of the broken infrastructure actually affect you? If individual pairs are bad, that isn't necessarily a problem, because there may be enough spares. Drop cables to homes are not a problem too, unless it's the cable to your house. You may be assuming too much from not a lot

The fact is the system is an OFCOM construct, providers like a Talk Talk wanted what Openreach are responsible for, separated from the rest of 'BT' as they were (probably still are) convinced that BT retail customers got better service than TT customers,
OFCOM came up with this system of 'equivalence of input' , so all service providers , TT, Sky , BT ,get exactly the same level of service from Openreach,
however, why would OR accept the expense of diagnosing every problem,what if the problem was never on OR's line plant but with the service providers equipment or the end user equipment or wiring, so , reasonably in my view, OR say, repairs are free as long as it's on what they are responsible for, ask for a engineer visit on something that isn't OR's fault, then a charge will be raised, but OR get the money from the service provider, not the end user
If TT are reluctant to get OR out in case they end up being charged, and they then have to try and get the money back from the end user, then perhaps it's time to use another provider, or perhaps they should better diagnose problems then they could be confident that they won't be charged, and won't have to pursue the end user ,
I'm would imagine a lot of TT customers presented with a 'repair' bill from TT would simply move to another 'budget' provider leaving TT to pay OR , that may explain their reluctance to call OR out

My recent fault was fixed by Open Reach - eventually - after Talk Talk got them to come out - & it was something to do with OR lines external to my house - possibly damp getting into a box up a pole. (They have now placed a notice on the pole saying that a new box is needed. Goodness knows if that will ever be done)?

I had trouble about 3 years ago and again, I had much wasting of time with TT messing me about. It was only when I threatened to report the issue to my MP did they take action and get OR to come out. The OR engineer duly arrived and took one look at the wire from the pole to house and said that he was 99% that it was perished and would be the cause of the trouble. Sure enough, he replaced the wire and everything was OK until the recent trouble. I pointed out to him that another wire to a neighbouring house was of the same type as my failed one and that surely this should also be replaced before it to failed. He said that they only replace when a customer reports a fault.

That seems to be the trouble - they will not replace cables or whatever that are likely to fail until something goes wrong.

If TT think they can save money by being so difficult about getting OR engineers to visit, they are surely shooting themselves in the foot as customers are leaving for other providers - most noticeably Virgin who use their own separate system to the house and have their own engineers - who come for free. However, it should be noted that Virgin are
one of the most expensive providers and unless you are a sport nut, I can't see the point of having their TV service.

There are some circumstances where even VM charge for repairs, if damage is caused and it's not fair wear and tear, TBH OR don't or at least shouldn't charge if a repair is made on their network, your problem hasn't been charges, it's been getting your provider to get OR out in the first place,
OR engineers get a set amount of time per fault, so tend to repair only the line they have been told to look at, although fixing other problems or potential problems they come across is a good idea it doesn't fit in with the way OR measure their peoples productivity

Maybe they are more proactive in this part of rural England but it seems all the poles on the boxes have been changed for a slightly different type over the last year or two


This is the downside of the situation we have - where people want the cheapest and then want it cheaper than that. Openreach/BT isn't going to spend any more than they have to when the ISPs and end users aren't going to want to see their rates raised to pay for it.

TalkTalk is reluctant to get Openreach involved when it is clearly necessary for the same reasons - if indeed it's a fault on your side and they get charged for the visit, they either have the option of absorbing the cost (and ruin any chance of making a profit) or passing it on to you (and making you unhappy and more likely to switch).

TalkTalk also doesn't employ decently trained call centre drones who can reliably work out where the problem is likely to be


Another key difference is that Virgin claims ownership of everything up to the superhub, so they have to fix it for free. BT will fix problems on their side of the network (everything up to the master socket) for free, but they will charge your ISP if the fault is found to be on your side

I had an ongoing intermittent fault with noise on the line on a large estate where I live.
It was traced to some 1970 aluminium wiring installed when the estate was built which crumbled in the Openreach guy's hands.

I have spoken to a few people who live here with similar problems and to different Openreach engineers who agree the wiring is terrible.

Should the whole estate be rewired, yes ..... will it be, no.

Yes - and that is the problem. Clearly, the wiring on your estate needs renewal but Open Reach don't do it. Then, everyone using the various service providers gets trouble of crackling lines and internet cut-outs and has to go through the hassle of trying to persuade them to call out OR. (They also have the stress of being threatened with a bill if the fault is on their side of the Master Socket).

If Network Rail failed to maintain the rail lines and we had crashes - we would have a national scandal - as we had with Railtrack failing to maintain the system. Due to the fact that nobody gets killed* by failing telephony equipment, Open Reach seem to think that they can just neglect renewal of clapped out wires etc. and only come when faults occur.
(It probably also creates work for them having to constantly renew a wire or box here and there). This is no way to run our main telecommunications system and all the more reason that OFCOM should do something about it.

* Unless an emergency phone call cannot be made.