Phone line down since Christmas Eve. Useless support.

[doomlord]

My broadband is fine but the landline has been down since Christmas Eve. I've done the usual tests and tried different handsets etc.

I've rung Now 4 times and they keep saying Openreach are looking into it but I don't have any confidence in the support team. They seem not interested. I asked them what the SLA agreement is for phone lines and he told me to Google Openreach and ask them.

I find it hard to believe Openreach don't work on weekends or bank holidays.

It takes a while to get through to Now support as well. Nearly 30 minutes on Friday!

Really poor experience and after I get compensation I'll be reviewing other options.

[redchiz1]

Any provider that relies on Openreach will be in the same position. 

[RoyB]

@redchiz1 

Really?

I have long suspected that one of the reasons Now Broadband is so inexpensive is that they have a much laxer SLA in place with Openreach than other providers do, which reduces what Openreach charge Now, but means they are able to be much slower when fixing faults.

But surely, you might ask, don’t Openreach have the same SLA with all ISPs?

Apparently not:-

http://www.ashendonparish.org.uk/shared/attachments.asp?f=ff1de166%2D7204%2D42e0%2Da704%2D3a9de053b0...

Q9. In the event of damage to the overhead line what Service Level Agreement will be in place to ensure minimum disruption and speedy repair?

• Each ISP company has their own Service Level Agreement with Openreach for the maintenance and repair of lines from the cabinets to a property. The contracted speed of repair may vary between providers.

Note: It is therefore strongly recommended by the Working Party that customers choose their ISPs carefully and check their Term & Conditions, customer service reputation and suchlike.

================================================================================

What a sensible Working Party this Parish Council has!

And unless the answer provided above is wrong, it would be more than a trifle disingenuous of Now to deflect questions about their SLA with Openreach to what can be found by Googling Openreach.

[redchiz1]

@RoyB SLAs may vary of course, that wasn't really the point I was addressing. More that whoever the ISP is they cannot tell you any more than that Openreach are dealing with it. Ofcom mandated automatic compensation arrangements are standard across providers.

[RoyB]

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@redchiz1 wrote:

@RoyB SLAs may vary of course, that wasn't really the point I was addressing. More that whoever the ISP is they cannot tell you any more than that Openreach are dealing with it. Ofcom mandated automatic compensation arrangements are standard across providers.

---

 @redchiz1 

Yes, I agree that all the ISPs are in that same position, but you were making it sound like there was nothing a customer could do about it.

Whereas a judicious choice of ISP can move a customer from one ISP helpless in the face of how long Openreach will take to fix an issue, to another ISP likewise helpless, but on an Openreach timescale up to twice as fast.

[redchiz1]

LOL clever use of language, "up to twice as fast" i.e. possibly one day quicker, whoopee! Not much use in this case, or any other like it. 

[RoyB]

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@redchiz1 wrote:

LOL clever use of language, "up to twice as fast" i.e. possibly one day quicker, whoopee! Not much use in this case, or any other like it. 

---

  😛

Yes; exactly why I have FTTP, up to five times more reliable than FTTC, and cellular backup provided with 3 minutes, as standard, if it does go down.

Not available for Now prices, though 😢

[RoyB]

@redchiz1 

Further to this:-

https://www.openreach.com/about/our-company/our-performance-faqs
https://www.openreach.com/about/our-company/our-performance-faqs#accordion-content-0635079147-1

We offer a range of service maintenance levels to communications providers. The levels are based on the time we have to fix a fault after the communications provider reports it to us.
 

Service maintenance level 1
The target for service maintenance level 1 is for us to fix a fault by 23:59, two working days after the day a communications provider reports it to us (Monday to Friday, not including public and bank holidays). So if a fault is reported to us on a Tuesday, we must fix it by the end of Thursday.
 

Service maintenance level 2
The target for service maintenance level 2 is for us to fix a fault by 23:59 the working day after a communications provider reports it to us (Monday to Saturday, not including public and bank holidays). So if a fault is reported to us on a Tuesday, we must fix it by the end of Wednesday.

If you want to find out which service maintenance level applies to you, you’ll need to get in touch with your communications provider. (My emphasis).

But even though Now has to go through Openreach, as most ISPs have to do, there’s at least a two-tier system in place. Though if Now aren’t quoting at least level 1 fix times to customers, then those customers are perhaps entitled to ask why not.

[redchiz1]

NOW are effectively offering level 1 based on their compensation provisions i.e. from 3 working days after notification.  

[RoyB]

@doomlord 

Openreach SLAs include Saturdays, so replace ‘weekends’ with ‘Sundays’.

And they do work Sundays and Bank Holidays, for urgent stuff; it’s just that their customer clock isn’t ticking on those days.

[doomlord]

Update:

I have rung them nearly every day as it is STILL not working. Each time I am on hold for between 15 and 30 minutes till I can talk to someone. I had an OpenReach engineer visit booked in for today between 8 and 1pm but when they didn't arrive I rang them and was told the visit had been cancelled as the problem is at the exchange and they have an estimated completion date of Jan 18th.

So nearly a month without a landline. Really poor and I think this is unacceptable. Broadband fine but no dial tone on the line. I understand NOW are just the middle man in all this and I can't rant at them but in all my years with BT I have never had an outage for this long.

[redchiz1]

Sorry to see this, I do hope it gets sorted, please keep us posted. 

[doomlord]

Update 26/1

Still not fixed. Landline not been working since Christmas Eve.

Latest update from Now is that OpenReach will fix the outage on Jan 31. 

They have previously said Jan6, Jan 18, Jan24 and each time they have pushed it back so I'm not holding out too much hope.

I would like to know more details but Now only know what OpenReach tell them and it seems like that isn't a great deal.

[redchiz1]

That's really poor. Console yourself with the thought that you will be due a substantial amount of compensation:

https://help.nowtv.com/article/auto-compensation

[doomlord]

The landline was finally fixed on February 24th.

It was down for 2 months. Apparantly 1200 customers were affected but these would all be from different providers, not just Now. Water Ingress was the issue mentioned.

Now I need to check on the compensation! It's not about the money though. This has caused a lot of inconvenience. OpenReach are at fault but you can't talk to them.