Strange BT problem.

[catgate]

I am on BB with Onetel. I am also with Onetel for my landline phone calls, but, due to inertia, old age and general disinterest I still have my line rental with BT (strange for a Yorkshireman to waste all of 27p per month).

This afternoon our nearest neighbour popped in to ask if our 'phone was off. I said,"No, I'm on the 'net", and went and picked up the nearest handset....which turned out to be dead.

She said that she had tried their BB connection and it was dead (they are on fsnet). She had contacted BT who tested her line, confirmed it was an exchage fault and said they hoped to get it mended before Oct 5th !!

Shortly after the farmer from up the lane also came to see if our 'phone was off.

I went on to BT web site, logged in a fault and got the message back that there was an exchange fault and I could have all calls diverted, free of charge, to my mobile by filling in "the details below". This was fine until it asked for my account number. It would not accept either my BT a/c no. or my Onetel a/c no. So I used a well know northern expression.

Shortly after this I got an email from BT saying

Date reported: 26 Sep 2006

The repair on your line will be started on: 05 Oct 2006

I did eventually manage to get the call diversion up and running by ringing the disembodied zombie bimbos on the "press this for that and that for something else service".

The thing that is puzzling me, other than he wonderment of BT, is how can I get BB and no telephone, when our neighbour can get neither out of the same exchange.

[CurlyWhirly]

The thing that is puzzling me, other than he wonderment of BT, is how can I get BB and no telephone, when our neighbour can get neither out of the same exchange.

One of life's little mysteries

[-pops-]

I recall a few years ago that I had a business line and a domestic line to my home. There was some catastrophic failure of the cabling near my home and the lines went down. After much faffing around trying to get to the correct department to do the repairs I was told that my business line would be fixed the following day (as per their terms and conditions for business telephone systems) but my domestic line wouldn't be fixed for at least two weeks.

The cause of both faults was the same - some twit (not sure that should be an "i" there or some other letter) had cut through the cable during a road digging exercise so both faults were reparable at the same time. Oh no! Within the allotted twenty four hours man arrives, digs up road and repairs the cable to my business phone. Fills in the hole and goes away. Two weeks later, same man appears, digs up road and repairs the cable to my domestic phone (and all the other phones in the cable bundle).

I asked him why he didn't do all the repairs on his first visit. His reply was that he only had a chitty to do the business line repair the first time and that was all he was allowed to do.

Now, I don't know whether this is still the case but it used to be that compensation was payable for each day a subscriber was without a telephone service. Wouldn't it have been better and cheaper for all the repairs to have been done at one visit?