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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Business
Miles Brignall

BT Openreach has kept me on hold

BT Engineer At Work As Operating Profit Climbs
BT Openreach has spent months promising to connect phone line. Photograph: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty

I ordered a phone line be installed in my new central London house in April. I am still no nearer to being connected. I am in a nightmare situation where BT Openreach (or its contractors) sends an engineer to install it.

The engineer says he cannot do it and it needs a site survey, which he then orders. I get a new appointment, but they just send round another engineer who says there needs to be a site survey. I have lost count how many times this has happened – at least seven.

The house is about 30 yards from the exchange. All that is required is to run a cable to my house. DL, London

You are not the first person moving into a new-build to come up against this problem. You are right that you can’t talk to Openreach – it is the wholesaler that is supposed to provide services to all the phone companies equally – a firm that suffers more than it’s fair share of these kind of negative stories.

Your case was complicated by the fact that you originally placed your order with The Phone Co-op, but then moved to BT. We took your case direct to the firm, and it has now connected you – by running a wire from the exchange.

“Openreach would like to apologise. Our engineers originally believed the installation could be done quickly, but then discovered a large amount of work was needed to install new ducting and cables. This should have been explained to DL’s ISP, with more detail given about our progress,” it says.

We welcome letters but cannot answer individually. Email us at consumer.champions@theguardian.com or write to Consumer Champions, Money, the Guardian, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Please include a daytime phone number

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