A family's Christmas was "ruined" after their TV, internet and phone were cut off after a update by service provider Sky.
The festive blackout was a total disaster for parents-of-three Andrew and Rhonda Robinson who were left "very very angry" and having to find old-fashioned means of entertaining their restless kids.
The couple, from Dunston, Gateshead, near Newcastle upon Tyne, were forced to buy a disposable mobile phone to use in the house.
The family's three mobile phones are all on Sky packages and use the Wifi to boost their signal but with the internet connection cut off none of them could use their mobiles at home, reports the Newcastle Chronicle .
Andrew and Rhonda said they even resorted to emailing the company's chief executive after repeatedly "getting told different things".
Nine-year-old son Thomas has severe learning difficulties and relies on access to the internet, with his parents having bought him a new tablet for Christmas which he couldn't use for more than a week until the issue was resolved.
The couple claim they'd initially been told their service was due for a routine update at the end of November, but the changes were beset with faults.
Eventually, they say, the entire package was cut off meaning they lost access to their landline phone, internet and Sky television channels.
And despite apologies from Sky and automatic compensation due to the family, as well as cash to cover extra expenditure, they remain unimpressed.
The provider said the problem was down to an issue with systems at Openreach, which maintains phone cables and infrastructure.
Andrew, who pays roughly £130 a month for Sky Q, broadband, and three Sky mobile phones, attempted to cancel the service and sign up with a new provider but this was left in limbo behind all the requests to fix the initial problems.
A BT Openreach engineer was finally sent out on January 3 to fix the problem, with the family also offered £275 in a 'goodwill gesture' as well as a WiFi hotspot and an offer to refund their mobile packages.
The 34-year-old dad said: "We kept getting told, 'you'll get an update in a week, you'll get it in two weeks'. We kept getting told different things.
"We had got to the stage of emailing the chief executive of Sky's office directly, just to get someone from the customer service team to deal with us.
"It got to the point where we had no internet, no phone - it ruined the bairn's Christmas. He got a tablet for Christmas and he couldn't use it, and we couldn't explain that to him in a way he could understand.
"We are very, very angry."
The dad works in customer relations for Vodaphone, and says he's been particularly unimpressed with the way his complaints have been handled.
He said: "I'm not even bothered about compensation or anything, it's the simple fact that they took the service away and we've got nowhere with them. They are supposed to be a telecommunications provider and there has been very little communication."
A spokesman for Sky said: "We are sorry for the interruption to the Robinson’s services. We have worked with Openreach to get everything back up and running, but we appreciate the festive season is a difficult time to be without their service.
"We’ve supported the Robinsons by covering their additional costs over the period and have compensated them for their disruption too."
