Mishandled switch to Fibre65: speeds unchanged; land-line inoperative (no. erroneously re-assigned)

[Shandy]

I was a long-time, out-of-contract TT BB customer, overpaying for a legacy non-fibre service. Having initiated a switch to another provider I responded to an approach from TT Loyalty to go back into contract with them. We agreed a deal based on an upgrade to Fibre65, with landline, retained landline number, and a few trimmings.

Some days later I was assured by email from TT that no new router would be required at my premises. I therefore just waited, changing absolutely nothing at the premises. On the day of the upgrade I received emails stating that the agreed service changes had been implemented.

What actually happened was that internet connection speeds at my premises remained about the same, and the landline became inoperative. Things have remained like that for a week. 

During that time I have initiated three on-line connection “tests” via the TT website. Every time, on-screen feedback has declared that there was a fault (although “it” was given a new number with each “test”), and that it was being attended to.

Eventually, I had to face TT Customer Service. The conversation with the TT agent was long and difficult due to very poor sound quality, awful background noise (shouting, etc.) and line delay. One or two important things emerged:

Administratively, at least, I am a Fibre65 customer, although my download speeds of around 10mbps max suggest that this is not the case, operationally speaking.

The TT agent tested my landline, and found it to be operational, but assigned to someone other than me. My phone remains dead.

The landline number in question has been associated with these premises for decades, it's used for private an professional purposes, and is still shown as the number on my TT Account. As stated, retention of this number was part of the deal agreed with TT Loyalty.

I believe that TT have mishandled the switch-over of my service to Fibre65, and in particular have erroneously allowed my long-held landline number to be reassigned; or have even reassigned it themselves. 

I am seeking:
1) Clarity on what has actually happened;
2) Reassurance that my landline number will be restored once network/connection issues are resolved;
3) Reassurance that TalkTalk will address the loss of telephone service, and inconvenience caused by future unwanted telephone traffic or other issues associated with the user who has temporarily had use of my landline number.

I’d be happy to hear from any TT agents on this forum with experience in any of the above issues.

[Karl-TalkTalk]

Hi

Glad speeds have improved, the line issue could be intermittent, but the case is still logged with Openreach for a field engineer to take a look at the line.

Karl.

[Shandy]

Hi Karl, Chris, etc.

Around 2.00 am Saturday 8 April:

A DSL disconnect, followed by a reconnect with a really noticeable improvement.

Since then: far fewer disconnects; none over the previous 40 hrs.

Down speed (when checked in router "DSL Connection Status" panel) a fairly stable 39-40 mbps.

The improvement  seems to have kicked-in quite while before your email was sent, Karl, but I've no idea of the precise timing of events at your end.

I'm hoping this is the new normal.

[Karl-TalkTalk]

Hi Shandy,

A line test is still showing an issue on your line.

I've logged this out to BT Openreach for a Non Appointed engineer - Non appointed means the engineer will be dispatched to look at the line without requiring an appointment be made with you to visit your property.  

Thanks

Karl.

[Shandy]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the charge back.
Does that mean you accept my account of the engineer's visit?

Re. charges for engineers’ visits:
The TalkTalk agent who booked my visit of 14 March did not provide me with a link to the detail about the charging rules. Had they done so, I would have had to read them and make a decision whilst the agent waited on the line. Not very practical.
On this forum, a link to the charging rules was first offered to me by another TalkTalk customer, then later by yourself , only after I raised the issue of being unfairly charged. The proposed engineer’s visit of 14 March had been discussed in multiple posts (11-03-23; 12-03-23; 13-03-23), yet no TalkTalk representative posted a link to the charging rules at those times.

Re. unanswered questions. Here, for example, is part of my post of 04-04-23:
"Can you please confirm the following:
Q2) That TalkTalk’s own monitoring systems and their own Customer Service agent showed that my service was faulty in precisely the ways reported by me between 2 - 14 March;
Q3) That I did not receive the full Fibre65 service as per contract until 14 March (the day of the engineer’s visit booked by TalkTalk);
Q4) That my Fibre65 service only briefly attained full function (immediately after the engineer's visit of 14 March) and has since fallen below minimum standards set by TalkTalk;
Q5) That I have not, as yet, enjoyed the service promised; either at all (2-14 March) or consistently (14 March to date), and should be able to withdraw from my contract without penalty."
It's quite obvious that these questions have not been answered. To answer them, my call to the Customer Service agent (10 March) would need to be traced, and a more detailed engineer's report acquired. Please don't bother with them now, especially if TalkTalk policy, one way or another, prevents their being answered.

Regarding the major fault addressed on 14 March:
You repeat the same information about positive 'line tests'. Would such tests reveal anything about the fault in question? To reiterate, yet again: the integrity of the copper line to my premises has never been the problem, but my landline was misconnected at a street cabinet for about 2 weeks. The fact that calling my landline number gained a response from apparatus in premises other than mine was confirmed by a TalkTalk Customer Service agent on 10 March. TalkTalks's chosen response remains one that does not acknowledged the existence of a major fault, and avoids the issue of liability for poor service.

I originally posted here just to try to get a service that was promised. Obviously, I've been drawn into secondary arguments about good-faith and liability, and I'm sorry about that. It's a waste of time trying to counter TalkTalk policy on a TalkTalk forum, and I need to take my concerns elsewhere in order to do that.

The Fibre65 service I’m receiving is still poor.

Currently:
There don't appear to have been any disconnects for about 39hrs; download speed at the router is 18mbps: still well below the guaranteed minimum for Fibre65.

Regarding another engineer's visit:
Again, I urge TalkTalk to establish a reliable Fibre65 service by any means it deems fit.
If TalkTalk agree that I will not be liable to pay for the visit any circumstances, by all means send another engineer.
Please let me know how TalkTalk wish to proceed.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Thanks for the information 

Regarding the questions, I thought I'd already answered them. The engineer reported that there was no fault, I gave you a link to the engineer charges help article to clarify when a charge would and wouldn't be applicable and I confirmed that all line test have passed except the last one that I ran on the 3rd

The line test do show that the sync speed was low prior to the engineer visit though so I've credited the engineer charge back to you.

If you'd like me to book another engineer please let me know.

Chris

[Shandy]

Hi Chris,
I have given accounts of the engineer's visit twice already on this thread ‎(14-03-23; 01-04-23). Additional to those:

Report on OpenReach engineer's visit, 14 March 2023:
I remained in the room with the OpenReach engineer whenever he was at my premises, and he talked me through his work. After some initial tests he stated that signal at the existing NTE was very strong, indicating that the line between the NTE and the street cabinet where it joined the network was in good repair over all its stages.

It was immediately obvious to the engineer, as it had been to me, that the landline was not connected to any network, no dial tone or any other noise being heard via any handset.

By way of explaining how long he expected to be on the job, the engineer then spoke on his mobile phone to a colleague, saying that he needed to visit a street cabinet to rectify what he believed to be a misconnected phone line (although he did not explicitly attribute the misconnection to an operative from his own company).

The engineer then set up a signal source, attached via crocodile clips to the copper wires entering my premises at the NTE (the signal presumably detectable at the cabinet in question). He asked me not to touch anything, and went to the cabinet to check the wiring. He returned after about 30 mins, saying that the landline had indeed been wrongly connected. I confirmed that it was now restored.

The engineer told me that the misconnection of a landline could be enough to trigger a fault warning in ’the TalkTalk system’ with the result that broadband bandwidth could then be restricted. To anyone carrying out a remote line test it would seem that I was connected to the Fibre65 network. Indeed, it seemed that I had been connected to the network, but with a bandwidth restriction (due to the misconnected landline) that meant I had never enjoyed even the minimum level of Fibre65 service. This made sense with my experience since 2 March: no landline; pre-fibre download speeds.

Finally, the engineer changed the front plate of the old NTE for a more up to date one with integral phone/ADSL/VDSL splitter, although he also stated that there was nothing wrong with the old front plate. I joked that I didn’t mind him upgrading the NTE as long as it didn’t make me liable to pay for his visit. He said it would make no difference, in that respect.

Before the engineer left, I logged on to the router (HG635) as admin, and was pleased to note a download speed of 50mbps, which the engineer observed.

I reported the positive outcome on this forum, but a couple of weeks later I was billed for the engineer’s visit… coincidentally just as the nightly disconnects began, and download speeds dropped.

Between 2 - 14 March a major fault had affected my service, necessitating an engineer's access to my premises, even though nothing was ever wrong at the premises (I stated my sense that this was the case, on several occasions: TalkTalk insisted that the only way to proceed was via an engineer's visit to my premises). Given the full circumstances, I hope you will agree that it would be disingenuous in the extreme to use the precise location of the fault as a pretext to charge me for this particular visit.

Regarding your post of 04-04-23:
I spent over an hour on a response (also 04-04-23). You have not responded to any of the questions in it. Please do so, if you can.

If those questions were answered clearly and unambiguously then the full situation around my Fibre65 upgrade, the engineer's visit of 14 March would be also be clearer.

Regarding the current diminution of service since 14 March (raised on this thread (01-04-23):
Download speed has followed a downward trend. It’s currently 18mbps; I’ve never seen it above 23mbps since I started checking, and at times it has dropped to 8-9mbps. Multiple disconnects and re-trains (? your term) occur every evening, especially after about 2 am.

I have yet to receive the service promised with my upgrade to Fibre 65 on 2 March for more than 1-2 weeks.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Hi Shandy,

I'm sorry for any confusion with the engineer charges but we don't deliberately bury the engineer charges rules, why would we? When we arrange an engineer visit on the community we always post a link to the engineer charges help article so that customers are fully aware when they will and won't be charged. (Also if you google 'TalkTalk engineer charges', the first in the list is the engineer charges help article)

I've checked all the line test that we've run and they've all passed except the one that I ran on the 3rd

Did the engineer actually tell you that he'd found a fault at the street cabinet and fixed it?

Chris

[Shandy]

I do entirely expect the actual rules to be buried in such a way as to make it unlikely you'd find them until too late.

BTW, in my last post I was sticking to what TT say happened, even though I know it's not the whole story. The OpenReach engineer visiting my premises actually did  find a major  fault:  the line to my premises had been wrongly connected at a street cabinet. Most likely, this would have been done by an(other?) OpenReach engineer supposedly connecting me to the Fibre network two weeks earlier. The OpenReach engineer who visited me failed to put these facts in his report (embarrassed for himself/his company; disincentivised from doing so by unwritten rules of the job? Possibly one of those).

TalkTalk received a 'no fault detected' report, which at a squeak is "true" in that it describes the state of affairs by the end of the engineer's visit, and in relation to equipment at my premises (nothing wrong there), whilst glossing over the fact that a rewire at the cabinet was necessary in order to get the no fault result. And, as if by magic: the customer pays.

Obviously, OpenReach is billing TalkTalk for services, TalkTalk are trying to get their customers to pay for as many instances of service as possible, and all means strictly within the law to protect margins and reputations are deemed acceptable by all parties involved. That's 21st-century commerce for ya.

Thanks for the info, though.

[Gliwmaeden2]

@Shandy, the standard Talktalk guidelines for engineer visits do indicate that you may be charged if no fault is found:

https://community.talktalk.co.uk/t5/Articles/Engineer-charges/ta-p/2207291

It may be possible for Talktalk to track down the phone call where the agent promised it would not be chargeable in this circumstance. 

[Shandy]

Hi Chris,

As stated previously, prior to the engineer's visit of 14 March a TalkTalk Customer Services agent assured me (as part of the booking process) that I would only have to pay for it ‘if any equipment on the premises was faulty due to damage or misuse at the hands of the customer’. The engineer's report (cited by you) at least states that no equipment at the premises was faulty.

Q1) Can you confirm this, and reassure me that I have been wrongly charged for the engineer's visit of 14 March, and that the charges will be reversed?

I accepted in good faith assurances given by TalkTalk on this question. I am now unclear about the basis on which engineers' visits become chargeable to the customer.

Regarding future visits: the engineer’s report you cite (re. 14 March) is not a full or accurate representation of what happened on the day. If I cannot trust an engineer visiting the premises to give an accurate account of what is found and what is done, then I cannot know whether their report will in effect, pass on the cost of the visit to me.

I urge TalkTalk to establish a reliable Fibre65 service by any means it deems fit. However, given recent experience, and short of greater clarity regarding the chargeable status of engineer's visits, I categorically do not accept liability for any costs incurred in so doing.

Can you please confirm the following:
Q2) That TalkTalk’s own monitoring systems and their own Customer Service agent showed that my service was faulty in precisely the ways reported by me between 2 - 14 March;
Q3) That I did not receive the full Fibre65 service as per contract until 14 March (the day of the engineer’s visit booked by TalkTalk);
Q4) That my Fibre65 service only briefly attained full function (immediately after the engineer's visit of 14 March) and has since fallen below minimum standards set by TalkTalk;
Q5) That I have not, as yet, enjoyed the service promised; either at all (2-14 March) or consistently (14 March to date), and should be able to withdraw from my contract without penalty.

I seek assurance on these points because I now feel that my account of events is being passed-over, and perhaps even disbelieved.

I have spent many unpaid hours trying to obtain the level of service promised when I agreed to stay with TalkTalk and upgrade to Fibre65. Issues of trust are now emerging, and I’m starting to feel that I’m wasting my time seeking recourse solely via the means provided by TalkTalk.

At this point I am minded to pass on my documentation of events occurring since 2 March to a consumer telecoms adviser or ombudsman with some legal expertise.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Hi Shandy,

If the connection is dropping and speed slow with the router connected to the test socket then we can arrange another engineer visit to look into this

(I've checked the engineer report for the 14th, it just says that all test passed and no fault found, also says that the NTE was changed although the old one wasn't faulty)

Chris

[Shandy]

Hi Chris,

Yes, the router is connected to the test socket. Until today, it has been exactly as left by the engineer on 14 March. Prompted by  your request to check I unplugged and re-inserted the plug at the master socket: to me, it seemed as if it had been secure, and is so now.

Can you tell me what caused the fault that affected my service from 2 to 14 March (the first 2 weeks of my Fibre65 contract), please?

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Hi Shandy,

Is your router currently connected to your test socket? - Your guide to main phone sockets - TalkTalk Help & Support

I've sent you a PM to confirm some details

Chris

[Shandy]

Hi Chris,

My landline seems fine, but that could just be because I'm not using it when the connection goes down.

Since noticing the breaks in internet connection I have been checking in to the router daily, as admin. Breaks are frequent now: the last about 4hrs ago. Download speed now seems to be consistently around 22mbps.

It's good to know there's a protocol for compensation. However, if it is 'automatic' why are we urged to attend to it ourselves? Why cannot TalkTalk issue automatic notifications to let the customer know that a diminution in service has been logged, and has or has not reached the threshold to trigger compensation? That would be a useful courtesy, and an improvement in service.

Finally, can you tell me what caused the fault that affected my service from 2 to 14 March (the first 2 weeks of my Fibre65 contract), please?

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Hi Shandy,

I can see that Gliwmaeden2 has pointed you to the auto compensation link. Line test is picking up a potential problem and showing a lot of retrains. Are you experiencing any problems with your telephone service, is there a dial tone? Is there any noise on the line?

Chris

[Gliwmaeden2]

The automatic compensation can take a full month to show after the resolution of a fault, @Shandy.

Details in this article:

https://community.talktalk.co.uk/t5/Articles/About-your-auto-compensation-credit/ta-p/2326583

[ferguson]

I have merged your latest topic with your previous one for the benefit of continuity for the support team. They will respond again as soon as they can can when they are back online from Monday. 

[Shandy]

My bad upgrade experience is described fully in my previous thread initiated 10 March 2023: Mishandled switch to Fibre65: speeds unchanged; land-line inoperative (no. erroneously re-assigned)

To recap: after a supposed upgrade to Fibre65 on 2 March 2023 I was left without a landline and with only basic internet connection for around 12 days. An OpenReach engineer finally fixed the issue as follows:

14 March
I stayed in the room with the OpenReach engineer throughout his work, and he reported the results of various tests to me directly as they were carried out. He found that the physical connection and signal to the premises master socket were 'excellent', but it seemed that the phone line was probably mis-connected at a street cabinet.

A visit to the relevant street cabinet confirmed the engineer’s view. The connection to my premises was duly re-assigned to the correct terminal in the cabinet. On the engineer’s return to premises the landline was immediately restored and a BB download speed of 50+ mbps was attained with the existing Super Router.

The engineer stated that the mis-connected landline had likely been interpreted as a fault ‘by TT’s systems’ and as a result of that BB speeds would have been restricted.

Finally, although there was ’nothing wrong’ with my existing telecoms master socket (and it definitely was not the cause of the broadband and landline fault), it was an old ‘BT’ type, and the engineer thought it advisable to replace it with a newer socket, with integral splitter for broadband and landline.

In summary:

First 12 days of my Fibre65 contract (from 2 March):
- No landline
- Restricted BB speeds
- No action from TT until a long call to Customer Services, despite faults showing as “logged” multiple times according to TT’s own customer-facing systems.

Service following engineer visit (14 March):
Service is good for the first 1-2 weeks. By the third week, internet connection has begun to drop out randomly, causing the router to reboot when connection is restored. This usually happens late afternoon to evening, meaning that any internet-reliant processes left running overnight are no longer reliable.

Repeated router checks from the third week (post-engineer) shows a steadily dropping download speed. E.g. on 2 April the router shows:
Upstream line rate (kbit/s): 3194
Downstream line rate (kbit/s): 22399
This is below the minimum guaranteed download speed of 27.2mbps.

Recent bills:

In my latest bill (1-30 April) I have been charge 65.00 for the engineer's visit of 14 March. Before I agreed to the visit it was made clear by a TT Customer Services agent that I would only have to pay for it ‘if the fault is due to any equipment on the premises damaged or misused by the customer’. (It was not).

I do not believe I should be charged for an engineer’s visit that found no fault with equipment at my premises, and which showed that the fault requiring attention was due to an engineering error at a street cabinet dating back to 2 March.

Further:

I experienced 11-12 days without a landline due to the engineering error of 2 March. This loss of an essential service has not yet been referred to by TalkTalk.

Around 2 weeks after an engineer corrected my upgrade mis-connection, download speeds have fallen below the minimum guaranteed for Fibre65, at least from 2 April, and possibly before that.

My internet connection is randomly breaking and re-establishing, sometimes several times in a 24 hour period, usually in the evening.

I would like my current connection and download speed issues to be addressed.

I believe all the circumstances referred to in this post should be reflected in the charges made and compensations given by TalkTalk via the normal billing process.

[Shandy]

1) "A lot of praise"? I was merely acknowledging an instance of good practice encountered along the way to resolving my BB/phone issues.

2) Here's more: the OpenReach engineer seemed well-trained, and approached the problems promptly and intelligently. They were efficient, polite, communicative. They took responsibility. They explained to me what they were doing as they were doing it. They checked all aspects of my line/connection before leaving.

3) My own assessment of my issues could only be based on what TT had told me up to the given juncture (the customer is not allowed to communicate directly with the true source of the services/issues, OpenReach). Based on TT's limited info, the loss of phone line seemed potentially serious, to me. I was alarmed. You (AllyM) suggested on this forum that the issue was likely a simple mis-connection, but you did not declare any particular affiliation or expertise. Up to the point of my posting on this forum, TT had not explained things fully enough to reassure me.

4) TT customers are restricted in their appeals for help because their relationship is with a vendor of services whose delivery is dependent on the expertise of a third party (Open Reach). Even if the customer "knows" that OpenReach may have caused and can probably resolve their service issues, they are unable to communicate directly with them, having instead to enter the vortex of TT Customer Services. TT and OpenReach execs probably call this 'synergy'. From my (customer) perspective, it's yet more administrative clutter, arising from the over-zealous marketisation of all human affairs.

5) To date, neither TT nor OpenReach have officially explained what happened. The TT bot has nevertheless auto-apologised and claimed that "their" engineer has fixed something.

[AllyM]

A lot of praise there for the "excellent" Openreach engineer who fixed the issue, but don't forget that it was clearly a much less than excellent Openreach engineer who caused it in the first place, despite your insistence that "It's obvious that TT have reassigned the number, or allowed it to be reassigned, in error" 

I've been a TalkTalk customer long enough to know that they are far from perfect, but not everything that goes wrong is necessarily their fault.