BT customers left without phone lines for a fortnight (From Daily Echo)
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Residents in Southampton's Freemantle area left without phones because of fault caused by flooding
11:34am Saturday 19th January 2013 in News
By Michael Carr, Reporter
Barry Callaway, John Fitzsimmonds, The Rev Brian L Cox-Rector, n By Michael Carr michael.carr@dailyecho.co.uk Pat Calloway, Freda Payne, Fred Hunt and Alan Hacker
RESIDENTS living in a Southampton street have been left without a phoneline for more than two weeks.
BT say they have received 250 reports of faults in Paynes Road, Freemantle, which have developed due to flooding.
Because of this people connected to BT in the area have been left without their landlines and Internet since December 29.
Freemantle Academy Primary School has redirected its landline to a mobile to deal with calls.
Resident Pat Calloway, 70, has contacted BT numerous times and written two letters. She was given two different times for the lines to be back but each time her landline was still dead.
She said: “There are some people here who don’t have mobiles and for them their landline is a lifeline. What if the doctors wanted to call them, or their family?”
The problem has meant that Robert Shannon, 54, from Blackfield has not been able to call his mum Joyce Purkess, 98, who lives in Lake House.
He said: “The landline is really important for her as she does not use a mobile and this is the first year I was unable to call her to say happy new year.”
Local city councillor Jeremy Moulton, who represents the Freemantle ward, said he is concerned that those affected have not been given enough information.
He said : “These people have been getting the runaround from BT and I feel that BT’s response has been very slow, they should not be leaving the elderly hanging without information.”
BT said that because of the flooding they will have to replace more than 100 metres of broken cable, and expect that repair work will carry over until the end of the weekend before the service is restored. The repair work will involve a lane closure at Western Esplanade.
A spokesman from BT said: “We do apologise to customers for the inconvenience. This is a complex fault to fix and we totally understand people’s concerns and take loss of service for our customers very seriously and we are working as quickly as possible to restore service.”
Comments(16)
southy
says...
1:59pm Sat 19 Jan 13
Paul in Brisbane
says...
2:27pm Sat 19 Jan 13
loosehead
says...
2:47pm Sat 19 Jan 13
my brother came around & said why aren't you answering your phone I said when you phone me I will he got his wife to call me whilst he was there & no call came through.
went to his house & BT told me they knew about it but didn't think it was urgent & with no competition I was stuck with them.
Why does Southy & others seem to think everything was smelling of roses under Nationalisation?
We all know it wasn't
southy
says...
3:06pm Sat 19 Jan 13
The only time when the phone service was bad was just after the break up off the GPO, and part of it became Telecom the running down of the service getting it ready to be sold off.
southy
says...
3:12pm Sat 19 Jan 13
richieroo
says...
4:17pm Sat 19 Jan 13
loosehead wrote:Here, here!. Quite frankly I'm getting sick & tired of the same old illiterate rambling waffle from southy whatever the topic is!.
Before it was privatised I wasn't getting any incoming calls for three months thought I wasn't needed by my Rugby club.
my brother came around & said why aren't you answering your phone I said when you phone me I will he got his wife to call me whilst he was there & no call came through.
went to his house & BT told me they knew about it but didn't think it was urgent & with no competition I was stuck with them.
Why does Southy & others seem to think everything was smelling of roses under Nationalisation?
We all know it wasn't
Soton1973
says...
5:08pm Sat 19 Jan 13
!! Rant over......for now.
loosehead
says...
5:43pm Sat 19 Jan 13
southy wrote:Sorry but your really living in this Nationalised dream world aren't you?
will also point out to loose that up to mid late 70's only about 1 home in every 300 homes had a phone in the home, the end of the 70's and the beginnng of the 80's see this changing to more homes having a phone in the home and had drop down to 1 in every 10, and by the time it was getting put on the market to be sold most homes had a phone.
look at the Eastern Germanies cars under Communist rule ( state owned companies) they were total crap.
We all know that GPO was being supported by BT so real investment in BT couldn't go as far as it could so Sorry next you'll be saying British Leyland was making a profit?
IronLady2010
says...
8:02pm Sat 19 Jan 13
Openreach service all the lines wether it be Sky, TalkTalk, BT etc.
If it floods somewhere that would have a knock on effect for all Companies wouldn't it? This must be a computer error on BT's behalf?
Each phone supplier is only responsible for the line inside the home, Openreach are responsible for the line outside of the home.
This doesn't make sense!
loosehead
says...
9:06pm Sat 19 Jan 13
IronLady2010 wrote:If I'm not wrong BT run an automated switchboard in Church Street could it be that water got into the system there?
I find it hard to believe it was only BT that went down.
Openreach service all the lines wether it be Sky, TalkTalk, BT etc.
If it floods somewhere that would have a knock on effect for all Companies wouldn't it? This must be a computer error on BT's behalf?
Each phone supplier is only responsible for the line inside the home, Openreach are responsible for the line outside of the home.
This doesn't make sense!
as you were saying it can't be the cables or even the little green boxes as yes Sky & other suppliers use BT's lines?
I wonder if they've told customers when they're switching them to Fibre Optic cables?
Sky tried to get me back & they informed me BT was doing that in this city?
Vonnie
says...
9:06pm Sat 19 Jan 13
That sounds a bit more like it. If it was flooding only, then other companies would be affected, as Iron Lady has said.
It is no good people shouting at the engineers and lower staff. It is the ones in the middle and at the top who make the decisions.
IronLady2010
says...
9:20pm Sat 19 Jan 13
Openreach own and service the Network, Bt, Sky and the other rent the lines serviced by Openreach.
If one Network fails they all fail, unless it's a computer issue at the Network end.
We have an exchange at Portland Terrace and Broadband at Queensway, so this is purely a BT error and not a network issue.
Dusty
says...
6:17am Sun 20 Jan 13
Saying that though, i switched to sky for everything, best move i made. Better broadband, cheaper and free calls to a lot of countries around the world.
loosehead
says...
8:17am Sun 20 Jan 13
Dusty wrote:I made a mistake & w3ent to Virgin & I'm stuck until the 28th Febuary
How can anyone compare the GPO, that had to deal with a very very basic infrastructure of copper wire, with today's technology of fibre optics, broadband, tv, phone service all down one line. Get real
Saying that though, i switched to sky for everything, best move i made. Better broadband, cheaper and free calls to a lot of countries around the world.
Torchie1
says...
11:41am Sun 20 Jan 13
southy wrote:The good old days of Telephone Exchanges with rows of girls sat at switchboards ready to connect the two parties. Booking calls to overseas destinations in advance so that you could pay £1.00 a minute to talk to the US and hopefully hear what was said on a crackly line. Expensive Local and Trunk calls that deterred you from chatting on the phone and never knowing when a strike would affect the system. It's all gone downhill since then and now most of your calls are included in the Line Rental charge if you still use a land-line, the connections around the globe are instant and crystal clear. Free connection to your Mobile number if your line is down, courtesy of BT and no need to have Linesmen sat around drinking tea waiting for the next job to come in. That old socialist nostalgia for museum conditions, it isn't what it used to be.
It was a lot better, the old GPO keep it phone service up to date all the time, those that could afford a phone had not real perblems with BT, if they could not repair the fault with in hours you have a note push though your door, even though the very bad winters of the 60's they kept onto of things, I remember the Dec 67 blizzard it brought down phone lines every where in Southampton and the blizzard had finished they where out repairing and by the end of the next day all the repairs had been done, but then they did have the right amount of front line staff to be able to compleat all the repairs fast, not like now under staff and will take a few days to get done.
The only time when the phone service was bad was just after the break up off the GPO, and part of it became Telecom the running down of the service getting it ready to be sold off.
Dresnez says...
12:45pm Sat 19 Jan 13
Still private sector drives down prices and drives up standards for the consumer giving better value, so the Tories tell us, so that must true mustn't it?