The Saturday Ishmael: 12/08/2023

 The good news is, Mrs Ishmael, said Christy, the Open Reach Engineer, with a big, bland smile on his big, bland face, the good news is that you now qualify for Fibre.

But you turned me off. On the 10th July. I stumbled out of bed and into the kitchen, poured myself a cup of ambition and logged on. Or failed to log on. Nothing. Thought it was my ancient, decrepit laptop, talked nice to it, got it to self diagnose - but nothing. You are not connected to the internet. Yes, I know. Eventually realised that the nice blue ring on the BT Hub was a nasty, hellish ring of Red From Hell, and my poor old laptop had not a snowball's chance in the aforementioned. So I tried phoning BT. No signal.

"I do apologise for that," said Smiley Christy, "but I am Open Reach, not BT, and here I am, ready, willing and able to connect you. With Fibre."

Not to be distracted from my grievance, I snappily rejoindered: "And my mobile phone provides a signal like Gary Lineker eating Crisps into a microphone, interspersed with sudden silences. I howled down the mobile phone to a very apologetic BT Call Centre Flunky: You turned me off! Turn me back on again!" "Sorry," said Flunky, "It seems to be a very bad line, could you repeat that? I went into the garden, where it was raining heavily, "Is that better?" "We can't turn you back on again, I do apologise for that, but I'll book an Engineer visit for next Tuesday." 

Smiley Christy told me, with the air of imparting a business secret: "Your provider is E.E. isn't it?"

"How do you know that?"

"See that cruise liner in the bay over there? The one with the sixteen decks of passengers? 

Three cruise ships a day, seven thousand people, all on their mobile phones, using International Roaming on E.E. The local infrastructure can't handle it. Swamps it. The only way to get a signal is to drop down to 3G if your phone setting allows it. Which it usually doesn't. I do apologise for that. I'll just pull through the Fibre into your house and we'll have you up and running in a matter of minutes. I'll pop down to the Cabinet and set it all up."

After a couple of hours, Smiley Christy comes back, with an older man, Dour Derek, introduced as his supervisor, called in because they've hit a snag.

" I do apologise for this, mrs ishmael, but there's nothing we can do for you today. It seems that BT have made a mistake with your order, which is for Copper, not Fibre. We can't install Copper as your house is designated Fibre. The Copper order needs closing down, before a new order for Fibre can be actioned. We will close down the Copper order - give it a week, then you phone BT and put in an order for Fibre."

At that point, I still thought indignation, a just cause, tears and paying my bill monthly by Direct Debit might affect the outcome, but after I slowly petered out, in the face of Smiley Christy's apologetic understanding and sympathy, I asked pathetically, "You will come back, won't you? To set up my Fibre?"

"Of course, mrs ishmael, I can see you are a Vulnerable Customer. I will do everything I can for you. I will Prioritise you. Just you wait a week and phone in your new Fibre Order."

Whist waiting a week, I went round Tesco and spent an hour or so with the Tesco Mobile Phone man, who wanted to lease me a phone with EE, but I held firm, explained about the liners, and designated O2 as the provider. After the Tesco Mobile Man battled on his laptop for about a century or so, he emerged, looking at me suspiciously, clearly having revised his opinion of me - I was now a dodgy prospect as the computer had said No. "The only way we can do this, is for you to buy this phone, then purchase a Rocket package. There's a problem with your postcode." "Anything", I moaned, desperate to get out of the little cell in the corner of Tesco in which this man was doomed to spend his days and which had broken me in a matter of two hours of trying to effect a purchase. The new phone is great, by the way - but you have to prod at the onscreen keyboard and resist predictive spelling, which is tough for a touch typist and grammarian, like me.

After the week was up, I phoned BT as instructed and spoke to a very nice girl, 

who told me that she could see that the Copper order was being closed down, by Open Reach, but she couldn't put in a Fibre order yet because Open Reach systems hadn't concluded and they can't access the same systems, so wait three days and phone back.

So I did. When I phoned back, I placed my Fibre order and was told that I would be sent a hub and two digital phones. Its ok, you sent them before. Don't bother. No worries, she cheerily replied/rejoindered, you can always send them back in the special envelope we will send you.

Smiley Christy came back, pulled through the Fibre, set up the Hub, and said "All good. You will really enjoy your Fibre. Superfast, just the job for on-line gaming. All set to go live on Thursday."

Of course, it didn't go live on Thursday. So I phoned on Friday.

"Ah, yes. I can see on your account that your order has been put on Freeze/Hold."

Wondering at what point would they have told me I was freeze-dried, and beyond despair, I asked why, for the love of all that is holy?

"There's a problem with your post code. The address attached to this account does not appear on the Royal Mail Post Code Finder. We cannot process the order until we have a valid address."

"But letters and parcels are delivered to my house. My post man is very nice. We have a little game, in which he hides my parcels when I'm out, in the shed, or coal bunker or wheelie bin and my job is to find the parcel before dustbin day."

"What can I do?"

"Contact Postcode Finder"

You can't phone Postcode Finder. You have to complete an on-line form, setting out your trouble. They acknowledge it promptly, saying they require 7 working days to sort you out. They were a wee bit quicker than that, but the response was not at all helpful. They are dependent on external businesses updating their data bases with current addresses.

So I contacted the Council and the Land Registry and discovered, after all these years, letters and parcels, an alternative postcode for the address.  Then I phoned BT with the correct postcode.

This morning, completely unexpectedly, as silently and mysteriously as it was turned off on the 10th July, my connection went live.

Openreach Limited is a company wholly owned by BT Group plc, that maintains the telephone cables, ducts, cabinets and exchanges that connect nearly all homes and businesses in the United Kingdom to the national broadband and telephone network. It was established in 2006 following an agreement between BT and the UK's telecoms regulator, Ofcom, to implement certain undertakings, pursuant to the Enterprise Act 2002, to ensure that rival telecom operators have equality of access to BT's local network. (Wiki)