[Louise Gaunt]

I am just back on line after 11 days with no internet! A tree came down and took out the overhead phone line to us and the other 7 houses up our lane. It caused chaos! A walker found the line down, called the police (?), the highways agency ( we are up a private road), and western power. Several cars were stuck the other side of the blockage, including my OH. He informed the police it was the phone line, not the electricity cable, came home and got his chain saw and with a neighbour removed the trees and blockage. BT came out, said yes the line was broken, they couldn't report it, we had to. Fault reported, BT came 5 days later, couldn't fix it as this engineer was for domestic faults! He reported it as urgent, 6 days later we finally had it fixed! I have missed all the daily chatter on here, and am glad to be back,in the modern world again, especially as we have almost no mobile signal here as well!

[SallyintNorth]

Been there, got that t-shirt!

Glad you're back 

[Womble]

Yup! Our phone line blew off the pole, and was hanging two feet above the road outside.  BT sent an engineer out within the hour, who said 'wow, that's a bit dangerous', cut the cable and coiled it up neatly out of harm's way.

It took us another two months to finally get reconnected! 

[Cosmore]

Yup, BT = Blinking Troublesome!

[pgkevet]

When the line came down with trees a couple of winters back the local farmers clearing the road fixed it themselves. About 6 mths ago it broke near my place when a tree was being felled and I patched a section in myself.
3 weeks ago we had a line failure that I couldn;t find locally..and BT did fix it about a week later and this last week we had the line go down again.. different place.. which was fixed yesterday. All have been tree related.
Whether I get some sort of slight priority i don't know .. but this is a mobile dead spot and when reporting the fault I do remind that it's our only contact with emergency services. Oh and it's 20 mins to the nearest working callbox.. the one only a mile away is still out.

[SallyintNorth]

Oh yes - good tip.  If you tell them they can't divert you to a mobile as you have no mobile reception, I think they prioritise you

[Kimbo]

I must remember that tip as we are also near the bottom of BT's list of priority areas.
When we moved here I foolishly contacted them to ask whether superfast might be coming here. In fairness, and before you all laugh your socks off, I was prompted to make that call by the poster on our  BT cabinet ( 2 miles away).
Well once the BT telephonist had stopped laughing she just said "Nooooooo!" 

[SallyintNorth]

I must remember that tip as we are also near the bottom of BT's list of priority areas.
When we moved here I foolishly contacted them to ask whether superfast might be coming here. In fairness, and before you all laugh your socks off, I was prompted to make that call by the poster on our  BT cabinet ( 2 miles away).
Well once the BT telephonist had stopped laughing she just said "Nooooooo!" 

Been there too.  Got three of those t-shirts!   

[Womble]

Oh yes - good tip.  If you tell them they can't divert you to a mobile as you have no mobile reception, I think they prioritise you

And IIRC if they can't set up a divert, they have to start paying you some fairly hefty compensation after so many days without service. If they DO set up a divert though, you're entitled to nothing, so be careful what you ask for!!

[Bionic]

Been there, got that t-shirt!

Glad you're back 

Yep. us too

[Rupert the bear]

oooh dont start me on internet! a couple of years ago we lost phone and internet, so called BT  man comes out says if the fault is on your side of the box it will be ££'s , any way after checking the house wiring all 2 ft of it he announces that he cant to a line check as there is no connection to the exchange,so Sherlock tells me he will report this to Openreach and off be buggers. Our mobile signal is pants so I used free wifi in Peterhead for emails, this entails parking out side the local prison as it has the best signal.
So the following week end I followed the phone line ( its just an armoured cable laying on the verge ) and lo and behold  a mile down the road there is a join , the wires have come apart and the plastic bag covering it had shredded in the wind. QED the fix takes all of 5 mins and a bag for life .
I rang from home the faults number and reported the location and that I had made a temp repair.
They were not happy, anyway temporary repair was made permanent a year later 
On the upside no online purchasing for a few days   

[Lesley Silvester]

We were without internet and phone recently for a week. Nothing to do with cables coming down. Our neighbour had her hedge cut and the person doing the job cut through the cable which seems to wind through the hedge. OH told them we are both disabled and get a very poor mobile signal so they made us a priority - five days later...

[claire]

glad you got connected back up, I feel totally isolated if I'm without internet or mobile. no problems here with either now I'm back in civilisation.

[john and helen]

looks like i am having problems getting a connection..the pole is in my hedge...