BT have been attacked by Argyll and Bute’s MP, just weeks after parts of Cove lost broadband coverage.
Brendan O’Hara used a debate in Westminster Hall to describe ‘horror stories’ of customers on what he called the ‘wild west coast of Scotland’.
Last month some residents in Cove lost broadband for two weeks, with a succession of messages that the problem had been fixed turning out to have been untrue.
Several people were unable to work from home, and Duncan Farquhar of Shore Road said he had had to carry out some of the work himself, despite two visits by the company’s engineers.
“Damn right we are angry,” he added: “A new cable was run from the outside of the house to a junction box in the attic – which I had to do because the engineer was not allowed to go on an unfloored area of the attic for health and safety reasons.”
In the London debate on BT service standards, secured by Caroline Nokes, the MP for Romsey and Southampton, Mr O’Hara said his inbox was bulging with complaints about BT.
“What is happening elsewhere in the United Kingdom is magnified many times over in rural Scotland, particularly in Argyll and Bute,” he said.
“My biggest concern is on the roll-out of broadband. Although I fully support the fantastic Scottish Government initiative to roll out broadband across rural Scotland, BT is all too often a stumbling block to that progress.”
He added that a lack of connectivity was the single biggest barrier to reversing the population decline in Argyll and Bute.
We were affected, along with 2 of our neighbours in Kilcreggan. Our broadband was down from 12th to 24th February. We were repeatedly fobbed off and lied to by BT’s so-called customer service who are obviously not UK based. I am self-employed and rely on my email for work. I had to resort to travelling in to Helensburgh to use free Wi-Fi. I will be seeking compensation from BT for loss of service and out-of pocket expense. I am not holding my breath.
in 2013 on the day of a storm, our lines and neighbours lines were taken down by fallen trees. after 3 weeks of getting no answers from BT when repairs would be made. I sent a e mail using a BT fon connection, to the
then CEO of BT. Within hours a engineer was there and the lines were fixed.Sometimes you need to go to
the top of the food chain to get things fixed.
Indeed. I did a similar thing emailing BT’s Director of Customer Services. This led to us being allocated a contact in the UK who took ownership of the issue and saw it through to resolution. However, we are still experiencing short Broadband “outages” of up to 10 minutes. Is anyone else having this problem?
The problem is that BT is another privatised company operating a near monopoly in the spine network that’s first and foremost priority is to make super profits. Freed of any real regulation this company stifles development in rural areas destroying jobs and livelihoods. This recent failure in Argyll is typical of the poor service BT gives and of course it was only a month or so back when half of Skye had no broadband. Time the SG had power to regulate these behemoths.