BEWARE 14 days, 5 different Faults still no resolution.

[dm9256]

On Monday I had Full Fibre installed but the connection was not showing as active by Midnight.

I spoke to an Agent on Tuesday who advised me there had been an internal error and that there was a restriction on my account. I was told this had been resolved and that I would have access within 24hrs.

After the 24hrs I still did not have access. On Wednesday I spoke to another agent who advised that there had been an issue at the cabinet side and that this was 50% through being resolved and that I would have access by Thursday morning.

On Thursday morning I still did not have access. I spoke to another agent on Thursday who advised the work had been delayed and that it was still being worked on. The agent advised that this would be resolved by Midnight at the latest.

On Friday I still didn’t have any access. On Friday I spoke to the WifiExperts Team. They ran through some configuration checks for the hub. Any advised they would need to raise a request for the configuration to be manually pushed through to the hub. They advised this would take 24 hrs and I would receive a text from Vodafone when this had been done.

On Saturday after 24hrs advised. I have not received any text or email form Vodafone to confirm the hub has been reconfigured. And I was still not receiving an active signal on the hub.

Spoke to advisers on Sunday who advised the request that had been raised for the configuration to be manually pushed through actually takes a minimum of 48hrs but can be up to 5 days. I was offered free internet data if we had a Vodafone mobile which we do not and £10 off of my first bill.

Today (Tuesday) I have been advised that the Assets(hardware) themselves are not active on the system. And that a separate request that can take up to 5 workings days will need to be raised. When I asked if this could be escalated as this had been missed by the agent that had dealt with me on Friday. I was told I would need to wait the potential time frame of another 5 working days.

There is no guarantee that when this issue has been resolved that there will not be another underlying issue that has been missed like there has been previously and that I will not have to wait even longer.

Since the Full Fibre has been installed, I have spent at least 12 hours speaking to the various teams on chat. The agents I have dealt with have all been polite and helpful, but the issue still remains.

I have never experienced any issues like this with my previous provider Virgin Media. They offered me a much-reduced deal after I had left them and at this point, I feel like I should just cut my losses and go back to Virgin.

I now feel I’m wasting my time trying to get the issue resolved, only to be told the issue will be resolved in 24hrs and for it inevitably not be. That fact that the issue cannot be escalated after this long and all the different issues feels like the final kick in the teeth.

[dm9256]

Thursday. Day 10.

Today I tried to contact the Social Media team via Facebook.

As I don’t have a Facebook account my son let me use his. Because of this an extra security step was required and a pin was sent to my mobile. The only problem being I had never heard of the number they were sending it to.

I was asked to check my account to make sure my contact number was correct. I did this and could see that my contact number was correct but the number I had never heard of was next to a section on my account marked Mobile Broadband. I don’t have a mobile contract with Vodafone so can only assume this is the number provided for the SIM card that goes into the back up dongle. Because of this I was unable to pass Security with the Social Media Team.

Thankfully I later got a message from one of the moderators on the Community page asking if they could call to try and help. They advised they will raise a complaint on my behalf and would call the Wifi expert team to try and get a better understanding of the issues.

I was then passed through to the Wifi Experts to try and reset the hub again, but it had no effect. My understanding now is that Vodafone don’t think there is any issues on their side that should be stopping me from having access, so they have raised a request with City Fibre to investigate. Because of this I’m assuming the previous requests that I was told need to be actioned (Manually Updating HUB Config & Activating Hardware on the System) have been completed but I’m not certain.

I have been advised that either City Fibre themselves or someone from the Vodafone back office will be in touch when they have more info.

The Community moderator also advised me to follow up with the Social Media team in 48hrs if the issue had not been resolved so they could update my complaint. In all I was just over an hour on the phone and just under 2 hours on Facebook chat.

[dm9256]

Friday Day 11: City Fibre engineers came out and looked at the Fibre box and advised that there were issues as 2 of the lights were not showing. They advised that this should have been raised with them on the 2nd day when I called Vodafone and told them all the lights weren’t showing on the Fibre box.

After examining the cabinet in the street, they advised the fibre cable had split at the cabinet and that they would need to blow a new cable through. Unfortunately, halfway through doing this their equipment broke. So, they left and came back an hour later with working equipment and successfully blew a new fibre cable through. All lights are now active on the Fibre box. City Fibre advised it may take an hour or so for the hub to make the internet connection but that if it didn’t, I should phone Vodafone to advise a new Fibre cable had been put through.

The internet never activated so I called Vodafone who advised it looked like everything was fine from their side and that it may just take a couple of hours for the hub to initialize and find the internet connection.

Saturday Day 12: Unfortunately, it is now Saturday and the internet light on the Hub is still showing as Red. The Wifi Experts Team phoned me this morning, but the line dropped off and I received a text with a number to call back. When I called back, I ended up through to a different team and on the phone for over an hour. I was eventually advised that it still didn’t look like the Hub was active on the system and that Vodafone would need to action something from their side which will take 4 to 24 hrs.

[dm9256]

Sunday Day 13

Spoke to Wifi Experts who told me my account is still not showing as active even though it is showing as completed from the back end system.  They raised another ticket for City Fibre to investigate the issue.  

Monday Day 14

CIty FIbre attended and advised that there is no fault on their end.  On chat with Vodafone again for just under 3 hours.  They Tried all the usual resetting of the hub with me but again it made no difference.  They advised that the Ticket with the Wifi Experts was still to be revied by CIty Fibre and to call the Wifi Experts team again tomorrow.

Tomorrow is my last day with my old provider after which I will not have an active telephone line and will be reliant on the back up wireless dongle for Inernet.  My wife has medical issues, and we are reliant on having internet for her heart monitor to be able send its readings to the hospital for them to monitor her health. 

Despite overlapping our old contract with the new Vodafone one by two weeks so any kinks would be ironed out, I am still without an active Fibre connection.  I have never encountered such a slow response to resolving an issue like I have with Vodafone and this is with me actively trying to chase almost every day to get some movement.  To be fair to CIty Fibre any time the issue has been escalated to them by Vodafone they have attended the next day it just seems to be the Vodafone side where things fall apart.   

Tomorrow will be my last attempt to get it working after which I will be cancelling my Vodafone contract and renewing with Virgin Media who I have never had any prolonged issues with like this.  My time spent on to support teams over the last 2 weeks is now approaching 30 hours.  Yet still no one has been able to get the connection working.