Connection woes continue for Argyll BT customers

FOLLOWING last week’s story of an Advertiser reader who was without broadband or a landline for five days, another reader from Furnace has contacted the paper with his BT woes.

The customer has now been without broadband since the beginning of August, with a lightning strike also resulting in a month of being disconnected in May.

The reader, a former BT engineer, said he had contacted BT on several occasions but that his wifi had still not been restored.

The BT customer said: ‘I have had to come to Lochgilphead to transfer money from one bank account to another. Because I don’t have wifi I have to drive a 30-mile round trip which costs both money and time.

‘It seems BT cannot grasp the importance of being connected when you live in a rural area.’

The customer said four engineers had called at his home since May and he had logged his complaints through four different call centres in four different countries.

A BT spokesman said: ‘Following a period of lightning strikes in Argyll, Openreach engineers replaced around 100 metres of damaged cable and an internal phone socket connecting the customer’s line.

‘Lightning damage can be difficult to repair as it often requires painstaking work to replace many sections of cable or exchange equipment and the damage can appear after the initial strikes, often weeks or even months later.

‘Engineers are working on a new solution involving changing equipment at the exchange. We are in touch regularly with the customer and we expect to restore his service very soon. We’re very sorry for any inconvenience.’