Landline phones dead in street since last Friday

[Bloodshot]

Hi, our landline phone hasn't worked since Friday morning last week. It's not just our house, it also affects other neighbours in our street in the Romford RM7 area.
Mobile phones have been used to contact CS, I don't think sending smoke signals in the back yard will get noticed.

One neighbour was told they would send someone out for Tuesday afternoon - five days later, which we think is an appauling amount of time to wait, (I thought the maximum downtime for this sort of thing was 48 hours???)
To add insult to injury no-one came out Tuesday and it is still dead as of writing, Wednesday afternoon.

{sigh}..Looks like sending smoke signals would have been cheaper -with same result.

Can anyone help?

[Quam256]

It looks like the problem is at the cabinet or pit that feeds the properties in your street.
They dont see it as a problem until a % of calls are made from customers who are affected.
If you call in again you could tell them not all people have access to a mobile phone these days and tell them how many other people are of in your street.
Good Luck

[Bloodshot]

Multiple phonecalls have been made already, each explaining that its not just affecting one customer.

I found out from another neighbour that the phones were dead as early as Thursday evening 15th Feb. It's now a week later and still no sign of an NTL van. Even if it was only affecting the one customer something should have been done by now.

I got this 10meg cable Internet connection that still works (fingers crossed) - is there no way of contacting someone via Email to get this problem sorted before I resort to old fashioned letter writing and send it snail mail - which will mean adding another month of waiting?

I've already sent an Email to the one given here: http://help2.virginmedia.com/assets/...erytype_1.html, but I haven't even had an automated reply from it in 2 days!

I suppose I could just stop paying my bills and wait for someone from Credit Control to try and ring me :P

[dave_dph]

Originally Posted by Bloodshot

I got this 10meg cable Internet connection that still works (fingers crossed) - is there no way of contacting someone via Email to get this problem sorted before I resort to old fashioned letter writing and send it snail mail - which will mean adding another month of waiting?

Do you use newsgroups? Post a message in the new virginmedia.feedback group and the online support techs may be able to help in some way. I don't think they can access the NTL accounts as yet but they should be able to pass the fault on.

[Bloodshot]

Thank you Quam256 and dave_dph for your replies - also vhelper of Virgin Media, who contacted me privately.

The telephone lines are still off. They affect two streets apparently, and the reason is due to the copper telephone wires in the area being ripped up from underground and taken by thieves.

Normally, I would laugh out loud at a story like that....if it were not for fear of the fillings being stolen from my mouth!

Hopefully the telephones will be back on within 24 hours, but due to the copper shortage they're gonna have to improvise with plastic cups and a very long piece of string.

[NTLVictim]

Yep, that's Romford, all right....

[AndyCambs]

Originally Posted by Bloodshot

Thank you Quam256 and dave_dph for your replies - also vhelper of Virgin Media, who contacted me privately.

The telephone lines are still off. They affect two streets apparently, and the reason is due to the copper telephone wires in the area being ripped up from underground and taken by thieves.

Normally, I would laugh out loud at a story like that....if it were not for fear of the fillings being stolen from my mouth!

Hopefully the telephones will be back on within 24 hours, but due to the copper shortage they're gonna have to improvise with plastic cups and a very long piece of string.

About a month or so ago, eighteen miles of cable was stolen from the railway line which runs from Leeds to Doncaster. I was told they thought it was probably ripped up for the copper content - only it was fibre optic cable....

[Quam256]

Originally Posted by Bloodshot

Thank you Quam256 and dave_dph for your replies - also vhelper of Virgin Media, who contacted me privately.

The telephone lines are still off. They affect two streets apparently, and the reason is due to the copper telephone wires in the area being ripped up from underground and taken by thieves.

Normally, I would laugh out loud at a story like that....if it were not for fear of the fillings being stolen from my mouth!

Hopefully the telephones will be back on within 24 hours, but due to the copper shortage they're gonna have to improvise with plastic cups and a very long piece of string.

Glad you have had an answer finally and some sort of time scale ...

[Bloodshot]

Update Friday evening - Some of us in the street suddenly found our telephones working, but after a few call checks realised the numbers they're connected too are not ours!
I hope whoever has my number doesn't have relatives in Australia!