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M16 Service Outages

AnjiKJ
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I know that O² are doing planned work in this area but a couple of questions:

 

1. The amount of time you've said you're doing planned work here has been extended twice now. For going on a week now, my service has been almost non-existent during the day and often off for significant periods during non-working hours too. Are you going to be refunding customers in this area, given you're not providing us with reliable service? It'd be nice if you covered this in your notification messages too - or are you just expecting customers to pay for service you're not providing?

 

2. How much longer are you actually going to be doing work in this area? I rely on my mobile as a Deaf person and as a Disabled person in lieu of a community alarm - because those are voice services - should I be considering obtaining a SIM for another service provider until you're done? You've stretched the time twice now without giving any reasons why the work is taking so long. More information would be useful.

 

Thanks in advance. 

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MI5
Level 94: Supreme
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@AnjiKJ 

You may get a goodwill gesture once the upgrades are complete, but there is no legal requirement to do so.

O2 will not give timescales for upgrades or repairs as there are many reasons why things can be delayed and a definitive end date would be inaccurate.

If you 100% rely of a telephone for any purpose, you should have a fixed landline as no mobile network is 100% reliable.

I have no affiliation whatsoever with O2 or any subsidiary companies. Comments posted are entirely of my own opinion. This is not Customer Service so we are unable to help with account specific issues.

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O2Jordan
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@O2ElliottCould you please assist

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O2Elliott
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Hi Anjikj,

I am sorry to hear you are still having issues with service in your postcode.

Please allow me to take a further look into this and hopefully get some more information for you.

I will private message you now.

Thanks
Elliott
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Nat_Just_Nat
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@O2JordanPerhaps you should understand that landlines don’t do wireless texting and that what you just said is ableism at its finest. The fact that you presume a landline will automatically sort things is ridiculous. Disabled people can have more than one disability and it’s not always possible to reach your text phone landline if say you have a fall in the bathroom and you’re a wheelchair user. You might want to educate yourself on the reasons people like @AnjiKJ and I rely on our mobile phones.
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Cleoriff
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@Nat_Just_Nat 

Not sure who you are aiming that comment at? @O2Jordan simply asked another O2 staff member, @O2Elliott for assistance??

The private message sent by @O2Elliott to @AnjiKJ would have ascertained the information required to help (even though O2 do not give timescales for mast repairs).

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O2Jordan
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Hi @Nat_Just_Nat 

Are you having issues with your O2 network, if so I'm happy to have a look into this for you.

 

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AnjiKJ
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@Nat_Just_Nat was addressing @MI5 with their comment.

The problem with that reply is this:

 

In my original post, I told you that I'm DEAF.

 

Yet that response was to tell me to use a service - a landline - that is functionally useless to me... because I can't hear well enough to communicate by speech alone.

 

For the record, I do have a landline in my house - for the Internet. I don't have a phone connected to it because landlines are generally for a kind of communication I can't participate in, therefore I don't see the point in paying for a handset that I can't use and don't need 99.5% of the time.

 

Also, the prime technology that existed for Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing people to use with landlines - textphones/minicoms - has basically been made obsolete by, you guessed it, cellular SMS messaging and Internet services like WhatsApp, Skype, or FB Messenger. And in any case, textphones wouldn't be useful in this situation as they're not portable like DECT handsets for voice calls are. If I fall in my bathroom and can't get up, a textphone that is in my living room isn't going to be of much use if I can't crawl there. (Which is extremely likely, given my other disabilities.)

 

The other replacements for textphone technology are the Next Generation Text Service and Relay UK, which are apps that emulate a textphone for PC, Mac, iOS and Android. However, these require a functioning phone line to use. I have both but they are tied to my cellular service so that I only need to carry a single device, meaning that they're basically non-functional at the moment too. Even if it were a simple matter to switch the services to my landline, I'd need a DECT handset that I don't have, and would need to carry both that AND my cellphone around, as the app can't be installed on a landline phone.

 

Also, an issue that affects textphones, NGTS and Relay UK equally; most of my friends are hearing and therefore don't have any of the above, which necessitates the use of the Text Relay service. Anyone who has ever had to use this service will know that sometimes, this service gets busy and a TR operator won't always be available right away - this is especially true during business hours when they're often tied up, holding in queues for ages for other service users. This puts a serious dent in the reliability of these services for me as I could wait some time for a TR op to be available.


And one last point - not even landline services are 100% reliable. Full service outages happen. Since NGTS and Relay UK rely on Internet connections, these are even more unreliable, given Internet outages aren't an uncommon occurrence.

The fact that your answer defaulted to a response that would be appropriate for the hearing majority and didn't consider the differing needs of Deaf/HoH people is what makes it, as @Nat_Just_Nat said, ableist. 

Also, once O2 realised the work was going to take longer than planned, they could have made it clear that they were unsure when it was going to be done rather than just stretching the deadline twice and making it seem like it'd be sorted by a fixed date. I'd have gone and got a PAYG SIM for another network already had they been more clear about that fact. I mean, how hard is it to add, "If you require uninterrupted service for any reason, you may wish to obtain a SIM for another provider"?

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AnjiKJ
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Thank you. I shall check my inbox and get back to you now.
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