Lost telephone and broadband for shop

[Richard Cole]

New member to ukbusinessforums so hello everyone, i own a retail shop in the Cotswold's.

First day back in the shop after a week off on holiday and within the first hour we lost telephone and broadband and subsequently credit card machine does not work, did all the usual checks and nothing. I have an office and warehouse around 3 miles from my shop so went back there to ring up Talk Talk who are my service provider and was told that it would take up to 48 hours to get an engineer out to take a look, i explained that I am without credit card machine but they did not seem to care and said there was nothing else i could do but wait.

My next thought was to call Cardnet our merchant supplier and get them to talk me through how to use the paper slips to process sales, got to the bit where they said you need to call to authorise and i explained we have a fault with the telephone line and broadband so would be unable to make any calls and mobile phones do not work in my shop and I have to go half way down the high street to get a signal so not really an option either. So can't even use the old fashioned way of doing card sales.

Had anyone else had similar problems? Would i be able to claim compensation for loss of sales whilst the line is out of order, currently about 3/4 of my daily take is via card sales and am just coming up do my two busiest months of the year trade wise, so need to get this resolved a.s.a.p.

If i was a direct customer of BT would i get a quicker response to getting a similar fault fixed in future, i know it won't help with this issue but might switch in future if i know i will get a quicker response to faults and technical issues.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated by one very frustrated shopkeeper!

 

[patientlady]

Hello Richard
I have a meeting with Worldpay tomorrow afternoon. Whilst I cannot answer your questions now, I am happy to ask them about your queries, from there point of view. It might be interesting to hear what they have to say? p/l

 

[Richard Cole]

Hi Patientlady thanks for the reply, my main problem is with the telephone line and broadband, not a lot I can do about my card service provider as I am under contract with them for next 4 years. I don't think any other card provider is going to be that much different to be honest. In the old days before card machines card suppliers gave you a floor limit of say up to £30 and only after that would you need to call for authorisation which would suit me fine as most of my sales are under this amount but apparently all payments have to be authorised these days.

I did look at Worldpay when i was looking for a supplier earlier this year but they could not match the rates i was offered by Cardnet.

If it is going to take more than a couple of days to fix, one option for me might be to piggy back off the next door shop's wi-fi and rent a short term terminal if it is possible to authorise over wi-fi, the other shop has already offered me this temporary service, not ideal but might be a short term fix.

 

[patientlady]

Oh well glad you have at least some sort of short term fix. Hope you get it all repaired quickly. So many businesses seem to be struggling with broadband performance. We are just so reliant on it. Our local pub, which is very rural, has had there telephone and broadband cut off since a lightning strike over 3 months ago ! P/l

 

[Alan]

Do you have a strong mobile signal (4G) if so invest in some 4G backup. You can either do this 'stand alone' ( with something like an Osprey 4G router ) or have it built in to your shop router with automatic failover.

You can get sorted for less than £100.

Personally, as I can't do business without broadband I have ASDL ( over phone line) and Virgin over fibre and also a 4G router backup.

 

[obscure]

Had anyone else had similar problems? Would i be able to claim compensation for loss of sales whilst the line is out of order, currently about 3/4 of my daily take is via card sales and am just coming up do my two busiest months of the year trade wise, so need to get this resolved a.s.a.p.!

I very much doubt it. Any damages will almost certainly be limited to the value of the contract (IE you might get a refund for the days that you were without service). Systems develop faults/fail. It's up to you to ensure you have a back-up plan so your company can function in the event of an outage.

 

[Richard Cole]

Thanks for the reply guys, I guess the compensation was clutching at straws. Mobile signal is just about non existent in the shop and i get a very weak signal when i go out to the street, about one bar. I am with Virgin on my mobile so will check out other providers to see if i can get a better signal / 4g for future use.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Presumably your phone line is run by BT so why not contact them and say the line is dead

Also look for a cause around the shop wires pulled out or something heavy placed on the wires

I understand you are with Talk talk but normally bt owns the cables that run from the exchange to you

 

[webgeek]

Try connecting a telephone to the spot where the line enters the premises (the d-mark). At that point you'll know if it's an internal wiring fault or a fault on the line.

There's a lot of telecoms engineers that will do homers for not a lot of cash and could spend less than an hour at your site and confirm where the fault is and how to raise the fault so as to get the best possible outcome.

If your business is half as dependent on the single source of connectivity as it sounds, I'd strongly recommend ordering a 2nd independent line, with it's own drop from the pole, from a 2nd telecoms provider so that you have resiliency. 15 or 20 quid a month sounds like peanuts for insurance against loss of phone and data like you have now.

 

[Richard Cole]

Cheers Chris and webgeek. I don't think BT will come out directly as i pay line rental to talk talk it has to go through them.

I have just found however a local ex-bt engineer in my area who is coming out within the hour for £70 an hour including call out, so fingers crossed!

I will certainly consider a second line with a second supplier now.

 

[KM-Tiger]

I will certainly consider a second line with a second supplier now.

See if a Virgin cable connection is available. I have both ADSL and cable here.

They both have issues from time to time, but never at the same time.

 

[MikeJ]

A pretty good thread/topic for UKBF would be disaster planning. I know I can get reasonable phone coverage here, so if our internet goes down we can set up a mobile hotspot quickly.

Similarly, I've got everything backed up off site, and have a PC off site that can run our accounts package. Phones are routed through Voipfone, so if the place burnt down tonight we could be operational by 10am tomorrow, albeit a bit more shambolic than usual. I check to make sure backups are working a couple of times per week.

I'm pretty sure there's the potential for something to go wrong that I've not thought of, but I'm pretty sure I've got most eventualities covered.

 

[Edith@TerraNetwork]

I feel for the op. we had roadworks done & the digger severed the phone line cables & a gas pipe I used to have 2 separate broadband supplies, but with the lines severed at the beginning of the road, that would not have helped either, so 3/4G backup sounds sensible. In my case, I was able to relocate for a few days to other premises.

 

[japancool]

The kind of response you will get depends on the SLA that you have with your SP. If you're on a business contract, read that carefully. If you want a faster service, you'll have to pay for it. BT offer different care levels to business customers (or at least, they used to) but I don't think any phone line provider will compensate you for loss of business.

 

[kulture]

I am completely dependent on my phone line. I have an arrangement to piggy back of a neighbour's wifi if my line goes down. I have a wifi range extender in place just for this purpose. I also have a ups connected to my router, credit card machine base, and DECT phone base, so I can keep online during a power cut for a few hours. I use VOIP so I can still make and receive calls. I test this backup once a year. It pays to have a disaster plan.

 

[webgeek]

How'd it turn out?

 

[Richard Cole]

I had an ex-bt engineer come out yesterday who confirmed there is nothing wrong with anything in my shop and that the fault is with the line outside. I also bumped into the ex-owner of the shop and mentioned it to him and he said he had a similar problem a few years back with the line where it runs between two telegraph poles and the wire runs through some trees and the branches had been rubbing on the wires causing it to short. Had a look yesterday and the wires near one of the poles has about 10 feet of wire covered in creepers / ivy so I'm guessing this is probably the cause again, its about 100 yards from my shop and not sure if poles are on private or public land.
I was hoping that Bt would be coming out today but on contacting my service provider, Talk Talk, they initially had no trace of my call reporting the fault and the reference number that they gave me was linked to a previous fault i reported back in July at my office. After demanding to speak to a manger they have booked in an engineer to come out tomorrow between 8am and 1pm, so there is not much i can do but wait.

Mike J, disaster recover plan / thread is an excellent idea, although for this particular fault i'm not sure what else i can do as there is only one way for external telephone wires to come into the shop and if the fault has been caused by overgrown trees having two lines would not solve the problem. I will try and find out who owns the land and keep an eye it and get them to cut back foliage etc before it becomes a problem in future.

As for my own disaster recovery plan, my office is located a couple of miles away from my shop and i back up my accounts to an external hard drive which i then upload a copy of my accounts on to my laptop at home, so that at any one time I have three copies of my accounts.

Still trying to find a 3g / 4g service provider that will work in my shop, most don't however.

 

[webgeek]

Look at mounting a high gain antenna on the roof or eaves of the building, then cabling down from there as a way of extending your signal.

Pay the landscapers a 20 quid note on the sly and I'm sure that rubby branch will disappear from being an issue A cup of rock salt or ice melt at the base of the tree every few days, for a few weeks, and it won't grow back anytime soon either.

 

[Richard Cole]

webgeek, I don't have access to roof as there is a flat above the shop that the landlord owns and lets just say he is not the easiest persons to deal with, I know he won't even contemplate it.

Just been looking at different mobile phone coverage for my postcode and O2 looks like it might fit the bill, saying good for 2g and 3g inside and outside and 4g o.k but patchy inside, now just got to find someone who uses that network to test it for me or take a punt and get a mobile and hopefully be able to cancel if it does not work.

 

[MikeJ]

Get a PAYG sim?

 

[Richard Cole]

Depending on the outcome tomorrow and if they can fix it there and then or whether they are going to say it will need another team etc. can anyone recommend a short-term pdq rental company, provided i can confirm that i can get a decent mobile signal?

 

[kulture]

Izettle is great for credit cards and does not need a merchant account.

 

[leemason]

If you can get a decent mobile signal somewhere in the building you could look at using some sort of 4G/3G based router to allow Internet access via the mobile signal. That will allow other devices to connect via Wifi or cabled connected and then you can place the router wherever it gets the best signal.

 

[Webbalot]

Sounds like you just need a tech upgrade. Get a card machine that works on mobile instead. We were plagued with BT going down often during our early days when first opening the shop. You can also get paypal card readers for mobile devices as well now.

If your mobile signal is really bad you can get a signal booster for your building (we have one of those too, its great!)

Remember not all devices are created equal, sometimes its your phones fault for having bad signal. I've been in Cumbria for a couple of months and could barely get a signal (I'm talking sometimes not getting a text until hours later), then I bought a new phone and now half signal all the time!

 

[JMack986]

Hello Richard,

We deal with these type of faults on a fairly regular basis. Unfortuantly, whichever service provider you select it ultimately it comes down to the BT Openreach availability to resolve the fault. This is when having a disaster recovery plan really comes into it's own. Here's a few suggestions to take on-board going forward;

1) If your business telephone lines are mission critical consider adding Care Level 3 or 4 to all your WLR lines. This usually costs around £6 per month on top of your rental but guarantees faster response times from Openreach.

Level 3 Report 13.00, clear by 23.59 same day. Report after 13.00 clear by 12.59 next day, seven days a week, including Public and Bank Holiday.

Level 4 Clear within 6 hours, any time of day, any day of the year.

2) If you already have a fault with no WLR care level in place, consider asking your provider to expedite your repair. Their will usually be a charge to expedite but it will help you jump the Openreach queue.

3) As stated above, having some sort of 4G solution or potentially satellite broadband backup. If you choose a business router such as the Draytek 2830 you can set automatically failover. This means should your primary circuit fail the router will automatically failover to the secondary connection. If you have weak coverage consider adding an powered external arial to benefit from a stronger signal.

4) Consider moving to VoIP for your voice services. If you select a business grade solution it should come with reliance so that if the broadband or power should fail it will automatically re-route your calls to a pre-defined backup number. This could be a different landline number or business mobiles.

5) Depending on your business size and budget look to moving to a more resilient service such as an EFM or Leased line.

Ultimately, it helps to choose a provider who truly has your business interests at heart. We can assist with nearly every business communcations from landlines, broadband, pbx, voip, mobiles and more. If you ever want any assistance please feel free to contact me.

Kind Regards

Jon Mack