The complaint:

The complainant contacted the TIO in late 2004 saying that his phone line had intermittent hissing, which was so bad that he could barely hear callers. He required the phone in case he needed to call an ambulance for his wife, who had recently suffered a stroke. The complainant was registered as a Priority Assistance customer with the phone company. He said that after several attempts to rectify the problem, the phone company’s technicians told him that a length of cable in his street had corroded. He was advised it would take 10 days to be repaired. The complainant advised that his mobile reception at home was poor and he was unable to connect to the internet.

TIO response:

The TIO referred the customer to a senior level of complaint resolution at the complainant’s phone company. Despite this, the complainant returned to the TIO, which decided to investigate the complaint formally. The phone company advised the TIO that despite the existence of the corroded cable, the complainant’s phone was a workable service. It said that the customer’s call patterns were similar before and after the fault was reported “with very few short duration calls that could be linked with call drop-outs”. It said the internet connections were also consistently uniform before and after the fault was reported with some up to 10 hours long. In recognition of the seriousness of the complainant’s wife’s condition, the phone company provided him with an interim phone service in the middle of 2005, almost six months after he had complained to the TIO.

The outcome:

As a goodwill gesture, the phone company gave the complainant two months free broadband access. The company said that as the complainant’s telephone line was workable, he was not eligible for payments under the Customer Service Guarantee. The customer accepted the phone company’s offer and decided not to pursue the matter.