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I ordered the broadband and talk services from Sky for our new home on 15 August. I was given an appointment for installation of 26 September and so waited, without phone or internet, for six weeks. The engineer spent five minutes at the house before saying there was no phone line to the house and he would contact BT and get back to us within an hour. He did not. I then spent many hours over the following three days phoning Sky to find out what was happening. I was told by one adviser that I was a priority case and this would be resolved soon, so I should plug in my broadband router and wait (which I did). Finally, after a wait of around 45 minutes on the phone last week (during which my mobile allowance expired), I was told I would need to wait until 25 October.
When I called Sky I was made to feel as though it was all BT's fault and "we cannot do much about it". I complained again, and after another long wait, I was told the date of installation had been changed. Wonderful, I thought … until I was informed that the new date was in late November. Please help. SG, Lewes, East Sussex
• At the end of August our Sky phone and internet connection went down at home. A few days later we got a letter saying that on 19 September our phone/internet connection would be down for "five minutes – 20 at most". It is now October and we still don't have internet or phone.
We have contacted Sky many times and they keep saying the problem is with the BT exchange. Twice they have sent a text to say the problem is resolved, but it is not. I wrote to the complaints people at Sky, who were very apologetic and promised that once it comes back on they will look at crediting us with our month's subscription. This doesn't even begin to cover the inconvenience and cost of having to access the internet elsewhere for over a month.
My daughter got married in September and for the whole month people were coming to our house from different parts of the world, none of whom was able to use the internet or phone. She couldn't make the final wedding preparations at home and had to go to internet cafes. The inconvenience and subsequent cost has been huge, to say nothing of the frustration. SG, Glasgow
So reliant have we all become on broadband access at home that when it goes down for any length of time it is hugely inconvenient, as these two letters show. Sadly we could feature such stories every week, so many do we get from readers suffering similar tales at the hands of the big telecoms providers.
One of the problems the broadband firms – Virgin aside – have is that they are often at the mercy of Openreach, BT's wholesale arm, which manages the phone network equally on behalf of all the telecoms firms.
When you ring your provider – if your service is supplied via the old BT network – that firm then has to ring Openreach, which is where the problems often, but not always, start. Appointments come and go, and frankly, the way the system is set up is often a mess. Ofcom needs to take a look at the way it is working, as we get too many of this type of letter. Simply getting hold of someone who can deal with your problem has become a Herculean task, particularly at BT.
In fairness to Sky, it jumped into action after we raised these two cases – which is more than be said of the response we get from some other phone companies. SG from Lewes was given a dongle to access the web, and a working line has now been fixed to the home – well ahead of the November date. Meanwhile SG from Glasgow is also now happily reconnected. It seems there was a technical problem that occurred following the switchover from the BT network to Sky's. The company has apologised for the inconvenience caused and offered a goodwill gesture, in the form of M&S vouchers, to demonstrate its "appreciation of your loyalty".
We welcome letters but cannot answer individually. Email us at consumer.champions@guardian.co.uk or write to Bachelor & Brignall, Money, the Guardian, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Please include a daytime phone number.
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