EVER since we moved our internet account from BT to EE a few months back we’ve become used to losing all internet connection for part of the day

At first it was irksome - especially as we’d signed up to a TV deal which relied on the internet but we soon kicked that into touch and returned to the far more reliable and cost effective comfort of Sky.

For the first few weeks I spent many hours speaking to various less than helpful helplines where operatives sympathised and made all the right ‘bless you’ noises, promised to ‘sort the problem once and for all’ and did absolutely nothing.

Eventually they decided the issue was that we ‘didn’t sign up’ for full fibre broadband. I explained I had been told the facility wasn’t available in my postcode pointing out I had added to the cost of my monthly bill to guarantee the speed and reliability of my ‘outdated’ copper wire service.

Suddenly last month a miracle occurred and I was told excitedly that I could now have full fibre and an engineer would call as a matter of urgency to set it all up and bring my internet woes to an end.

As I headed off to work on the appointed day I felt confident that when I arrived home it would be to full fibre heaven…it wasn’t.

“Apparently the engineer couldn’t get the wire high enough to fit the required parameters,” explained the housemate.

“Which means?” I asked

“Which means they have to send a surveyor out to see if they can use longer ladders or if we’ll need scaffolding.”

“You’re going to need scaffolding,” announced the ‘more experienced’ engineer who was dispatched a week later.

“The ladder will be too steep if we try to put it up here,” he added sucking his teeth, which I think is the engineering equivalent of the helpline’s ‘bless you’.

“I could ask our neighbour if you could put the ladder on his path and access it that way,” I suggested.

“Oooh no,” he replied almost sucking the enamel off his teeth in horror. “It would be far too unstable to do that.”

“So you can see my dilemma?” I said to the umpteenth helpline when I phoned to query the excessive bill I’d seen sent for a service I’ve yet to receive.

“So far I’ve had barely a day with full internet, you’ve charged me for a television service I cancelled before the end of the cooling off period and you’ve failed to honour the compensation I was promised last month.”

“Oh bless you.I can see you’re not happy,” he said, somewhat understating my mood.

“The problem is, I can’t actually discuss this with you because you have an open order on your account for full fibre broadband which isn’t being installed until Monday.”

“Notwithstanding the utter idiocy of not being able to discuss how much money they’d already taken from my account because they planned to take some more, I agreed to a delay.

“But I will expect a call from you at 10.30 on Tuesday to discuss this.”I said

“I promise you’ll get that call,” he said.

On Friday the full-fibre installation was postponed until August….it’s midday on Tuesday and I’m still waiting for my faithfully promised phone call.