Is anyone else in the area experiencing a problem with land telephone line service?   My parents who have a phone through the Bowes telephone exchange have not had a working land line for nearly 3 weeks and not likely to be fixed for another 2-3 weeks.  As you can imagine through numerous calls to non uk call centres we have been given so many conflicting stories about what the problem may be.  It is what they call a common fault and new cabling is required but we have strangely not heard of anyone else affected.  We feel we are being fobbed off and feeling worried (parents are elderly and very reliant on telephone contact). Open Reach seem to be really OUT OF REACH- at least you cannot contact them directly to find out what is going on.  Any advise please?