About
I'm the one who answers the phone, and the one who turns up.
I'm Mark Fairbrother. I trained with British Telecom and spent years working on their network before going out on my own, and I've been doing phone lines, broadband and home networks around Stockport and Cheshire for over 30 years since.
That BT training is the bit that still matters. It's the difference between guessing at a fault and testing for one — knowing where to put a meter, how to read what it tells you, and how to work out in ten minutes whether the problem is in your house or out on the network. That answer alone saves people a lot of time arguing with their provider.
The thing people have said about me for thirty years is that I'm neat and tidy. I take it as the compliment it is. Cable gets clipped and hidden rather than draped across the carpet, holes get made good, and the mess leaves with me.
What I won't do
I won't sell you a job you don't need. If your Wi-Fi problem is solved by moving the router two metres, that's what I'll tell you, and it'll cost you a fraction of the mesh system somebody else would have fitted. If the fault is on your provider's side of the master socket, I'll tell you that too, and give you something concrete to go back to them with.
And I won't charge you a call-out fee to come and look. You'll have a price before I pick a tool up.
Where the trade is going
The copper network I trained on is being switched off in January 2027, which sounds like it ought to be the end of a telephone engineer. It isn't. It just moves the work: instead of fixing the line coming in, it's about getting the connection around the house properly once it's arrived — dial tone back through the extensions, cable to the office, Wi-Fi that actually reaches the back bedroom.
Same skills, same walls, same houses. Just a different thing running through the cable.
How it works
Four steps, no surprises
Ring me, or send a photo
Tell me what it's doing. A photo of your master socket or the back of your router on WhatsApp often tells me most of what I need before I've set off.
I come and find out what it actually is
Tested properly, at the socket, with engineer's kit — not guessed at. Half the job is knowing whether the fault is inside your house or on the network.
You get a price before I start
You'll know what it costs and what it involves before I pick a tool up. No call-out charge, and if it's your provider's job to fix I'll tell you so.
Done, tested, and tidied up after
Every socket tested before I leave, cable clipped and hidden where it can be, and the old kit and the mess go with me.
Not sure what you need?
Ring me and describe what it's doing. I'll tell you straight whether it's a job for me, a job for your provider, or something you can sort yourself in five minutes.
No call-out charge · Every day, 9am–10pm