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Full Fibre install experience

Rory — Fri, 02 Sep 2022 12:20:05 GMT

Been getting increased “pressure” from BT to switch to full fibre so now some building work has been finished I went ahead.

Appt changed three times and I’ve been absolutely bombarded with letters, emails, texts to my mobile and texts to my landline.

Anyway, got installed yesterday. Moved the incoming overhead from one front corner of the house to the other, both going into the house at first floor level. I understand why the overhead fibre is taken to a connection box near the ground but it seems ridiculous that there isn’t a reliable solution that can just go straight to the ONT (or do the splice internally if the householder is happy). And why is there still a copper core with the cable when the point of this exercise is to get rid of copper?

The installer smashed half the face off a brick drilling, in a very visible place, through a brand-new wall too – she used so much force that the bits of brick are scattered right across the adjoining garage roof. Looks absolutely ridiculous and I’m annoyed with myself for not standing over her.

Broadband worked immediately, and I could make outgoing calls but can’t receive incoming calls. She said it would likely change over as soon as she closed the job. Still didn’t work this morning so called BT and they said ‘Hmmm…it seems that part of the job has been cancelled!”. I’ve been assured it’ll be sorted in 48hrs. I tend to give the landline number out as my mobile is a work one.

Never got any info about Digital phones or adapters – I asked about that when I called this morning and they’re sending some.

Re: Full Fibre install experience

Rory — Fri, 02 Sep 2022 19:26:14 GMT

Sorry to reply to my own post but it seems the "48 hrs" to fix the no incoming calls issue could now be 10-14 days! I called BT again this evening after getting an email saying a new order had been raised - at completely different pricing to what I agreed a few weeks ago.

This seems totally ridiculous - yet there's apparently nothing that can be done until it gets sorted out at BT's convenience, they can't even divert incoming calls which are apparently still being routed over PSTN and just ring out, so giving callers no indication there's a problem. I just have to live with it.

The person I spoke to tonight said it's not beyond the realms of possibility that I'll lose my existing number.

Obviously I'm deeply regretting making the switch now.

Re: Full Fibre install experience

dave44 — Sat, 03 Sep 2022 07:12:45 GMT

“I understand why the overhead fibre is taken to a connection box near the ground but it seems ridiculous that there isn’t a reliable solution that can just go straight to the ONT (or do the splice internally if the householder is happy). And why is there still a copper core with the cable when the point of this exercise is to get rid of copper?“

There is a small discrete internal splice box available so the installer probably could have used this.

As for the copper hybrid cable, there is a fibre only drop cable available which is meant to be the default now, and installers are strongly discouraged from using copper hybrid cables if the copper pair isn’t required.

Practices are constantly changing and your installer maybe wasn’t aware of recent changes.

Re: Full Fibre install experience

Zurdo — Sat, 03 Sep 2022 11:32:24 GMT

Sorry to hear you had problems.
I had switch over to FTTP on Wednesday and it was painless. Engineer replaced overhead copper wire with the fibre optic, then down to a box, through the wall to the new modem in the hall and wired up the Smarthub 2. Speed to the router just less than 150 and wireless to the lounge about 90.
Initially wireless seemed slow but aiming the router differently cured it although theoretically it should be omnidirectional.
All in all pleased...£20 plus line rental not too shabby.

Re: Full Fibre install experience

Rory — Sat, 03 Sep 2022 13:55:56 GMT

"There is a small discrete internal splice box available so the installer probably could have used this.

Practices are constantly changing and your installer maybe wasn’t aware of recent changes."

The Openreach lady had only been with them 6mths and she seemed to only have one way of doing things, and that was very much by the book. I would have been OK with the external CSP being in the house, but knowing there is an internal one is even more annoying now. The hybrid cable doesn't make a lot of difference in appearance. I guess they just use whatever they're issued with?

The cabling comes down (and back up) the front face of one of the garage pillar walls and isn't so noticeable and there will usually be car parked there so the CSP isn't very obvious.

I got up on the garage roof this morning and recovered some chunks of brick facing and worked them back into place - she blasted through so hard bits had gone right across the roof but there were a couple of usable chunks. Looks better now, but the point the damage has been done is a new wall, in a very visible place, and it's facing the prevailing weather so not ideal. Looks worse in real life, the sun shining on it as flattened the contours:

Re: Full Fibre install experience

dave44 — Sat, 03 Sep 2022 13:58:33 GMT

I would put some silicon sealant on that hole if I were you as this seems to have been missed.

Re: Full Fibre install experience

DancougaGary — Sat, 03 Sep 2022 16:19:41 GMT

Silicone is a must since water may leak in the house. Moreover put some wall clip to mount the cable should have better looking.

Re: Full Fibre install experience

Rory — Sun, 04 Sep 2022 10:36:47 GMT

I have put a couple of chuncks of brick back and siliconed around the hole. I've got some brick repair mastic stuff which I'll fill in the rest with so hopefully it'll be barely noticeable.

Re clipping the cable, how tight can the bends be? I didn't want to mess around with it - thinking of damaging the fibre.

I was bemused to get an email from BT yesterday closing my complaint. Still can't receive calls but this morning the dial tone has changed - still a dial tone but it alternated on and off, like an engaged tone, but with a dial tone as noise. Can still make calls.

Thanks Goodness the broadband works - I work from home and we don't have 4G here (semi-rural Cheshire) so I'd be pretty stuffed if it didn't work.

Re: Full Fibre install experience

imjolly — Sun, 04 Sep 2022 11:03:19 GMT

have you checked for any messages on 1571 as that is active automatically with DV

Re: Full Fibre install experience

Rory — Sun, 04 Sep 2022 16:52:44 GMT

There is a message! A text from BT saying they added a £50 credit to my account.

I sent a text message from my mobile - that goes to the answerphone and I can pick it up.

Tried to call from my mobile - just hear ringing (on the mobile) then it cuts out after a minute or so, doesn't go to voicemail. Tried again, this time picking up the phone attached to the Hub while the mobile was ringing and just got a dial tone.

I'm not doing something daft here, am I - I just plug a phone (it's a Panasonic DECT base station, and it is powered up) to the phone port on the hub?

Re: Full Fibre install experience

imjolly — Sun, 04 Sep 2022 17:01:43 GMT

There is obviously something wrong with your DV connection but with DV you get appearance of 2 lines so you can dial out while at same time receive a call on another connected DV phone. You can change this in DV phone settings but changing line from Multi to single

Re: Full Fibre install experience

Rory — Wed, 07 Sep 2022 10:18:35 GMT

Still no joy with this - not being able to receive incoming calls.

I spoke to customer services on Friday - nice guy but he talked almost non-stop for 40mins. He seemed to have some understanding of what might have happened and regaled me with lists of acronyms of teams within BT that would need to be involved to sort this out.

The latest order shows it should have worked from yesterday (Tuesday). It doesn't, so I called this morning and ended up with someone from the "Early Life Team". But she can't do anything - has to email someone else. She promised to call me this afternoon - it'll be 50/50 whether she can get through to my mobile.

Must admit I'd assumed BT would be on strike again along with Royal Mail Thurs/Fri and I was beginning to panic a bit that this week would be lost but turns out that's only RM on strike this time.

Re: Full Fibre install experience

Rory — Sun, 11 Sep 2022 20:28:43 GMT

Still broken. 🙄

Can't make calls either now.

Callers still just hear ringing, which is the worst part of this.

Re: Full Fibre install experience

annegray01 — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 08:20:27 GMT

Was offered full fibre a month ago, to which I agreed.

External engineer to be coming on the 6th, internal on the 13th, switch on today the 15th.

Guess what, nothing has been done.

Everyday the app says engineer will be today, estimated.

I called them today and was told they are waiting for a specialist engineer ?!

Didn't bother to keep me informed though!

Having seen some of the botch up installations on here I may just give up on FF !

Re: Full Fibre install experience

mikemod — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 15:31:19 GMT

Sounds familiar, mine did the same with no updates, just kept rolling the date.

I ordered on the 25th April, installed and connected on the 19th August

Re: Full Fibre install experience

annegray01 — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 17:45:01 GMT

Wow Mikemod I won’t be waiting that long!

That’s shocking.

Re: Full Fibre install experience

mikemod — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 18:21:50 GMT

I was previously on 1.5Mbps so was happy to wait as long as it took, now on 500Mbps 😁

Re: Full Fibre install experience

Rory — Fri, 16 Sep 2022 10:03:21 GMT

At least you guys still have a phone service - they installed fibre for me (a mere two weeks late) but took the phone line away and seem to have abandoned us.

The comms from BT have just been bonkers - every time I look at the order tracker it's moved forwards or backwards and they send different messages by text to mobile, text to landline and email - it's like if they send three changes by three different methods then they think it only counts as one change!

The Executive Customer Resolutions team created a fault report last Friday afternoon, which amazingly produced an engineer on Saturday afternnoon. The tracker said he'd got here at 3PM on Mon 8th Jun 0178 🙂 and the appt failed. In fact he called at 5.45PM on Saturday and looked baffled and did the "nothing to do with me, mate" thing - he said someone in BT just need to bash a keyboard and sort it out (which is exactly what I think too). The tracker now shows the fault as fixed.

Re: Full Fibre install experience

Rory — Sat, 17 Sep 2022 11:37:34 GMT

To 'close this out' as they say - got an email at 5.10PM last night to say phone was working and sure enough it was. Hurrah!

It seems the customer service people saying it would likely take 10 days (once they accepted it wasn't going to fix itself) to sort out were right. Been 15 calendar days without a phone line.

I'm sure the actual work to get it going takes 30 seconds - the rest of the time is just 'procedure', ie waiting. Madness that this can't be cut through.

Re: Full Fibre install experience

Cicero — Sun, 25 Jun 2023 11:40:45 GMT

I have had fibre in for about 14 Days so my experience so far is limited.

The installation itself was quite straightforward, the ducting to my property was good.

Speeds are boosted for the first month so are currently up 400 Download and 78-80 Download.

When this ends if dont keep the boost it will be 100 down and 10 up.

I have computers upstairs so after a few days installed a disc which did improve signal strength, the BT App is very good for installing discs. I got an extra disc to help upstairs as well though it didn't make much difference.

I have two PC's on my old Smart hub one connect at 325mb and the other at 585 both on the 5ghz band.

These connection speeds were achieved as I split the networks on my old Hub to ensure they always connected to the 5Ghz Network. Slower devices like printers were on to 2.4 Ghz.

The Smart Hub 2 does not allow the bands to be split so it is pot luck as to what speeds I now get , the same device seldom connects at the same speed which means you do not get the benefit of the fibre speeds.

The loss of control over the 2.4ghz and 5 Ghz bands is a major setback as far as I am concerned and negates the reason for going to fibre.

Further fringe benefits are an increase in the number of power points you now need at least double, if you use discs obviously more. Power to the network, hub, discs, digital voice adapter ....and the phone

All in all if it is possible I would revert back to my old network using copper wire, speeds were lower but could virtually be guaranteed at device level and I only needed 2 sockets, one for the Hub and one for the phone.