This topic

Cowboy Fibre Installation Fail

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 14:56:15 GMT

Just had installation engineer come to attempt to install Fibre to the prem.

Is it too much to ask that the installation engineer would use the correct size drill bit to drill a hole into my wall?

If they insist on drilling a massively oversized hole, is it too much to ask that they at least put a wall grommet so I don't have to stare at this ugly hole on the wall?

On the exterior it was the usual "Yeah I'll just slap a bit of sillicone on that for ya mate!"... nice... great job.

To top it all off, after making a mess in the house first, he then wasn't able to pull the fibre through to the front of the house as there was a blockage. Wouldn't it have been smart to check that first?

I'll just wait for BT to show up again (not holding my breath) to "investigate the blockage".

At least I still have my trusty 50mbps copper line... until that gets destroyed during the investigation no doubt.

Re: Cowboy Fibre Installation Fail

pippincp — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 21:54:34 GMT

Looks like a contractor install. there should be a cover for the cable coming inside the property.

You are correct not holding your breath for BT to attend to anything, you'd suffocate. BT have nothing to do with the supply of the network, that is Openreach. Bt just resell network exactly the same as any other ISP using the Openreach network.

Once he reports the blocked duct a civils team will be tasked with clearing the duct blockage which can be quite quick depending on their workload.

I've known of a duct being cleared the following morning and an engineer complete the connection in the afternoon, not very often I might add, but it has happened.

Re: Cowboy Fibre Installation Fail

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 07:03:59 GMT

Ah yes, Openreach, the “independently governed wholly-owned subsidiary of British Telecommunications plc.”

Whilst stood in the cul-de-sac watching the engineer pull out the now brown, ant covered yellow rod, something wholesome happened - the neighbours started to come out to see what all the fuss was about.

“I’m surprised you haven’t found a Tesco bag holding it all together down there” one cried. The other told me he had now been waiting two months for BT/Openreach/EE/Dave the contractor to come and finish the job after have the same issue. “8 vans we had out here a few weeks ago”.

In the meantime, I’ll be staring through that large hole drilled by Dave waiting patiently for the vans to return.

Re: Cowboy Fibre Installation Fail

iniltous — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 07:21:48 GMT

So is your order with BT Consumer or a different provider ? ,

Re: Cowboy Fibre Installation Fail

naylor2006 — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 08:40:37 GMT

Is there also no external grey open reach box or an internal white ONT?

How does the cable go in black and come out white?

Re: Cowboy Fibre Installation Fail

dave44 — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 16:36:03 GMT

The outer black layer is stripped off so it transitions from black to white in the hole.

Re: Cowboy Fibre Installation Fail

naylor2006 — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 16:57:04 GMT

Ok, new to me, never seen an install like it.

Re: Cowboy Fibre Installation Fail

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 16:58:44 GMT

@naylor2006wrote:
How does the cable go in black and come out white?

I was wondering that also!

Re: Cowboy Fibre Installation Fail

36ULW — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 17:04:46 GMT

He should’ve used an Inside Out Kit.

Funnily enough I found 6 in an old tool bag in my garage the other day.

Re: Cowboy Fibre Installation Fail

naylor2006 — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 17:04:42 GMT

I’m quite used to seeing a black cable enter a Customer Splice Point on an external wall then the smaller white cable pass through into the ONT.

Was this engineer planning to splice inside or what? That’s quite a large inner also, looks like it could be RG6…no wonder there’s a light issue 🙂

Re: Cowboy Fibre Installation Fail

36ULW — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 17:07:06 GMT

A Lead In Kit requires a 12mm Drill Bit.

Although on Plaster Boards Walls you can get away with using a 10mm Drill Bit.

Re: Cowboy Fibre Installation Fail

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 17:23:05 GMT

This is the standard of work I was expecting.

Re: Cowboy Fibre Installation Fail

naylor2006 — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 17:47:13 GMT

This is actually good to see, I’ve never seen an install like this before.

Re: Cowboy Fibre Installation Fail

36ULW — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 18:54:12 GMT

The Install I’ve shown in that picture is awful.

If I’d done that when I was a CST I’d have been embarrassed and probably filled in the Complaint Form for the Customer myself.

For a start there is absolutely no need for the cleat to be there, looks ridiculous.

The Bend Radius on that Connector is a borderline bend radius failure.

Finally the Inside Out Kit doesn’t need to be that far from the ONT, it should be situated pretty much next to it with a clearance of about 15mm.

Re: Cowboy Fibre Installation Fail

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 19:12:51 GMT

Here here, I couldn’t agree more. As a network engineer myself (ex Google/Facebook) I was merely being sarcastic in my earlier response. What should be happening is the engineer should be installing a small rack mount cabinet in my office and terminating that fibre into a Cisco cat 9K switch with 1G SFP uplink. A/C should also be included as part of the installation in order to provide sufficient cooling.

Re: Cowboy Fibre Installation Fail

The-Sarge84 — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 13:18:04 GMT

It's same for me. They cut my old copper connection off, then found a blocked duct. That was on the 25june and not even got a date for when they will be fixing it. I have no Internet or phone line. They damaged the brick surface out side. It's taken a chunk of the brick surface off and left the porous internal material open to the rain. It's been a C.F from start to finish.

The communication between me as a customer and them as a provider has been abysmal. Only time I hear from them is when I chase them and they say "We have no update from Openreach"

I'm beyond frustrated now!

Re: Cowboy Fibre Installation Fail

pippincp — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 16:09:22 GMT

If want to complain about an Openreach engineer’s workmanship you should refer to the following.

https://www.openreach.com/help-and-support/when-to-get-in-touch-with-openreach/complaints-policy