This topic

Fibre Installation

peadea — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 19:50:44 GMT

So last week an Openreach guy comes and drilled holes in my house and fixed boxes inside and outside my house... and that's it. He didn't connect it to the pole. Tells me he asked some random guy in the backstreet for permission and he said no. Another guy turns up to look at the gap between the pole and my house, then says he'll be in touch. I get a message telling me to make an appointment online, but every attempt ends with an 'oops' message, telling me to contact my service provider, which is BT. Talked to a BT chatbot and got caught in the usual endless loop. Was asked if I wanted to talk to an 'expert', then was shown a screen telling me to enter my credit card details! Apparently I can sign up to a service and talk to an 'expert' for £35 a year! Maybe I got transferred to some scam outfit... I don't know... but pay to talk to a BT expert? I just want Openreach to connect the box outside my house to the pole in my backstreet... the same way that my phone line is currently connected. Take one line away and put the other one in. It's just a few paces, and there's already a line there. Why can't they do this, and why do they make it impossible to book an appointment? The two guys who turned up last week were very tight lipped about the process, and I can't find anyone willing to talk about the problem.

Re: Fibre Installation

36ULW — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 20:13:12 GMT

Is the Pole in someone’s garden?

Could be the home owner refused them access to the Pole.

Re: Fibre Installation

peadea — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 20:38:46 GMT

The pole is in my backstreet, easily accessible as it's planted in the tarmac. The backstreet is open to anyone, of any race, creed or colour, without let or hindrance. The pole has wires fanning out in all directions. Although I can't quite see the pole from my house, I can see 13 wires fanning out from it, one of which serves my house. No-one needs 'permission' for any of those wires to go anywhere. They all run from the pole straight to all the houses. There are probably the same number of wires fanning out from the other side of the pole, that I can't see. (It's raining, so I didn't go out to count.) The wire from the publicly accessible backstreet pole runs straight to my house, where it's fixed onto a bracket under my gutter. From there, it takes a very convoluted way into my house because the walls are made of huge rocks. In order to make things easy for the Openreach guy who came to drill holes, I showed him where there were breezeblocks to drill though, and I let him drill through a wooden door frame inside my house. It was probably his easiest job of the day. The box outside my house could easily be connected to the pole and I see no reason why they can't use the same bracket under my gutter, as it was BT who fixed that in place many years ago. In fact, when BT renewed my entire line a few years ago, access wasn't any kind of problem for them. I opened my back gate, and they cracked on with the work. Unless I'm misunderstanding something about fibre, I assume it's a wire pretty much like my existing phone wire, and there's nothing stopping it from being strung from the pole to my house, and to the new outside box. The problem is, I've been invited to make an appointment to get this job done, and I can't find any possible way of making that appointment. I'm sick of trying and getting the same 'oops, something went wrong' message on the website, and I'm not going to pay a £35 annual subscription in order to talk to a BT 'expert' about making an appointment.

Re: Fibre Installation

garybs29 — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 07:05:59 GMT

The whole £35 thing seems like a scam. Radical suggestion but maybe call BT instead?

Re: Fibre Installation

peadea — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 08:04:36 GMT

It was an option offered by the BT chatbot, through BTs own website, to pay to speak to an expert. The 'deal' was to enter my credit card details, pay £1 to talk, which it claimed was 'fully refundable', but it also pointed out that this was a £35 'annual subscription' that I could cancel at any time. Yes, it sounds like a scam in every way, so why are BT running this option on their website?

The automated Openreach appointment system can't make an appointment for me, and said that I should contact my service provider, which is BT. You'd think that would be a simple process, but it isn't. Chatbots work to a set script and it's easy to get stuck in an endless loop with them. The BT chatbot came up with the link for the £35 annual subscription to talk to a BT 'expert'. I have to wonder why this system is so complicated, and incapable of producing a result without me annexing my bank account to theirs.

Re: Fibre Installation

licquorice — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 08:13:26 GMT

You cannot deal with Openreach directly, they are not customer facing, you need to call BT.

Re: Fibre Installation

peadea — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 08:24:39 GMT

I know that. Openreach wanted me to make an appointment, but their online appointment system won't let me make one. It said that I should contact BT, which is easier said than done when you're faced with a BT chatbot wanting credit card details and a payment from me in order to talk to one of their 'experts'. It never used to be like that. But let's face it, not long ago BT had no problem stretching a wire from a pole to a house. Openreach can't seem to do that.

Re: Fibre Installation

iniltous — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 08:34:09 GMT

If you were offered the option to sign up to a paid for ‘expert’ service , clearly there is a misunderstanding between what you want (to make a new appointment for another Openreach visit) and what the BT AI ‘chatbot’ thinks you want , the service on offer is if someone is needed to assist you with the setup of your own equipment within the home to the router , inappropriate in your case as the installation hasn’t been completed …..clearly you need to either make your statements clearer so the AI gives a more appropriate answer , or call and make it clear you need an appointment, preferably by insisting on speaking to a human , FWIW , although rare , on the occasions I’ve called BT getting a human hasn’t been difficult.
As far as why the dropwire wasn’t erected on the previous visit , we can only speculate, but I doubt the tech asked a random person if it was OK , perhaps someone was blocking access to the pole and refused to move , making it impossible to climb .

Re: Fibre Installation

peadea — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 08:48:01 GMT

Have you ever tried insisting that a chatbot transfers you to a human? When I tried that, I was offered the £35 annual subscription to talk to a BT 'expert'. That process also closed the chatbot program, so no further discussion was possible... except at a price.

I've no idea who was in the backstreet when the engineer came, but there was no-one there when I looked. It's a public area and no-one has the right to order anyone around there. Vehicles come and go, and I'm sure that they occasionally get in each others way, but when that happens you either wait a minute, or politely ask to pass. Anyway, as I said, the backstreet was empty when I looked.

I get the impression that this 30 minute job is going to take a lot longer.

Re: Fibre Installation

WSH — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 08:54:37 GMT

If this is on the phone, one of the tricks with the chatbot is not to say anything at all, just wait for it to give up and put you through.

Re: Fibre Installation

garybs29 — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 14:23:19 GMT

If you're getting nowhere with the chatbot why not just call? It would've likely been solved a while ago if you had instead of just continuing to chat then moan on here

Re: Fibre Installation

peadea — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 15:49:02 GMT

You're clearly not familiar with the system. It's not set up to steer you to a human. It's set up to present multiple options that tie you in an endless loop. At no point is there a clear statement that tells you what number to call to speak to a human. It's been deliberately set up that way, so yes, expect people to moan about it.

Meanwhile... I did manage to find a number to call, and a human to speak to. Turns out that when Openreach wanted me to make an appointment, believe it or not, they DIDN'T actually want me to make an appointment, and that's why the system didn't let me make an appointment. Can I moan about that? Would anyone think that was a sensible way to run a business? Apparently they're planning to turn up in their own good time, which is why an appointment can't be booked by me. So why did they send me a message saying to make an appointment, and why didn't the appointment system relay that information, instead of telling me to contact BT?

I miss the days when you could speak to someone in an overseas call centre, instead of all this AI **bleep**.

Re: Fibre Installation

WSH — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 16:26:00 GMT

The phone number is readily available on the internet or here...

https://www.bt.com/help/contact-bt/orders-and-upgrades/existing-customer/broadband/track-order

And just for the record, this is a customer to customer community help forum. The only BT employees are the moderators. Also, while both members of BT Group, BT the retail ISP and Openreach are separate companies. This forum has no link to Openreach what-so-ever.

Everybody is entitled to a moan but just keep in mind we are trying to help. Sorry we couldn't in this case.

I'll leave you to it.

Re: Fibre Installation

peadea — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 18:18:39 GMT

On the BT website there's an option to 'Contact BT'... https://www.bt.com/help/contact-bt

No number is given, and if you click on any of the icons on the page, you get sucked into a pit of questions and menu options that never lead to a resolution. A company that cares would flag its phone number as a priority, and offer human help first, with AI assistance as a very, very poor second.

Remember... when you already know the answer to a question, that's great for YOU, but it's no use for someone who doesn't know the answer already, and gets sucked into endless menu options with no end in sight.

Many years ago I came to this forum when my phone line was so bad, I couldn't even speak to BT staff using it. We just couldn't understand each other because of the quality of the line. Given that I couldn't talk to anyone, this forum was the only way to communicate, and thankfully someone at BT picked up on the problem. When the line was fixed, which involved replacing the ENTIRE line from my house, through the town centre, to the exchange on the other side of town, I was phoned by BT and was able to hear them speak for the first time. Up to that point, getting any kind of message through to BT was thwarted by the quality of the line.

Re: Fibre Installation

chrisjp — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 18:39:05 GMT

"It said that I should contact BT, which is easier said than done when you're faced with a BT chatbot wanting credit card details and a payment from me in order to talk to one of their 'experts'"

I don't know whether it will work with BT's chatbot, but one way I've found of getting to speak with a human is to answer gibberish to each of the chatbot's questions. After a few of these you get transferred to a human!

Re: Fibre Installation

licquorice — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 18:44:35 GMT

@peadea BT customer services has been accessible via the number 150 since the days of the GPO and still is.

Re: Fibre Installation

peadea — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 18:56:13 GMT

They should put 150 on the front page of the BT website.

Re: Fibre Installation

licquorice — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 19:11:47 GMT

Not heard of Google?

Re: Fibre Installation

peadea — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 19:51:56 GMT

Google... course I have... https://www.bt.com/help/contact-bt

Back to the bottomless contact pit.

Re: Fibre Installation

licquorice — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 20:09:03 GMT

Which if you follow through leads to

https://www.bt.com/help/contact-bt/technical-support/landline

Oh look, phone numbers