Following some great advice from here, I called up and went through the order process on 5th August 2021. I wasn't expecting it, but engineers arrived the very next day to pull the fibre! But, as the first fibre install in the close they had to find ducts, manholes, cable routes etc... Two teams of two people did what they could but could not trace the duct route so went away.
About a week went by and another team arrived and went over the same ground (luckily I was able to fill them in on what their colleagues had found, as the notes were not good). Then another week or so and another team arrived. One guy on this occasion did try very hard to rod out the duct but gave up, passing it to Trac'n'Trace. T&T duly turned up, tried to rod it, disagreed with my knowledge of the ducts and manholes (by now I am quite the expert) and said they would have to dig on my neighbour’s garden of all things! I knew from the previous engineers attempts that the duct was apparently blocked going the other way up the road to a different manhole (which incidentally needed two engineers to lift as it is part of a block paved drive) so this wasn’t really helpful. T&T didn’t want to listen to my by now extensive knowledge of the BT ducts outside my house and insisted they knew best. Really?
So, the digger men duly arrived a week or so later and went over the same ground again as the notes didn't say anything about where ducts or manholes were!! About 40 minutes later he triumphantly produced a rope that he had run via the ducts. Hero, at last. So then I thought it may be a few days or a week till i would have fibre 900 in and working, but then the appointment came in for 29th Oct (today) nearly 3 weeks later. So patiently I waited, even seeing and talking to other teams who were happily installing fibre for my neighbours, but no, it was too difficult to run my fibre from the street at the same time! Shame.
So anyway, with my neighbours happily running fast fibre the day came, the PM slot, and about 3pm a lone single contractor arrived. He was very disappointed to not see the fibre poking out of the duct, as of course was I. I then asked if he knew about the route the ropes took via the manholes but of course the notes obviously didn’t extend to this vital knowledge. So I then showed him the route from the street manhole to my house pointing out the 3 manholes the fibre would have to pass through and that the ropes were all in, but he really wasn’t interested and as he was single crewed this was the best reason he had not to do the external work. At least he did want to do something, so he has installed the internal bit and I have a white box with a red light on it but no fibre from street to house!
I then texted back on the appointment text to say what had happened and enquire when it was likely to be finished but got an auto reply "Please type Confirm or Help"! So that was when I started typing this.
Update: I have just had a phone call from BT from a very nice Scottish lady who read my text, she had tried to get the job info but being a contractor they wont be available till later. But, she understood the progress I had reported and has said that it will get passed to scheduling etc...
So I am still waiting, from being the first in the close to order this i am going to be the last to ever get it, I wonder if it will be in for Christmas??
Am I wrong to be just a little miffed? What is wrong with BT that they cannot read and update their own notes? Arrgghhhhhhhh!
