Delayed Fibre installation - 4 months & counting

[Davyd999]

Order placed for Full Fibre 300 plus Halo 1 on 13th November 2020

Received new BT Smarthub 2 within a week.

However, ever since it has been a sorry tale of missed appointments, lame excuses and a general lack of progress.

Currently no activation date is given or any options to select an appointment.

Order Tracker just keeps showing daily appointments for external work.

What does one have to do to get an order for Fibre fulfilled ?

[iniltous]

Is your property a new build or an older property with a copper pair service and an overlay FTTP network ?

Perhaps you can port the results , if you enter your BT phone number or your address ( if not currently a copper line BT customer ) if you use this site ,


https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/

More info is required to offer anything other than a ‘guess’ as to what the delay is, perhaps your address has mistakenly been shown as having FTTP available when it isn’t, or there is an issue with the ‘spine’ network back towards the OLT ( the headend equipment ) , which wouldn’t necessarily be easily spotted by you if all the local infrastructure exists,  leading you to think that there cannot be anything other than an ‘admin’ problem stopping you getting connected
If your order is with BT , there is a BT FTTP number you can call, they may be able to explain what the delay is.

[Davyd999]

Delay is due to BT Engineer misidentifying the type of existing cable from junction box in verge outside to property.

Engineer reported that there was a cable in conduit running onto property which was blocked. Civils arrived and found that there wasn't a conduit at all but an armoured cable, and promptly left without doing any work.

This all happened back in Dec 2020. Since then no real progress.

Activation appointment on 24th Febrauary was missed by BT.

Activation appointment on 5th March was missed by BT

First BT Engineer to actually come onto the property & look at what is actually here, arrived on 12th March for an activation appointment. Needless to say he was unable to install anything, and agreed that it was an armoured cable to the property, and that a conduit still needed to be installed & promptly left.

Currently no activation date or Civils groundwork date.

The neighbours on either side have had BT Fibre connected & the engineer that visited agreed it was a simple process to T off the fibre runiing down the grass verge outside our property once the required conduit was in place. Distance involved is approximately 15 metres from BT junction box on verge to property.

I have raised a complaint to no avail, with no contact from BT to discuss the complaint. I have made numerous phone calls to BT which involve wait times of typically 30 minutes to no avail. Everyone I speak to at BT promises to expediate the case, but at the end of the day nothing is apparently done & the sorry saga goes on.

[Davyd999]

There is no technical problem preventing this Fibre connection. The neighbours immediatly to left & right have been connected to the Fibre cable running past our properties by BTOpenreach, and they report the service is operating fine.

The BT engineer who attended the property on 12th march confirmed the necessary Fibre cable & junction box is in the verge immediately outside our property 15 metres away.

The problem is the competency of whoever is responsible for coordinating BT Openreach Engineers & Openreach Civils.

[Davyd999]

I am a BT copper line customer.

The order for Fibre has been placed with BT after being advised by BT that the product is available for this proerty.

The neighbours (immediately adjacent properties) have been succesfully been connected to BT Fibre since 2020.

[Davyd999]

[iniltous]

OK, so your existing copper feed is direct in the ground ( DIG) and not ducted, so a fibre optic cable cannot be simply run to your property in an existing duct as was presumably originally intended , your neighbours have must have ducted feeds , hence their successful installs.....when you ordered , were you told it was a two stage install or a single stage install ?, a two stage install can pick up problems like this ( although mainly it would be blocked ducts not ‘missing’ ducts ), if two stage,  presumably you don’t get a contractual install date until stage 1 is complete.

Whoever told you it’s a simple job to ‘T’ into the fibre running along the grass verge either didn’t explain very well or was talking nonsense......there will be , in one of the joint boxes nearby, a ‘CBT’ , your install will need a duct from a joint box ( possibly the box with the CBT in it or a joint box that is linked to that CBT joint box ) to your home...an Openreach ( not BT ) engineer or OR contractor would return when this civils work has been completed and provide a cable from the CBT ( connectorised block terminal ) to your home .
Why this is talking so long is unknown, although ‘BT’ should be able to find out from OR , it could be linked to why your address is served by an armoured D.I.G when your neighbours are ducted...is there anything unusual about your home , like set back further from the road, built at a different time from your neighbours property's ?, does the proposed route the duct  have to go into ‘private’ land and wayleaves needed ?

Although you are disappointed with BT, you would presumably be having the same issues if you ordered service from anyone else using OR FTTP, it’s not ‘BT’ that are doing the FTTP build , it’s Openreach, there is no such organisation as BT Openreach.

[Davyd999]

Neighbours according to BT engineer also had armoured cables from verge junction box to properties. Civils were engaged to install conduit for the neighbours Fibre. According to BT engineer who actually attended property there is no difference between our setup and that found on the neighbouring properties. In the BT engineer's words 'all the houses in road that I've attended have this armoured cable setup' & it was necessary to install conduit to allow fibre to be run from verge into properties.

[Davyd999]

Our house is closer to the verge than the neighbours whose properties are set back further in comparison. There are no differences in accessing our property in comparison to the neighbours - I have checked with them.

[Keith_Beddoe]

@Davyd999 

Its Openreach not BT Retail, that visit, and do any external work. Openreach are a separate company.

https://www.openreach.com/