Hi all
Apologies for long-ish post, I’d like to share my experience this week with my Fibre 900 install, in the hope that BT and fellow customers might learn from some of the issues I encountered.
I originally ordered the Fibre 900 service back in early February to replace our existing BT Broadband, and was given an install and activation date of 15 April.
Within a few days of the original order Openreach appeared outside our house and ran the fibre from the pole to the side of the house, where it was left in a coil. I was told that the installing engineer would discuss the best way of locating the SmartHub inside the house to maximise the wi-fi coverage, as this had been a problem with our previous service.
I was given an engineer’s appointment time with the usual 5 hour window (1pm-6pm) on the install/activation date of 15 April.
I had received the new SmartHub 2 a couple of days prior as promised, but there were no extending discs which I had been told would come with that. I have had to ask for those to be sent separately.
I received a text at 10am on the 15th telling me the engineer was close, and that I would be contacted when he was on his way. I was given his mobile number. 4:30pm came and no further word, so I called the BT Fibre service number to enquire if the install was still going ahead, and asking if they knew where the engineer was. After a 30 minute hold, I was told that as the engineer was working for a contractor, BT were not able to provide information about his location or schedule.
At 5pm I received a text from the engineer apologising that he had been behind all day but he would be with me by 5:30pm.
At 5:45pm he arrived. A lovely chap, but frantic as he still had another job after ours. He couldn’t understand why the grey connecting box that the fibre cable from the pole needs to connect to hadn’t already been installed on the outside of the house. To be fair though, this was probably because the Openreach team that ran the cable from the pole didn’t know where the internal modem was going to be located.
There was no time to work on looking at various locations. The existing telephone connection has no bearing on the fibre install, they are completely separate. Due to the lateness of the hour, and the engineer’s unrealistic work schedule, we chose the garage for the easiest place to locate the modem. This is where we had a previous install but was unsatisfactory due to bad wi-fi reception elsewhere in the house.
After the install we tested the speed. By connecting a PC directly to the ethernet port in the back of the SmartHub, we were pleased to find that we get the full 900mbs down. Wi-Fi speed is not as good. Although we had previously been lucky to get 15mbs down and 1 up the new speed of 65 down and 47 up is a lot faster than we had before, but not as fast as I’d hoped. I’m not sure what the expected wi-fi speed is with a fibre install. All BT promises relating to speed are based on the ethernet connection.
A few points I’d like to make in summary :-
- Have a clear view on where the router needs to be placed in the house, preferably near an outside wall, so the modem and external connection are as close to each other as possible.
- Try and get a morning appointment so the installing engineer is hopefully able to take his or her time and not have to rush
- I’ve found the BT Broadband Extenders using power sockets are totally ineffective, and really choke the speed. I’m not sure if BT, Netgear or TP-Link have updated technology that can handle fibre speeds.
- if you're just looking at improving wi-fi to 300mbs+ speeds, be prepared for disappointment (depending of course on the size/layout of your house/flat)
All the BT staff I spoke to were really helpful, but just overworked and under-resourced. Such a shame because everything else about the service is good. A useful metaphor is running fibre to the home and then using standard copper cable to the hub. It was the last link in the chain that let BT down in this case.
