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Message 1 of 11

Blocked duct

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Hello folks,

The Openreach engineer that visited the property today to install Fibre 900, advised that he could not get the cable through to the grey box outside because there is sand / stones / hard stuff blocking the area where a black wire comes up to the property.

He has referred it back to the Civil team for a survey.

I suspect that very "helpful" builders, that laid the drive a couple of years back, did this... has anyone had this problem? If so, was the problem very difficult to fix? I don't relish the thought of the drive being dug up again and am wondering what "solutions" they might offer.

Thoughts? 

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Message 2 of 11

Re: Blocked duct

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Well yes - the duct could have been crushed or sometimes grot gets in.

By seeing how far they can get a rod, they should have an idea where the blockage is. It might be a case of a few heave-ho's or they might need to dig to sort it. 

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Message 3 of 11

Re: Blocked duct

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They’ll usually send what they call a, Civils Avoidance Team out, I say Team, it’s usually just 2 blokes who will try to unblock it without the need to do any digging.

If they can’t shift it though then yes, they’re gonna come and dig a big hole in your driveway. 

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Message 4 of 11

Re: Blocked duct

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Ah at least I know that they will give alternatives a try before resorting to tearing up my drive. I'll be giving it a pass if it comes to that; Fibre isn't worth that kind of hassle. 

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Message 5 of 11

Re: Blocked duct

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Except it will have to happen at some point when the copper line is ceased.

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Message 6 of 11

Re: Blocked duct

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TBH, they normally only excavate what they have to and made good afterwards. Tarmac/ block paving doesn't normally cause too many issues. Imprinted concrete..................
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Message 7 of 11

Re: Blocked duct

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Really? I've not kept up with that and didn't realise it was being phased out.

We'll see what happens when they come back. The guy didn't say anything about the rest of the duct being busted, he just couldn't said that he couldn't get it through the sand and some stones that the builders covered the hole in the ground with... so I'm hoping there is a less messy way of getting a cable through.

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Message 8 of 11

Re: Blocked duct

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No concrete here, just block pavings... still, it wasn't done that long ago, so I'm hoping for the least amount of fuss possible. 

I do wish I had paid more attention to what they were doing with the telephone hole but there was no fibre on the horizon at the time (I thought it was mostly new builds that got the new plumbing), so I didn't think Openreach would ever need to go near it.

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Message 9 of 11

Re: Blocked duct

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@dishwasherwong Yep, had exactly this when I was getting my full fibre installed. Moved into a house where the duct had been blocked by builders when the previous owner had the driveway done a few years before. Not a problem for them, as they were with VM and that duct was not blocked.

Waited for a couple of weeks for two Openreach blokes to come round and hacked away at the drive for a couple of hours and cleared the blockage. To be fair, they did have a look, talked it away for a bit and then told me what they thought they would need to do before me agreeing for them to do it. They said they would do their best to leave it looking the same way it did when they arrived and they did exactly that, to be fair to them.

Unfortunately, that was only half the issue, as the duct was also crushed a few metres further down too (which had also severed the existing copper phone line), although that part was under the public pavement. Two more Openreach blokes came another couple of weeks after the first set and sawed a chunk of pavement out and replaced that section of duct before patching up the tarmac.

I had to have the works done, as the Openreach copper line had been severed, so could not even get FTTC. Besides, I wanted full fibre for the faster speeds and the only other option was VM, which I was not going to do.

And yes, they have been talking about decommissioning copper for a while. At one of my two addresses, we've recently received the letter telling us that copper is being cut off there soon as the whole area is now served by full fibre.

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Message 10 of 11

Re: Blocked duct

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Ah that sounds very involved, fortunately there is no severed copper cables here so hopefully nothing is crushed below the surface.

That puts my mind a bit more at ease.

 

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