Full Fibre Installation

[davews]

Just to update on progress, or lack of it.

I am still waiting for Openreach to dig up the pavement and install the external fibre to my house. They did have roadworks permission last week which expired yesterday. Apart from a roadworks looking truck coming down the road the other day when they sat in the cab a few minutes then drove off I have seen no action. The order tracking page now suggests Openreach will finish the external work today, guess it will move one day at a time... Digital Voice is shown there as being implemented today but I have had no emails or texts to tell me so we will wait and see.

It does seem the policy of not installing ducts to houses  is going to cause huge delays to full fibre installations.  Now a month since placed the order and not a lot to show for it.

[davews]

I am getting a bit concerned about the lack of progress. As stated above the Openreach chap came round three weeks ago, surveyed and marked the pavement with white paint for the duct. There was an item on our local roadworks site for work by my house last week, that ran out on Monday and nobody came to do any work. The tracking page on my order gets updated each day to say 'Openreach will complete the external work today' but they clearly don't as there is no permission for the roadworks on the roadworks site. It looks as if Openreach have conveniently forgotten about my order and need reminding. All the time I have a losing battle stopping the neighbours parking over the area on the pavement, they no longer believe this story I tell them about Openreach coming....

I am not sure ringing normal customer support (150) will achieve anything other than 'we are working on it'. Is there a quicker way to speed things up?

(at least I see that they have now received the hub I returned last week!)

[iniltous]

If you are having to ask neighbours to not park on the footpath where the new duct is to be installed, are you sure that access has been available all the time , unless you keep a constant look out , it’s possible the civils dig team ( contractor or direct labour ) could have turned up , found access blocked by a car , and simply left , obviously if you are always home and would notice anyone parking in this location , it’s not going to be that .

As you suggest, calling regular BT customer service is probably not going to get any useful info , given the way BT has to interact with OR , and the likelihood that OR will give the job to a civils contractor that will schedule the work , and notice the council themselves, means that you contact BT , they contact OR who then contact the contractor, and if any information is provided, it has to comes back the same way .

[davews]

You may be right about them driving away. I did see them come down the road one day, car parked on my kerb but next door where they had to dig was clear. They sat in their cab a few minutes then drove off. Not aware of them coming again but I can't be looking out of my window all the time.  You would have thought with a car parked on the pavement outside the house they were to work on (including my garden) they would have rung the bell...

Presumably in due course Openreach will notice they haven't done the job and will get them out again.  But in the meantime we sit and wait.

[davews]

Chaps just been round at last to lay the ducting - as suggested they did tee into the existing run with one of the adaptors depicted here. It seems they may well have previously called and couldn't do the work because of parked cars. somebody might have knocked on the door, maybe out at the time. Anyway, first stage now done, took them around an hour. Will wait the next chaps to feed the fibre from the street box, feel I am making progress at last.

[davews · Accepted solution]

Finally seven weeks after placing the order Full Fibre 500 was installed yesterday and seems. along with digital voice, to be working fine. Slight glitch as it coincided with a mobile fault on EE so I couldn't ring it from my mobile. Almost a last minute glitch, the rope jammed when he tried to pull the fibre through and there was talk about having to call out the pavement team again to sort it - after he had already cut through my landline which would have left me with nothing... Fortunately a few more tugs and it came free. Very impressed with his tool for splicing the two bits of fibre!

He wasn't too impressed by the work of the duct people, calling them cowboys. I didn't want to get into arguments...

148Mbs down, 28Mbs up, very happy.