My experience of Full Fibre

[ptan]

Remember back in the 80’s there were a few TV ads about BT networks and even Tom Baker talking about fibre being the future?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pv4p71wL0U

About 8'20" and repeated at 9’38” into the clips.

Wow… exciting! .. yes, it has been evolving and then a big gap until we get to 2012 and the Olympic 2011 infinity ad..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlZuw77EizY

So, the cabs started to appear and I managed to order Infinity2. Alas, never actually been able to get the full bandwidth and have only peaked at ~45mbits due to the distance from the cab and lots of aluminium cabling. Not bad compared to some folks, but.

Roll on to 2020's and Openreach decided to deploy full fibre to exchanges and mine (Tunbridge Wells) was lucky enough to get that.

Since early 2021 I have watched the fibre rollout creep towards my street and finally the CBTs were up on the pole opposite!

Trying to order it was a problem as my address was wrong on the BT/Openreach database. After a month of help from the Executive Resolutions team and waiting . . . it finally got sorted and I ordered Fibre.

Yesterday was installation day! Whoopee… ah no. MJ Quinn turned up (2 engineers) and said no. They needed traffic management to do the job as the new fibre line comes over the road from the pole directly opposite my home.

I pointed out to them that they did to TWO installations for flats right next door and that was done by one engineer making a new attachment on the property and then connecting a drop to the CBT. Then the second engineer stopped the traffic with hi-vis and the first one ran over with the drop and up the ladder and connected.

They weren’t having it. They said they’d be breaking the rules if they were caught by the ‘auditor’ who is going round checking. I said did anyone do a survey? No.

I asked them to escalate back to their managers and tell them that there is a process discrepancy here and to get it rectified.

Tried contacting Openreach today who told me to talk to BT. I did that yesterday and via the Executive Resolutions team. No joy there either.

Still waiting for someone to tell me what is going on from The Ivory Towers (the next Lord of the Rings film)

So 40 odd years on from Tom Baker’s clip, my experience of fibre is, well, I am lost for words. Wow!

[ptan]

Update:

No calls from anyone so far to explain what is going on.

However, I did get a text from BT saying that I need to go online or phone to book an engineer appointment! ... WHAT??

Managed to get through to a chap in the Fibre Team.  He said that the appt has in fact been rescheduled for 23rd March. More waiting....

I just hope that I don't have to go through the MJ Quinn pain of installation again and that they have everything they need.

[rbz5416]

Unfortunately in most large organisations you'll find a percentage of employees who instead of doing the 10-minute job, will spend a good half-hour looking for reasons why they can't!

[garybs29]

I love that, I assume you'd be happy to break the rules in your job & get caught by an auditor? More hassle than it's worth

[Carlusha]

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@garybs29wrote:

I love that, I assume you'd be happy to break the rules in your job & get caught by an auditor? More hassle than it's worth

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Oh, I did that many times during my working life. It is called discretion! No auditors or, worse still, consultants ever pulled me up! I survived until retirement 14+ years ago and now the only auditor to beware of is my beloved other half!

[ptan]

As you may have read, I pointed out to them that there is a discrepancy in their process.

As Carlusha said, it comes down to discretion - also add in experience and willingness to sort out an issue there and then

[XYZ123]

Good luck. I have FTTP and getting it installed was a complete nightmare. Took about three months to get the broadband in and another month or so for them to hook up the cloud phone. No joined up thinking whatsoever. Rage inducing. But if OpenReach has only recently installed the fibre it seems you can only use BT (a company I would normally avoid at all costs as it is stuck in the poor service model of the 1980s.

[licquorice]

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@XYZ123 wrote:
But if OpenReach has only recently installed the fibre it seems you can only use BT

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What gives you that idea?

Other ISPs use Openreach fibre although many are choosing not to. That is their choice not a question of not being able to use Openreach FTTP.

[XYZ123]

The fact that BT was the only listed supplier on OpenReach. The fact that I double-checked with numerous other providers such as Sky, Virgin, EE, Vodaphone... and the fact that they all said they could not provide the broadband as it was a newly installed FTTP and that BT had a monopoly - that's how I got that idea!

[licquorice]

BT do not have a monopoly.