New Fibre Installation - Now have two overhead cables (new fibre and old copper)

[chris-leeds]

I just had my new fibre broadband service installed yesterday. I fully expected them to remove the old overhead copper cable and replace it with the new fibre cable.

Instead, they installed a new overhead fibre cable to a different telegraph pole and left the old copper one in place.

Having one overhead cable is bad enough, but I now have two, which I don't want.

How do I get them to remove the old cable ? I've been on hold on the phone for 10 minutes to BT now and whenever they respond, I expect another 30 min runaround of some kind, before getting through to someone relevant.

Anyone else had this issue ?

That aside, I'm generally unhappy with the overall presentation of the installation and the damage to the render on my house, though that's another story. 

[imjolly]

openreach don't normally remove the copper cable when installing FTTP.  getting through to BT today could take a while as they were on strike yesterday so expect long wait period

[grahamm1]

I was just about to post virtually the same thing!

When Openreach finally complete my fibre install (next month, hopefully) there will be six cables connecting me and the house next door to the pole in the street. Four cables will be redundant copper and I intend asking the Openreach guys if they would remove them, although I expect them to decline. The pole now looks like it's in the centre of a cobweb!

I'm also unhappy with the quality of the install so far. They installed the external grey boxes (not sure what they are called) to mine and next doors front walls. The boxes are alongside each other, but at different heights. It won't affect the fibre working, but it looks odd. I'm going to ask them to move it when they come back, but again, expect them to say no.

[chris-leeds]

Just following up on this. I went to the Openreach website and filled in the online form, to request the cable removal.

A very friendly lady just called and arranged for this to happen and someone will do it next week.

I always expect the worst in these situations, but hopefully this should be straight forward.

@grahamm1 

[iniltous]

Who did the FTTP provide , Openreach direct labour or a contractor ?, in most overhead situations the same pole delivers the copper as well as the fibre , so as the engineer has climbed the pole it’s no extra ‘effort’ to remove the copper dropwire while installing the optical dropwire, in some circumstances they even use the existing copper drop tied to the optical drop to ‘draw’  the optical dropwire  through trees  ( for example ).

On the odd occasions where the new drop is from a different pole to the new drop , the engineer would have to set up twice ( once at each pole ) and each setup has a safety procedure to follow and take some time to complete  , a contractor ‘may’ consider it something they are not ‘paid’ to do , as they are paid on jobs completed , and obviously the longer it takes , effectively the less they get paid ( if by taking more time they  complete 3 jobs completed instead of 4 , for example )
Happily, your issue is going to be sorted .

[chris-leeds]

I think it was a contractor and he had to use a different pole for the fibre. He didn’t seem to want to know about the old copper cable.

That aside, he seemed a total jobsworth with no customer skills. Eg. coming in the house and walking on the carpet wearing boots - omg!

In an age of feedback fatigue, ie. Getting a feedback link for every bloody thing you consume, for once, I actually looked forward to getting the chance to give feedback on that occasion. BT didn’t follow up with a post installation survey however - surprisingly.

The lady I spoke to at Openreach in order to get the old cable removed was so friendly and helpful however, that I kinda feel at peace again now - lol

[grahamm1]

After a few false starts, finally, today, two Openreach engineers arrived to complete the external part of my fibre install.

Before I even had a chance to mention it, one of them asked if I'd like them to remove the redundant copper cables to "tidy things up a bit".

When I said yes, they made a point of warning me that once the copper cable was removed I'd not be able to go back to a "copper service". I am fine with that.

They also mentioned the previous engineers sloppy workmanship. They were going to sort that out, too, but they ran out of time.

Totally different attitude to the previous Openreach engineer.