Delayed Installation FTTP

[iniltous]

If there is no obstruction between the pole and house then it’s odd that the survey indicated a problem , it’s also odd that the engineer who installed the CSP on the exterior wall and ONT internally, and ran an optical cable between the two , didn’t install the dropwire, even if that required an extra body for safety reasons that’s easily arranged on the day , if the engineer who attended wasn’t overhead trained , because the survey indicated that it wouldn’t be possible on the first visit , so they sent an engineer that couldn’t climb poles ,  ay explain that , but TBH that seems very unlikely in the circumstances.

Does  a copper dropwire , even if it isn’t in use , often OR use an existing wire as a ‘draw rope’ to help get the new optical wire in place, so the road crossings shouldn’t be a problem, even if no wire exists, a road crossing on a busy road is a common issue and the engineer should have the option to get assistance if it’s needed, out of curiosity was this a contractor or direct employee of Openreach ?

Unfortunately , if there is no obvious issue and it simply needs Openreach to return , all you can do is continue to chase BT , as the Moderator has seen this , they may be able to get OR to finish what they have started quicker than you could do yourself…. best of luck .

[NeilO]

Hi, @maseb it could be a clearance issue for the line to cross the road, how far away is the pole from your property? I've seen that warning before when the distance is too great between the pole and the property, especially if it needs to clear a road at a suitable height.

Have you been told what work needs to be done?  

Thanks

Neil

[iniltous]

@Cliff 

It’s really not very complicated, FTTP is delivered by overhead and underground means , if you live in an area where there is already a ducted feed into your home , and a house 23 years old will be ducted, you won’t be served overhead from a pole , when FTTP becomes available, the same duct is used to deliver the optical cable to your home , it’s placed alongside the copper cable in that duct  , and although the network copper cables are ducted from the copper ‘cabinet’ , it isn’t a single continuous duct , the duct network is interspersed with joint boxes of various sizes , no doubt one will be close by , outside  your home.

The duct to your home will come from the footway ( pavement)   jointbox , that will have an incoming duct or ducts from the direction of the cabinet and several outgoing ducts to the individual properties that joint box services, chances this jointbox are this will be the location of the fibre CBT , the optical cable feeding the CBT comes from a splitter node , probably also in underground structure ( another joint-box  ) it’s not from the copper cabinet or FTTC cabinet but could be close to it (or not )  it’s actual location is  unimportant from your point of view.

Because your address survey note states congested duct is because  it cannot be verified as serviceable duct , all this means in practice is that should you order FTTP , Openreach will proceed on a two stage basis ( KCI2) , the first stage to get a cable through the duct to your home from the joint box outside your address , the chances are this duct is OK , but incase it isn’t and needs ‘unblocking’ that delay is built into the process.

A  CBT is placed in the jointbox outside your address , it is   cabled from the splitter node  and tested and made ‘live’ before you can even order FTTP , so the only delay could be if your individual duct was blocked or in some way inaccessible .

[maseb]

Hi @NeilO 

Thanks for your message, the pole across the road is roughly 20 metres away from the house. A copper wire has previously been run from the same pole to the house a few years ago but house been empty for years and cable since been removed for some reason. 

As someone else has previously suggested , would you be able to look into this further for us? We're desperately trying everything now, really struggling without a connection 😞 

Thank you 🙂

[DavidM]

Hi @maseb and thanks for the reply.

I can totally understand how frustrating this is for you. I'm sure the case is in hand and to be honest there might not be a lot we can do to get it moving any faster but I'll be happy to take a look for you. Please check your inbox for my message and drop me over a reply with the details.

Cheers

David

[Cliff]

Thanks for your reply,makes it more understandable to me.When you say " so the only delay could be if your individual duct was blocked or in some way inaccessible" .I'm assuming that the 'phone lines to the properties are fed through the duct from the cabinet & at some point branched off from a cbt junction box,so are you saying that the duct might be blocked in the sense of to many copper phone cables,that being the case how would they unblock the ducts if they do not remove the copper cables.I've read somewhere else that they will not do that at this time.

[iniltous]

@Cliff 

For your address to have FTTP availability shown on checker sites , then OR must have already placed a fibre network CBT  in the  footway box close to your home , from this box there will already be a duct either directly or via a duct tee to your house wall  , it currently contains your copper pair lead in cable , and is probably absolutely fine and serviceable , but given your address survey has indicated ‘congested duct’ there is the chance that it’s not serviceable , especially if the area on your property the duct is under ( front garden normally) has had any landscaping etc done ( like a new driveway for example ) that may have damaged it , but obviously that damage would be unseen.

If there is any concern at all , ‘Congested Duct’ is simply a term used to highlight a potential problem,not a guarantee that there is a problem, it’s normally visible where OR ducts appear on a house wall , there will be a grey plastic cover and capping on the wall , if this cannot be seen ( for example the house has had a porch and built and now  this cover and capping cannot be seem from the road anymore, ) then congested duct is still the term used  to indicate it’s going to be prudent to check the duct out before attempting the installation .

I don’t know why the fascination with any  ‘cabinet’ , they have nothing to do with FTTP , especially regarding a consumer contemplating ordering FTTP , the existing copper /FTTC cabinet and associated copper cables are irrelevant to FTTP and  they will  effectively being made redundant when FTTP is installed.

The only thing a FTTP installer will concern themselves with is getting an optical cable from the jointbox in the footpath outside your house where the CBT is  , to your house wall using the duct that already exists from this box to your home, the chances are there is only one copper  cable in it , so plenty of room to get a second cable alongside it .

If the survey note suggests potential issues , a two stage install is provided, so that any issues with this duct can be addressed before the proper ( contractual date ) for the installation.

This only applies to property that is fully ducted , if the property was built after the early 1990’s a fully ducted feed was the standard BT/Openreach employed on residential housing 

[Cliff]

Thank you for all the details you have given,appreciate it.I previously had no idea as to how it all worked