Openreach - waste of engineering resource?

The cab that serves our office has finally gone live and we've placed our order to migrate 3 ADSL lines over to FTTC.

All orders were placed via the BT wholesale eco system within 2 minutes of each other, are at the same address, and all 3 lines are next to each other on the wall in the server room.

I can't understand why Openreach have booked 3 different dates for the 3 installations, considering it would just require 1 engineer who could easily perform the 3 line switchover during the same visit.

We have one appointment for the 29th Feb, one for the 6th March and the other on 7th March. So apart from there being 3 different dates, they are also a week apart from the first one, strange!

Isn't that just silly, and a waste of Openreach engineering time. After trying our hardest to get the dates all aligned they insist they can't bring the 6th/7th March installations forward to the same date as the 29th Feb engineer visit.

I'm not *that* bothered either way, but I just think it's a waste of resource and cost for everyone involved...

That has got to be the joke of the week It's totally farcical !!!

Steve

They would not have created the booking system with the idea that multiple moves would happen on the same day in the same building.

Thinking about it from a risk point of view, better to stagger them, in case they mess up, imagine if all three lines went wrong on the same day.

The time slot system is the killer, i.e. given a slot of X time with Y to travel to next job, and there was probably only ONE slot left on the 29th.

Did you enquire as to whether there was an expedited option? Too late now if you have already ordered though.

We enquired and they stated they have not got the engineering resource to bring them forward, but my point is that the engineer that is already booked for the 29th visit should be able to do it, but they're not having it.

And that engineer will have a 30min or 1 hour window to install your service. Which allows for data extension etc then they have to go off to the next job.

Making them do three installs in that single window seems unfair on the engineer, or on the others who have bookings immediately afterwards.

Most of the Technicians time will be driving from premises to cabinet, unlocking cabinets, relocking cabinets and driving back to the customer not doing the actual installation work. Adding a second, or third would not put an undue strain on them and as te following bookings will be AM or PM and not exact times will the following customers actually know?

Not saying its not feasible, just pointing out that Openreach will be setup to deal with one line per property per appointment slot most likely. so three lines would mean three slots in a row.

In reply to a post by Adsl24:

The cab that serves our office has finally gone live and we've placed our order to migrate 3 ADSL lines over to FTTC.

All orders were placed via the BT wholesale eco system within 2 minutes of each other, are at the same address, and all 3 lines are next to each other on the wall in the server room.

I can't understand why Openreach have booked 3 different dates for the 3 installations, considering it would just require 1 engineer who could easily perform the 3 line switchover during the same visit.

We have one appointment for the 29th Feb, one for the 6th March and the other on 7th March. So apart from there being 3 different dates, they are also a week apart from the first one, strange!

Isn't that just silly, and a waste of Openreach engineering time. After trying our hardest to get the dates all aligned they insist they can't bring the 6th/7th March installations forward to the same date as the 29th Feb engineer visit.

I'm not *that* bothered either way, but I just think it's a waste of resource and cost for everyone involved...

How long did it take to show your cabinet as live on the BT Whoesale checker from when the power was installed?

Edited by Bobby_Valentino (Fri 24-Feb-12 21:01:52)

Post deleted by seb

In reply to a post by Adsl24:

We enquired and they stated they have not got the engineering resource to bring them forward, but my point is that the engineer that is already booked for the 29th visit should be able to do it, but they're not having it.

I think we know the reason why, only BT could get away with that. Any other organisation would fold in no time at all due to gross inefficiency.
Is this the reason the setup has increased?

My setup was bought forward by the actual engineer over 4hrs, he was only 3 mile away and took the initiative by phoning first.
Next callout another engineer had to travel 33 mile to me then on to some where else 36 mile away in rush hour traffic, like thats gonna happen therefore having to book another slot.

The problem runs even deeper than this.

We recently had three new lines installed in our office, all booked at the same time. One committed within an hour, the others within the day.

One accepted for the Monday 1-6 and the other two, Tuesday 8-1pm. We asked to merge the dates, wouldn't have it.

The engineer arrived on the Monday, we asked if he could do the jobs for the Tuesday installs too, but isn't allowed and they are now only assigned a job at a time apparently and do not get another job until the first is complete.

The first engineer did all the prep work for the second install, including the line boxes and tagging the pairs at the cab.

Could have saved so much time but that would be far too simple!

Matt

Power was installed around 3 weeks ago but there was an earth fault identified so a week later they came back and installed an earth rod access box next to the cabinet. They then connected it up a few days later and it was then powered on "humming"...

A week later is went live on the checkers, so very quick once they got the power sorted.

Thanks

James

In reply to a post by Adsl24:

Power was installed around 3 weeks ago but there was an earth fault identified so a week later they came back and installed an earth rod access box next to the cabinet. They then connected it up a few days later and it was then powered on "humming"...

A week later is went live on the checkers, so very quick once they got the power sorted.

Thanks

James

Thanks, do you happen to know if the fttc cab was connected to the pcp before the power was installed or after? If so do you see tarmac on the pavement connecting the fttc to the pcp?

Hi,

The cab was physically installed in November and a few days later Telent dug the trench between the FTTC cab and the existing manhole covers outside the PCP. Then a few days later Openreach blew the Fibre through to the FTTC cab (ducting was installed months prior as this cab is late compared to the other cabs in the area).

A few weeks went by and Telent came back to install the 2 x 100 pair copper cables between the PCP and the FTTC cab, but there was a blockage, so it took several weeks before that was resolved, and then that was done and dusted.

It was not until the end of Jan when Telent came back to install the power. After a day they had dug up the pavement, and created a tail from the existing LV power feed under the pavement.

Although this was done the power was still not live in the cab a week later, as there was an earth fault, so last week Telent were back yet again to excavate and install an earth rod access duct beside the cab to fix the problem. The cab was then powered and humming along. After 6 days it went live and appeared as so on the wholesale checker.