Openreach changing roll out dates.

Just received the following form the NGA enquiries email:

Information about the commercial fibre project can be found on the rollout site :-
http://www.superfast-openreach.co.uk/where-and-when/

In the light of a recent Standards ruling all project dates have been reviewed recently and unfortunately some have been moved further out. When delays are encountered the historic way the systems dealt with this was to automatically slip the date to the end of the next business quarter. In more protracted situations this could result in several such automatic date shifts. In order to avoid repeatedly delaying cabinets we have moved their due dates to the end of the work phase (or the end of the commercial programme) to reduce multiple changes to the likely activation date. We will continue to seek solutions for these cabinets and where possible will activate them before the end date given.
In relation to cabinet smwi54 work is ongoing and expected to run for another couple of months. If all goes to plan we aim to complete within the given end date of March 2014.

Got to admire their approach, were being shouted at for not meeting our targets, so we will set the targets wayyyyy off in the future!

N

Yep it serves the whining anti BT lot like Bob right , you moan and groan and the result is less info

taking a lead from the railways - to increase % on time revise timetable to imply later running.

Mine is still showing as June 2013, but I know from elsewhere it's going to be delayed till next year.

Only four years late

Edited by arfster (Tue 19-Mar-13 20:19:01)

Indeed, I don't remember specifically who was complaining but I don't see one person now praising the change that they helped bring about. Maybe they will stop to think of the consequences next time before protesting.

Isn't the problem that neither approach is satisfactory from the customers' perspective? I don't think it's fair to blame people for complaining about an unsatisfactory system when BTOR replace it with an equally unsatisfactory system. I don't know enough about BTOR's FTTC/P roll-out programme to understand why they have so much difficulty planning and sticking to dates (other than a very few obvious things like responding to floods in some parts of the country). Perhaps someone who does know could enlighten me. In my ignorance, I can't help thinking that better programme management and project planning, and more transparency in making the key plan dates visible to customers ought to do the trick. Just good business practice really. I wish I understood why it seems so hard. I know it's a large programme but it sure isn't rocket science.

There are just so many variables Bright that is the problem. They tried to be accurate but came under fire for it when dates were changed. Their reaction is to push the dates right out and publish less information.

So... the customer either puts up with more info that could change or less info that probably won't change.

I blame those that moaned to be honest, it doesn't affect me I'm on FTTC already but I feel a minority have probably caused more problems for the majority

In reply to a post by GMAN98:

There are just so many variables

Apart, perhaps, from the vagaries of local authority planning processes I'm not (yet!) convinced that those variables can't be managed more effectively though (having spent 20 years working on projects to build new mobile networks - securing sites for radio base stations has got to be a lot harder than green cabs!).

Anyway, I'm in danger of joining the moaners' bandwagon. I think my main thought was that in reality the new scheme doesn't seem much worse than the old one - neither tell the end customers when they will be able to get FTTC. It's inevitable people will complain when that's the case.

Yep, before you had a rough idea, now you have an even rougher idea.

Probably fair to suggest that the problem is compounded by a lack of resources, i.e. there are not teams of people who can do the work sitting around idle, so any delay tends to push a cabinet to the back of the list, rather than a team sitting around waiting for a resolution.

As you prune back to save money (i.e. be more efficient) it means you are less able to react to changes in timelines

I got the impression a lot of the work is contracted out. So isn't that just down to better, and more flexible, supplier management?

For my set-up OR did the cabinet work and fibre to the cabinet. For the home install it was contracted out

My install was also done by a contractor - really badly! Didn't check the line at all, didn't replace the old faceplate with the VDSL interstitial plate (in fact he didn't even look at the master socket, which is under the desk, he just pulled the RJ11 cable out of the back of the ADSL modem and shoved it into the BTOR modem), and he didn't check that the service was working to the ISP. I don't think he followed a single one of the BTOR guidelines for FTTC installation. So definitely a need for better supplier management

1st reply from OR

In your locality work is ongoing. Currently this is awaiting power and other works, and the estimated date for cabinet ��� enablement is close April 2013 assuming there are no issues. As I�m sure you�ll appreciate any engineering date quoted is at best an estimate and will be subject to change depending on local issues and conditions

Please register your interest on the website as this helps us assess local demand patterns

Many thanks

A month or so later :

In the light of a recent Standards ruling all project dates have been reviewed recently and unfortunately some have been moved further out. When delays are encountered the historic way the systems dealt with this was to automatically slip the date to the end of the next business quarter. In more protracted situations this could result in several such automatic date shifts. In order to avoid repeatedly delaying cabinets we have moved their due dates to the end of the work phase (or in some cases to the end of our commercial programme) to reduce multiple changes to the likely activation date. We will continue to seek solutions for these cabinets and where possible will activate them before the end date given. In relation to cabinet wwbarn24 work is ongoing and expected to run for another couple of months. If all goes to plan we aim to complete within the given end date of December 2013.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Does April still likely for us in Fremington ? ( Green boxes all in and trenches filled in )

Cheers

Edited by deleted (Wed 20-Mar-13 11:29:57)

Oh god that's terrible. The guy I had was ok, he didn't know anything beyond what he was there to do to fair (I asked about the cabinet set-up), but he did a decent job with the master socket and did all of the tests, finished in about 40mins end to end

A lot of stuff is sub-contracted, which also tends to lead to be only doing precisely what told, rather than developing an ongoing knowledge base.

Pay peanuts get peanuts.

Hi,

could you PM me the NGA email address please?

[email protected]

They will only respond if you are in a planned area- this can be seen on the where and when site

http://www.superfast-openreach.co.uk/where-and-when/

If you are in their commercial rollout area, inculde your phone number and address as they will ask for this, will take up to 10 days for a reply.

In reply to a post by Bright:

I don't know enough about BTOR's FTTC/P roll-out programme to understand why they have so much difficulty planning and sticking to dates

That's the problem, you can't blame anyone for not knowing why the dates move, but you can blame them for complaining without first trying to learn why they move. If they knew why they probably wouldn't complain and there wouldn't now be less info.

Providing accurate dates is possible, but it would slow down the rollout and increase costs. Letting resources sit idle in an area while a problem is resolved is not ideal, it's more efficient to move the resources to where they can be used and return to the problem area once the issue is resolved. You get a faster, cheaper, rollout at the cost of some shifting dates.

In reply to a post by Croftie:

Providing accurate dates is possible, but it would slow down the rollout and increase costs.

Why? What would need to be done to provide accurate dates? Why does that slow down roll-out?

In reply to a post by Croftie:

Letting resources sit idle in an area while a problem is resolved is not ideal, it's more efficient to move the resources to where they can be used and return to the problem area once the issue is resolved. You get a faster, cheaper, rollout at the cost of some shifting dates.

Why would you let them sit idle? Deploying resources to the work which can be moved forward on any given day/week/month would make everything happen quicker and more efficiently. That's just good resource management. Having them sitting idle is what will cause dates to be missed!

I'm still hoping someone can tell me why BTOR seems incapable of forecasting dates accurately and efficiently managing the roll-out programme to, by and large, meet those forecasts. Something tangible, rather than "too many variables", "lack of resources", "outsourcing of skills", "waiting for power" - these are all very vague excuses, not reasons!

I'm "first trying to learn why they move", but so far I haven't. Can someone put me out of my misery?

Because they dont have absolute power over:

Power companies
Ability to dig up roads to clear blockages
Weather
More urgent repair work
Staff sickness
Objections to cabinet and subsequent relocation


The list goes on

So you mean they don't factor those into their plans?

I am being deliberately provocative and I appreciate that things like that might happen in individual builds (although unplanned digging up roads will be a rare occurrence). I think my real point is that better planning, better management, and most importantly, better communication of what's going on and what's going wrong would actually address many of the issues. The decision to publish less information about the programme as a result of criticism of what they had published is an example of poor management decisions. Something that can happen when you have a near monopoly, but doesn't have to happen!

And blaming people who complain about poor communication, rather than the poor communicator, seems a bit perverse to me. Anyway, this isn't going to solve any of the world's problems...

You can factor them in, but many are finger in the air variables

If it were me I wouldn't be communicating anything until a cabinet is up and running

The ruling by the ASA was:

The claim must not appear again in its current form. We told BT to ensure that the availability checker only included dates if they corresponded to scheduled plans for Openreach to engineer the BT Infinity service to the corresponding area.

That sounds pretty fair to me, and I wouldn't say scheduled implies it will definitely happen by that date. If they are now quoting March 2014 dates when there are no scheduled plans for engineering work then you could argue they're still not in compliance.

Edited by deleted (Thu 21-Mar-13 12:54:53)

So if power people on 1 in 100 cabinets take 3 months Openreach should always allow 3 months or the book based 28 days (if that is what SLA says)

I suspect those doing their management are doing the best they can with the level of resources they have.

Given more staff to plan and manage each part of the roll-out and produce the more granular data they could do a better job for sure, problem being that extra staff will cost and remove cabinets from the roll-out potentially.

Exactly, you have to weight up just how important providing an accurate date is vs the cost of providing that accurate date.

I'd rather see no dates and more cabs

In reply to a post by Bright:

So you mean they don't factor those into their plans?

I am being deliberately provocative and I appreciate that things like that might happen in individual builds (although unplanned digging up roads will be a rare occurrence). I think my real point is that better planning, better management,

The problem here is an understanding of scale.

By "better management", you really mean that BT ought to be able to project manage better, to get one cabinet (*your* cabinet) up as fast as possible, and to not slip. You then kinda "hope" that they apply the same measure to every other cabinet around... and Bob's your uncle... project done.

But BT's yardstick is different. They don't want any one cabinet to be finished as fast as possible. They don't even want *all* cabinets done as quickly as possible. They want 66% of the population done by (some point in) 2014 but most importantly they want it done to budget.

The usual ways to get a programme done *quickly* are to stack the sequence of activities as close together as possible, and to have as many people work on it as possible, in parallel.

The problem is that any delay anywhere will result in people sitting idle, waiting to be assigned new work. And there goes the budget...

If the project is to run *cheaply* then you don't try to run each activity too close together - so you don't even request a power connection until you know the cab is in place, for example. It means the installation time for any one cabinet is extended by periods of sitting idle, and the installation time for a cabinet with problems has those idle times amplified. But the *people* are kept fully busy.

When you own 80,000 cabinets, and need to enable 200 every week, you are soon going to find a percentage of delays. As BT know the *average* install time, and the average number that encounter delays, they know how many cabinets have to be being installed in parallel - taking into account both wasted leadtime *and* wasted delay time. They can start the work for a lot more cabinets, knowing that delays *will* be encountered, but without knowing *where*.

The overall result is that the national plan is well ahead of schedule (the target date has moved forwards from late 2015 to mid 2014), but the schedule of a few individual cabinets can vary hugely.

The fact is that BT appear to be managing the project rather well - from their perspective. But individuals may see something different - and those poor souls who connect via the very few of the *really tricky* cabinets get shafted because...

and most importantly, better communication of what's going on and what's going wrong

This aspect is what they've been really bad at.

You sort of answered your own questions.

In reply to a post by Bright:

Why? What would need to be done to provide accurate dates? Why does that slow down roll-out?

You'd need a team of engineers in each rollout area who stayed there even throughout delays so that they could deliver ontime. Very costly.

In reply to a post by Croftie:

Why would you let them sit idle? Deploying resources to the work which can be moved forward on any given day/week/month would make everything happen quicker and more efficiently. That's just good resource management. Having them sitting idle is what will cause dates to be missed!

Indeed, and that's what they do. Having them sitting idle wouldn't cause missed dates because they could complete the work as soon as the delay was resolved, rather than them be in a different area doing other work unable to return.

I can see how "too many variables", "lack of resources" can seem like vague excuses when you don't fully understand the situation, phrases like that are really the short answer, hopefully the replys above provide the long answer and it's now clear, WWWombat's, I think, is especially good.

everyone is using http://www.superfast-openreach.co.uk/where-and-when/

its a pile of pants the info there given there mine was rolled back to 30/06/2013 according to samknows as well this would be the 3rd roll back. but and here is the but a big but at that.
i could order fttc back in Feb i haven't bothered yet as job is dodgy atm redundancies

you should all just be checking with your phone number on
https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/main.html

i can get WBC FTCC DOWN UPTO 48.8MB AND UP UPTO 8MB listed as AVAILABLE and am on cabinet 41

where it will give you whats available and speed estimates and cab number as well just have to keep checking regulary but as i have said in my case the info is still wrong on
http://www.superfast-openreach.co.uk/where-and-when/
https://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/SDGSPRT

shame the info was wrong and still is wrong my advice check link i have given you, you may be able to get it you never know!
hope this helps some of you
basil