Long wait for FTTC install?

My cabinet finally went live this morning, so I placed an order to upgrade my service.

I could pick an install date, the earliest being 31st December, so I went for it.

Just got an email from Zen saying my install date is 14th January 2015!

Given that I picked a date that was available, does this sound right?

Is nearly a month's wait usual/acceptable?

Given that it is Xmas and winter it isn't entirely surprising. BT engineers have time off too and winter is a time where they invariably have to do repairs due to unforeseen events.

It also depends on the area - some areas will be busier than others.

Not sure what basis Zen offered the date though as to be 2 weeks later than the provisional date (which presumably was provided via BT's booking system) does seem a little odd.

Mine got enabled on the 12th December, so I picked the earliest date of 22nd December and so far so good it looks to be on track!

Yep 14th seems about right, Had a customer who placed order on 14th Dec - Install 14th Jan. Openreach scale back their ability to do installs over Xmas generally

I totally get that OR guys take holiday too, and Xmas is a key period, but you'd think that if a date is offered, then a slot must be available. Or is that just too logical...?!

I don't know how Zen's systems work but I believe PlusNet's used to have some sort of cache of available dates that they used when offering. It only confirmed a date when the order got officially placed with BT which could be a while later - at which point the dates could have gone. But for 2 weeks to change that would suggest either the data was quite out of date or there was a massive influx of people signing up to BT based ISPs.

It seems to be a limitation in the BTW/BTO ordering system. Quite possibly because the back office system can't quite handle "real time".

When the date is offered, there is indeed capacity - but it is being offered to many people at the same time. When you go back to accept it, the right date is often no longer available.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

It seems to be a limitation in the BTW/BTO ordering system. Quite possibly because the back office system can't quite handle "real time".

When the date is offered, there is indeed capacity - but it is being offered to many people at the same time. When you go back to accept it, the right date is often no longer available.

You mean they gave away 14 days of appointments at 0730hrs on a Friday morning? Seems unlikely to me....

I'm wondering if Zen just offer a random date, a while in the future, then get BTOR to assign any date they please.

I'd say I expected more of them both, but then really, I didn't

System as I understood it was Openreach offer several options, but they are not reserved when offered. So when the ISP replies with a firm order the date may have vanished.

This is to stop an ISP grabbing all the slots and holding up other providers.

The first date might have been a random cancellation, leaving a single slot available, while most of the intervening slots are already taken up.

It is easy for dates to jump if that happens.

Interesting. What are the odds of an existing order jumping back in time to a random cancellation?

Having waited for years I was like a kid at Christmas this morning, when I saw it was finally available. I should really have expected this kick in the gut from Openreach!

I must be one of the only people wishing that Virgin were in my area!

Judging by Plusnet, their three offered installation dates seem only to be updated overnight.

I wonder how many installs per day are scheduled for the exchange or at least a geographic area/sub-area of its coverage, because that is going to be the relevant factor. It isn't really slots per cabinet, it is slots per area/sub-area.

My suspicion is that for my general area, it is likely to be absolutely dictated by the available links from the FTTC to the PCP; and within that availability, by the staff available, priorities etc

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The local PCP is about 45 Metres away across the road; and to judge from the number of times I have seen it opened since VDSL went live back in April 2014, this is about once every three or four weeks, on a Thursday around mid-day generally.

This can be OR or Kelly.

The time spent at the PCP suggests that there is only one upgrade per opening generally.

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From when "my" FTTC went live (10 M from my front door), I have only seen it opened twice, the most recently about three weeks back, when the OR technician immediately checked the surface temperature of one of the batteries, using a remote infra-red "thermometer", with a laser beam guiding spot.

He then removed all of the terminal insulators on all of the batteries, measuring their voltages.

He apparently did not change any of them.

That he first checked a specific battery suggests that there is some form of remote monitoring.

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There are 96 actual double-links from the FTTC to the PCP, out of a socket back-plane of 288, catering for about 300 houses, with another much-newer estate totalling eventually 400 houses beyond (probably 200 presently), this has its own PCP and FTTC, if I have extracted the figures correctly. (Still more work to do.)

This suggests that there has not been a high demand for upgrading to VDSL.

Of course, it almost certainly varies across the country.

Prior to the FTTC etc, the PCP was very rarely opened, say once per year.

Since VDSL became available and the relatively frequent opening of the PCP and the implied potential physical interference with the wiring, I check my VDSL and also use QLT shortly afterwards, to ensure that there have not been any adverse effects.

In reply to a post by AndyPandy:

Interesting. What are the odds of an existing order jumping back in time to a random cancellation?

Having waited for years I was like a kid at Christmas this morning, when I saw it was finally available. I should really have expected this kick in the gut from Openreach!

I must be one of the only people wishing that Virgin were in my area!

Having to wait 4 weeks for 'superfast' would be a 'kick in the gut' I'd happily accept, the est speed for a FTTC connection for me is 5-7 Mb.

In reply to a post by eckiedoo:

Since VDSL became available and the relatively frequent opening of the PCP and the implied potential physical interference with the wiring, I check my VDSL and also use QLT shortly afterwards, to ensure that there have not been any adverse effects.

After the FTTC was installed for our area we started getting more faults on our ADSL line, it got to the point that every time we made/received phone call the ADSL would drop out for hours, this last week or so it seems to have cleared up, so I'm guessing something was disturbed in the cabinet.

In reply to a post by eckiedoo:

Prior to the FTTC etc, the PCP was very rarely opened, say once per year.

Round here the ali' wiring is so bad that BTOR are in the local PCP virtually every other week. When they get cascading faults I've know them be in it every day for an entire week trying to fix/re-fix all the lines broken by fixing the first problem.
...and no this PCP is not going to be upgraded under BDUK.

Edited by deleted (Sat 20-Dec-14 13:53:13)