Infinity4 Installation Nightmare

I've had a nightmare of an installation with BT FTTP.
Order placed in April, installation set for May, on due date BT said there was a fault on the new fibre network so they just connected the old copper line which had been disconnected for several years ( I had been using mobile data since it was faster than the old copper line).
Fault was fixed in June, engineer turned up to do a Light Test and supposedly gave the Ok for another installation attempt.
Due date arrived, 3rd July, engineer turn up, I'm expecting ONT and battery unit because that's what I'd been told on the phone by BT the previous Friday, he says he's just doing another Light Test, carries out test and leaves. Engineer then apparently signs off the job as complete and closes order.
So I ring up BT and say installation has not happened, I get through to a manager and he's livid, supposedly spends 2 hours on the phone to engineers asking them why they have closed the order without fitting the ONT.
Manager phones back on Wednesday offering another installation appointment on Thursday afternoon. Engineer turns up, explains it has been difficult for him to get equipment released after previous engineer had closed job. He fits ONT but does not have a battery unit for me.
So eventually up and running with Internet access but my account still does not show that I have a broadband package so I can't access the extras I'm paying for, particularly the 500GB BT Cloud service.
For the pleasure of all this hassle BT have also raised an invoice for £198 on my account and when I claimed my rewards card it has turned out to be £75 and not the £120 on offer when I placed my order in April.
BT just don't get ant better do they? This is all at a time when BT are supposedly trying to encourage people to make best use of the fibre networks which are being rolled out in rural areas.

Edited by deleted (Tue 11-Jul-17 10:25:06)

Consider yourself lucky you have the option for fttp! Im rural and cant even get fttc, just 1mb adsl!

I don't really think he should consider himself "lucky". You can consider yourself unlucky, but I don't think it's relevant to this problem, is it?

Anyway I don't want a big silly internet forum argument, and it must be annoying to be stuck with 1Mb in 2017. On with the thread.

Edited by deleted (Sat 15-Jul-17 20:07:02)

If you PM me I can give you a direct complaints team. It does sound like you're up and running now though.

Thanks ukhardy07, I did also write on the BT forum and Robbie from BT has been in touch and has worked through the problems, I've now got access to the cloud, my package is displaying properly and the bill sorted out. I'm now just waiting for the rewards card to be delivered and then get it topped up to the correct amount.

I was quite OK with there being a fault on the line which needed to be repaired, but when the Openreach engineer turned up on 3rd July and he didn't install the ONT but closed the job as completed then that was shocking customer service. I hope the issues have been identified and other customers don't get treated in this way.

You're right, I'm lucky that FTTP has been rolled out in my area, but before this I didn't even have adsl, only mobile data by tethering my smartphone.

I've gone from having no fixed line Internet to having one of the best available but it hasn't been easy. Fibre lines were put up on poles in July 2015, green boxes were mounted on poles in summer 2016 and some underground work was done to get around electric wires in late 2016. I ordered FTTP in April 2017 as soon as it showed as available, particularly as BT were encouraging people to use the newly installed infrastructure.
One issue I do see is that there hasn't been a great uptake in my postcode area, just one other property connected so far.

In reply to a post by jsp21c:

One issue I do see is that there hasn't been a great uptake in my postcode area, just one other property connected so far.

Which is why there's been the historic reluctance to invest the billions it will require to roll out to the masses. Even those who do take up FTTP, almost always opt for the lower tier speeds.

Edited by deleted (Sun 23-Jul-17 16:35:45)

Correct let's not let BT Group think they can have any more of the taxpayers money.

Almost as criminal as the banks. ))

Easy to say when you're cruising on FTTP.

No so easy for me sat on 2meg ADSL

I'd pay the installation fee for FoD but the monthly commitment is too much.

My sympathies are with you although I'm not on FTTP but FTTC. Although the way BT have did this village probably cost more with the 3 cabinets they put in at random times (taxpayer money ofcourse) Rather than maybe pursuing a FTTP for the whole village as every single line in this entire village is provided by a overhead pole.


Lets be honest though if they did put FTTP in the village probably 30% if that would take the higher package but yeah lets keep installing old technology its the British Way of doing things fortunately. The never ending cycle of milking the consumers and taxplayers for every penny.

Went a bit off topic so apologies!

Indeed, companies expecting to make a profit is just so british, nowhere else in the world would companies actually want to make a profit on the work they do

The 30% you mention is the number of people likely to take FTTP at all. Of that 30% probably 10% at most would take the "top" FTTP package, the majority would take one of the bottom 2 packages. There isn't a massive amount of margin on wholesale line rental charges to be able to fund FTTP rollout - the payback is potentially counted in decades which is not good for the bottom line.

Biased Pro BT reply. understandable

Spend £400,000 of taxpayers money putting FTTC already not able to compete with VM's offering packages these days into peoples homes because the government is footing the bill.

Wait a few years and repeat? Sound good?

That £400,000 would serve a considerably fewer number of properties with FTTP, of which the statistics show the majority would only take out the lower tiered services which are avilable on FTTC.

The very nature of FTTC being rolled out means there's more nodes across the country, which in future, will be used for more FTTN/FTTP, gradually bringing fibre closer to homes.

People think they need 1Gbps NOW, when in reality, most don't need more than 40meg (yes there will be some who do need more than 40, but very very few will need more than 80 on a regular basis, and they certainly don't make up your average household).

Edited by deleted (Mon 24-Jul-17 12:39:41)

Buy VM broadband then.

It wasn't a pro BT reply - it was a pro business reply. Any standard business is there to make a profit and to believe that companies should do something unprofitable would result in companies going bust.

The government put out a tender to expand on coverage in areas where the market (and that means ALL companies, not just BT) weren't planning to install. The government funding was partial funding for implementation and gave a long ROI. Where takeup has been higher than was originally expected then there are clawback payments that return that money to the government - so the ROI doesn't get shorter as less money is paid.

It was also a general tender that anyone could respond to. Originally it wasn't just BT. The fact it ended up just being BT was largely because of the way the tender and the EU funding works - it wasn't BT's fault.

You also have to consider that BT are governed by Ofcom. They could fund FTTP if they had full control of their pricing as they could increase charges but when Ofcom put controls on wholesale prices that becomes an uncertain income source.

As has also been said here there is nothing stopping Virgin putting fibre in 100% of the country. They could make a business case for it as easily as BT - oddly enough they don't and yet BT are still seen as the bad guys...

We all didnt think we would need more than 1Mbit 13 years ago.

Your argument is invalid there is no point talking about a digital Britain and spending money on old technology im gonna stop now as it was a rant that has went too far.

Seeing both sides of the forum superstars who love to argue.

Spend money on new things not things that were relevant in other countries years previous and those countries are now moving onto more future proof. Nothing to do with speed they keep pushing all these Quad Play bundles and im guessing the next will be IPTV. and eventually 4K IPTV time creeps in fast no point settling for something that worked 2 years ago.

In reply to a post by jdigz7:

We all didnt think we would need more than 1Mbit 13 years ago.

Your argument is invalid there is no point talking about a digital Britain and spending money on old technology im gonna stop now as it was a rant that has went too far.

Seeing both sides of the forum superstars who love to argue.

Spend money on new things not things that were relevant in other countries years previous and those countries are now moving onto more future proof. Nothing to do with speed they keep pushing all these Quad Play bundles and im guessing the next will be IPTV. and eventually 4K IPTV time creeps in fast no point settling for something that worked 2 years ago.

Find a company to come up with enough money to buy BT Group (as they own the network), fund £25Bn into the fibre roll out and increase the number of engineers 4 fold.

Even with those figures, it would still take around 10 years to FTTP the whole country. Would you be happy sat on 2meg until 2027 if you were one of the last properties to be connected?

Baring in mind the ROI for FTTP in some areas is centuries, not years or even decades.

Other countries don't have the landscape we do, or the telecoms market/regulation that we do.

You cannot compare apples to oranges.

What you should be doing is comparing BT to Virgin, and ask why they haven't provided 330meg to everyone nationwide?

Edited by deleted (Mon 24-Jul-17 13:28:12)

Oh look, http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2017/07/virgin-...

Not enough demand to warrant the roll out. Who'd have thought.

In reply to a post by lee111s:

Oh look, http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2017/07/virgin-...

Not enough demand to warrant the roll out. Who'd have thought.

This is my take on the two sides and the issues I have had with both companies.

Virgin Media
As some of you already know I am not a fan of Virgin Media due to they blatantly lied to me every month for several months stating they will be installing their network down my road and side roads.

After several months of being lied to I phoned to speak to their manager and then theirs and so on until I couldn't go any further.

It was there I was told that they couldn't rollout to my area due to it being a conservation area.

I asked when this was discovered and I was told several months ago, this really annoyed me a lot so I told them if this was so then why was I promised it will be down my road in the next month or two every month for several months.

I got absolutely no apology what so ever.

I did also ask if they have any plans to resolve this issue, they said not for the next 20 years and laughed.

I thought that was rather rude.

I did phone them the other week just checking the status or our area, I was told there is nothing planed for the foreseeable future.

I asked what about your FTTP due to that wouldn't require a cabinet to be installed down our road, they repeated there is nothing planed for the foreseeable future, but she did say sorry.

Also Virgin Media has over subscribed in the areas around me with their speeds dropping very low.

BT
I have also had loads of issues with BT over the years too which I won't go into, but at least BT held their hands up and apologized and also gave out a nice compo which was also nice of them.
This was mostly to-do with my Infinity 4 install which was resolved late last year.

So both companies have their Good and Bad sides.

And before anyone says it, I am not a fanboy of BT or Virgin Media, I just went with the one that got the job done.

I still have the odd few issues with my connection with BT which we are working on currently.

Paul

i wish that BT had done the FTTP route but that could not be done in a resalable time (over 10 years instead how long it has taken FTTC) and would of cost a lot more (but would of been more future proofed)

i would of prefered to wait a lot longer for something that is future proofed and guaranteed to provide the headline speeds and that should of been done in 1992 when margaret thatcher blocked BT from doing it and has left us 10-15 years behind (from now) from other countries now, as FTTC is Cheap way to get more or less ok speeds over copper

all new house estates should be FTTP only (and virgin cable if in the area, as happened at 2 estates here, well them 2 estates had ADSL 3mb only + Pre installed cables to the house for virgin)

in the long run this will cost BT/Openreach more money for FTTP later on (as more years that this goes on more expensive it cost to get FTTP done)

Edited by leexgx (Wed 26-Jul-17 18:28:08)

I think your timeline re: maggie maybe a decade out. But it does ssem Openreach/BT have made 2 important discoveries.
1) that FTTP is ultimately the better technology, both future proof and significantly cheaper and more reliable in the long term that FTTC.
2) that ECI FTTC was a poor choice

I think your timeline re: maggie maybe a decade out.

It is certainly wrong to some extent as Maggie was removed from office before the end of 1990.

I remember seeing the fibre being shown on Tomorrow's World in the 80's and that after showing how amazing it was BT changed their plans because the government would not allow them to broadcast TV over it (which was the main business case for them).

From Wikipedia "Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS, FRIC (n�e Roberts; 13 October 1925 � 8 April 2013) was a British stateswoman who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990"

I remember her leaving the office of PM very well - it was shortly before I was made redundant from my first full time job so I remember the year - don't normally know when things happened in politics quite so well.