Gigaclear failed install; no WAN light on DKT Comega 79745

Gigaclear came and did my installation on Wednesday. The fibre got stuck on the way down to the cabinet. The two technicians who came were very friendly and helpful.

On Thursday, two further technicians came with a much larger generator. I was pleasantly surprised that Gigaclear got them out less than 24 hours after the first attempt. They ran into the same issue; however, they then went down to the cabinet and succeeded in blowing the fibre up the other direction to the property.

Install complete... or so we thought. Unfortunately the WAN light on the DKT Comega (displays product number 79745) remains stubbornly dark. The team on Thursday were much less friendly and were very obviously clock-watching; with their job done (blow the fibre) they said they could do no more and that the internal network termination endpoint had been installed incorrectly by the original team. They then attempted to spin a pack of lies about "not being able to activate your connection" and "call the office, they will activate it" as an excuse to leave; in retrospect I should have made them stay but was keen to get off out myself. I'd already seen the WAN light on the modem was not illuminated and had also heard them successfully test the connection at the external connection point.

As I understand it, the problem is therefore that either the fibre cable between the external/internal endpoints has been installed incorrectly, or the modem has been.

I called Gigaclear and after 20mins on hold was told they'd follow up with Comex and phone me as soon as they'd heard anything. On Friday morning I got what seems to be an automated email claiming they couldn't install the fibre because the duct was blocked and it would be a 30-40 day wait (!) Incorrect; the fibre has now blown successfully, something's just wrong between the internal and external boxes. Or I suppose another possibility is they forgot to actually patch the cable into the cabinet...

I opened the internal NTE myself and can't see anything amiss although I'm not really sure what I'm looking for. I also opened the external "omnibox" in Gigaclear speak, and again, can't see anything astray. With this starting to go badly wrong and no indication of when another team's going to turn up (and when they do, it seems they're going to be informed the fibre hasn't blown, despite me telling Gigaclear that's not the case), I'm trying to work out if this can be resolved myself.

I'm not sure if this is even the right forum for this kind of technical matter but does anything look obviously amiss in this fibre install? For the external box, the black cable going down the wall on the bottom left is to the POT in the road; the white cable obviously goes into the wall. The connector looks the same where it comes out the other side.

(Sorry about photo quality, my iPhone has the stuck dust spots problem...)

Images: https://imgur.com/a/DvP1py8

Needs someone to come out and do a light test, i.e. measure how much is seen and if low look for break in the fibre, in addition to checking its actually plugged in and port is turned on at cabinet

I can't see where the white cable exits the external box to go into the premises.

Hard to tell from the pics, but doesn’t look like the job (internal cabling) is complete.

Easiest way to check internal cabling is to disconnect internal/external connection at the outside splice and use a visible light source (VFL) from there to the (open) router end.

But the OP isn’t a fibre engineer and should keep on at Gigaclear to sort the job properly.

The white cable exit from the omnibox is very unclear in the photo but is there - look vertically down from the blue connectors, there's a round hole behind the coil of white cable and the cable goes through there and into the property.

It terminates on the other end with the same kind of blue connector, which then appears to connect directly to that "DATA" port on the modem shown in the other photo (when reattached to the backplate, the cable is coiled into the backplate and so when the depicted faceplate is attached, the cables connect).

I'm no fibre engineer, as the last poster correctly states, but even so to me this all seems to be... normal. Or should there be something else between the internal end of the white cable and the modem? The connections look good.

Not sure what to think really, engineers tried to fob me off with "app not working, can't be activated", then that the internal connection point had been installed incorrectly. But looking at it once the faceplate's off it's literally fibre through the wall, blue connector, to blue connector on the modem.

I'm speculating of course but based on the attitude of those two on Thursday, I wouldn't be surprised to discover they'd done something wrong at the cabinet. Although obviously no way of being sure, the original two on Wednesday were friendly, helpful and methodical; of course they may have made a mistake but I know which of the teams I'm more inclined to suspect...

Oh well, I guess last poster's comment to keep on at Gigaclear is my only option; who knows when anything's going to happen though (certainly they don't seem to know)! Hopefully the work ethic of the next team who eventually turn up will be more like the original pair.

Send a email to the CEO.

Pleasantly surprised to find Gigaclear, or rather Comex, reappeared before 10am this morning.

As expected, they'd been told the fibre had failed to blow, thanks to the previous team's misreport. Even though I'd phoned Gigaclear to tell them otherwise.

This third team were much more helpful. Confirmed it's patched to the cabinet with a good signal at the external omnibox. Did a light test on the cable into the property which looked good. Still nothing at the modem.

Now suspecting that the DKT modem may actually be defective... but they had no replacements in the van.

Advised to expect a fourth team "tomorrow at latest" to attempt fitting another DKT unit.

It would appear the "79745" is very new and Gigaclear have only recently started supplying them; the team today said they hadn't seen many installed.

Not quite the "tomorrow at latest" that I was promised Monday, but Gigaclear finally came back today.

As ever, they first wanted to verify the previous team's report and tested the line outside and inside again - good optical connection, no surprise there.

They then replaced the pigtail connector at the end of the internal cable (to connect to the port on the modem) with the technician saying "if it's good optics but no WAN light, it's normally one of these" ... sure enough, faceplate back on and the WAN light came up immediately. No modem replacement required.

Now all's good, seeing 320Mbps symmetrical at the router (paying for 300Mbps). Not the greatest installation experience in the end but assuming it stays up and reliable, I'm happy now.

Maybe this post will help someone else in the future, seeing as it took 3 teams before the connector was considered. If you have good optics at your internal cable, but no WAN light on the modem, try replacing the connector between the cable and modem!

They should have checked all fail points, the one they missed took 3 attempts ..

The more cross connection points (in this case where there are 2 mating blue SC/PC fibre connectors) the greater the optical losses and correspondingly a greater chance for problems, both initial install and later on.

A good quality fibre infrastructure design minimises the quantity of coupling / cross connection points to the absolute minimum needed.

I come from a background with lots of structured cabling and fibre experience, some outside plant (mostly CATV) but less some pure (public) telecoms, but the same basic principles apply.

This doesn’t strike me as a good design and I guess the proof is in the pudding as they say....

Glad you got it sorted.