Terrible FTTP Install Experience Thanks M J Quinn

I Have Gone With 'Trunk Networks' Who I can recommend, they are only small but know there stuff.
They Have domestic, Gaming and a Business connections Etc.


I am posting this for anyone who does not go on the 'Kitz' forum (same detail.)


The Job was booked for 1pm to 6pm.

Guy came very early 10am and he finished by 12.30pm (Noon) . (With My help)

It was contractors M J Quinn.

(they a well known for giving up on a job and leaving to someone else.)

I did swear to my self when I his van came into view. !

I looked down the long drive and he was reversing up it, no contact at all, no text, or phone call to say he was about to arrive , he asked if it was the correct address, No ID, then he said I can not do the job because your trees are in the way !, I asked him what he was talking about, I said it's a UG feed not OH !, have you not read the attached notes.

He did not believe me until he looked at the end of the duct in the Enclosed porch.

So he started reluctantly.

He was trying to get his flexible draw rods through the duct, In which I knew was Not blocked, he could get it about 40M but his draw rods were to flexible and because of the resistance of the long length they kept bending, he then had a halfheartedly attempted to push it the other way but soon gave up ..

He was about to give up and leave.

>>>>>>He was not going to leave until I had the FTTP installed

So I told him to use our BT land line to pull a draw rope in to the duct and pull it back with the BT cable & fibre attached, Good Idea he said... So I fed the draw rope into the duct as he pulled the BT cable out.

I ask how long he had been doing this job, 8years he said when he came from Kenya and he went to collage and then this job .

With my unofficial help pulling the fibre through our long duct we got the BT land line and Fibre into the house end with me feeding it into the UG chamber in the Lane, He put a 100M roll of fibre on a trolley that supposed to rotate freely, it did not it kept jamming up, when he pulled our BT Landline out of the Manhole and ducting he laid the cable on the road in the Wrong direction so when he tried to pull it back into the duct it also jammed up, He did not seemed to have much practical idea of what he was doing.
So my 50 years experience as a Trained Electrician then a Electrical Scientist saved the day.

The UG (manhole) he could Not be bothered to put the safety fence around , It was just left open with young children going down the lane or a car driving into it .

I think we pulled in about 80M of Fibre.

It's a good job I know what needs to be done and help him because he was ready to go, that's why he was early as he refused a job around the corner because of trees in the way, I had only just taken the porch floor up to get to the end of the BT duct I installed 30 years ago when I built this house when he came.

He re-connected the Phone line up, then spliced the fibre plug that goes into the ONT on.

I notice the PON light on the ONT was flashing, he did as well.

The Quinn guy had to talk to BT OpenReach because he had a flashing PON light, he had only fitted a Nokia ONT instead of a Hauawei ONT, but BT OR chap had to re-configure things, then we got the Solid PON light.

When he plugged the Fibre into the CBT and once he made off the ONT end and plugged it in, I said I thought you were supposed to clean them first before assembly. he just made some excuse.


I have been thinking of sending the details to My contact in BT Openreach High level command and Also My CEO contact at Trunk Networks who have been excellent .

He needs retraining.

Because he had no internal CSP box's he fitted an External one some 150mm x 150mm x 40mm.
so it's not the neat install I was expecting.

He only looked at the attached job notes (in which I sent to the CP eg it was UG feed, the approx length of ducting, BBU reqd, Internal install only etc. ) when I challenged him.

So not only did he fitted the wrong ONT and CSP he had nothing else for the job. !


He had No Respect for Covid Rules / Common sense, I ask him to wear a mask, he did but I had to keep telling him to put it on again and again. !!!

I had a High grade Mask on all the time .
He lives in an city which has high levels of covid.

I had a 100/20 connection from Trunk Networks into my Dual WAN pfSense Firewall/router and seem to work ok.

have been thinking of sending the details to My contact in BT Openreach High level command and Also My CEO contact at Trunk Networks who have been excellent smile .

Please do, until issues like yours are highlighted, Openreach will keep imagining that these guys represent value for money, and more importantly, are working in a safe manner.

Thanks, always interesting to hear peoples experience's on fttp installation day.

Thanks for the comprehensive write up.

I think if I in your position I probably would have let the ‘reluctant’ engineer put it down as ‘too hard’ and wait to get an experienced and willing/keen crew to get the job done properly. If your hearts not in it, the results can be predictably likewise.

There’s really no need for the customer to have to prompt and assist the job like this. Doesn’t reflect well on subcontractor management. One to bring to the attention of OR as a pretty poor effort.

Send the feedback to BT definitely and copy your ISP too.

If it was me, I would be asking where I send teh invoice to for time spent supporting and doing the work.

I'm slightly confused from your description whether it was an inside out install or a connectorised cable.

then spliced the fibre plug that goes into the ONT on.

Did the engineer have to attach the SC-APC connector (the green connector that plugs in to the ONT) to the fibre cable or was it pre-terminated?

If he had to attach it (that isn't splicing) I have no idea what the CSP is there for?
Could you lift the lid and take a pic inside the CSP?

He only looked at the attached job notes (in which I sent to the CP eg it was UG feed, the approx length of ducting, BBU reqd, Internal install only etc. ) when I challenged him.

OpenReach no longer stock or supply BBU's.
They haven't for quite sometime.

The last I knew the responsibility for backup power had changed/was changing to the provider, but only certain vulnerable customers with no mobile reception would qualify for a UPS.

BT are the only ones I've seen give out a UPS and I've seen/read 1 example of this.

In short, just buy a UPS.

I don't know why Openreach insist on using them.

They are paid a fixed rate per job I think, so if an install looks like it will take time or is complex then they try and abandon it as fast as they can.

Openreach sent M J Quinn for my FTTP install, you could tell as soon as he arrived he just wanted to hand it back, opening statement was the lead in looks too long for me to do. A very feeble attempt to rod the duct (supposed to have been pre-roped by Pickr) followed by sorry blocked and left within 30 mins.

That said first Openreach engineer was new to it and came straight to fibre installs, he could not understand that the duct records on his phone might not be accurate. He spend 3.5 hours looking for his rod in the wrong manhole.

The second one traced the copper to find the right manhole and then using the larger rods managed to reach the manhole at the end of the street. He would have completed it but needed a two man crew.

The third and fourth Openreach engineers then pulled ~110m of fibre through from the CBT to my house and completed the install. There is a closer CBT but they ran it to the one the system had allocated based on the incorrect routing to avoid complications.

So no blockage, but I think a single M J Quinn person would have struggled and taken several hours, hence the lack of interest.

I have sent the details of last Wednesday install to the CEO office at BT OpenReach.

They need to know what there contractors are doing.
The general pubic would not have a clue if it was being done correctly or not :no:.
They are giving BT OpenReach a bad name.

It's a pity the 5 BT OpenReach bosses were not about on Wednesday like they were a few weeks ago down our lane looking at a new way to do a FTTP trial install on one of my neighbors houses.



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Also...
The install was an internal one, he did *splice* the 'Green SC-APC ' ONT connector on, I did challenge him about the External CSP used inside, that's all he had got.

*Splice* I used some of the first Splicers 40years ago in a scientific use. no fancy £15000 Splice machines in those days.

In reply to a post by APTMAN:

he did *splice* the 'Green SC-APC ' ONT connector on, I did challenge him about the External CSP used inside

I'm confused why he even bothered to use a CSP if he had to splice a SC-APC connector onto the fibre cable by the ONT, as John says the SC-APC is normally pre-connected to a length of fibre that requires only a single splice at the CSP.

A good installer makes a massive difference to the process.
I know I got lucky with the second attempt at my install after Kelly’s handed it back as being too much work. The Openreach engineer they sent out once the additional work had been completed had experience, contacts and the whole day blocked out for the job. Turned out to be a good thing as the pole hadn’t been checked recently so wasn’t climbable on paper. Luckily he had a contact in the area with a cherry picker so instead of just passing the job back he called his mate who arrived and gave him a hand. At that point he discovered the new fibre coming up the road was using a damaged bundle so again rather than passing the job back the pair of them backtraced the problem and fixed it before spending ages working with the routing team to fix the mess they had made of it the first time.
A contractor on a per job rate would have cut his losses and handed it back at least twice in the process as would a less experienced / dedicated Openreach engineer.

Chocolate brownies and Magnums (it was roasting hot that day) go somewhat to showing my gratitude but I made sure to feed back a positive review to my Openreach contacts too as I feel it is as important to highlight good workmanship as well as bad and hopefully encourage Openreach to look after and train up their own people.