Trooli questions

Trooli marked my area for new rollout in Jan and have already put up a very aggressive roadwork schedule for the area on one.network. As someone who has been waiting for anything better than my long line FTTC connection this is obviously quite exciting but I just had a few questions for anyone with a Trooli connection?
1) After installing at cabinets how long until I can order roughly? They seem to be moving pretty quickly but I've no idea on the next stage - are they like openreach where the ordering takes a long time to open up sometimes (My current ISP is coming up for renewal in a couple of months)
2) How reliable is the actual connection? I've heard lots of horror stories about their installs (ispreview) so will be keeping my FTTC until they actually install but with 2 people WFH I cannot afford to take on an unreliable connection nor can I afford two connections long term.

Thanks

Can't help with 2) as not (yet?) a customer, but Trooli have been building in my area since last autumn. All very low key, hardly any digging, just a PIA install. Most of the vans seem to be subcontractors and don't even say Trooli. I registered interest when I became aware - like you I'm on a long line FTTC at present - and yesterday got a phone call out of the blue saying they're now accepting orders for installation in April. Don't know how successful they're going to be - they haven't done any publicity, mailshots etc here so far. Be surprised if more than a handful of folks locally know about them. In contrast to Swish, the other altnet building round here, who everybody knows about because they are digging up everywhere and being a right pain.

Any links to posts you found on ispreview? I couldn't find much...

The comments here:
Page 1
and here:
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2022/01/full-f...

They seem to be rolling out at fair speed here (different contractor?) with it going from announcement (early Jan) to roadworks on every street in two months scheduled to complete by end of Feb. Personally I'm stuck on a 35Mb/8Mb line and I've been struggling to WFH at times (I need to copy TBs sometimes) so I'd take anything better right now (No VM and no openreach FTTP planned).

I have a Wifi mesh setup I wouldn't give up on so just hoping that is ok to use?

Its tough with these new providers getting any clue how good they are when there is so little feedback but not sure I have any choice.

"Better than you have" is probably a safe bet, for work purposes anyway.

There may be other things you need to check with altnets. For example, if you're a gamer then being behind a CGN may cause problems. I'm not saying Trooli use CGN - I have no idea if they do - but it's something to check with altnets in general. These days they'll find it very hard to get hold of IPv4 addresses, unlike the established players with existing large allocations.

Its a fair point. I do game but not really online.

The question of reliability is a tough one. While my line is slow it been rock solid. I've only had 1 real day of outages in about the 9 years since we moved in (FTTC became available the week we moved in). Trooli does have a few instances of outages on their site which given how small their rollout is so far, does leave me a little concerned. I've got visions of taking out the trooli service and using the FTTC one as a backup which is an expensive way of doing things (but still cheaper than FTTPoD I suppose).

Thanks for the links. I was too lazy to scroll down to the comments.

@FireBubble commented here

However the quality / safety of their FTTP build is very poor.

I'd be interested to know details behind this remark.

I'm in a similar situation to @BlueWave97890 here. Trooli are accepting orders now where I live. Swish are building but likely not ready till Q4.

I now need to decide whether to sign up to an 18 month contract with Trooli who are taking orders to go live in December, or wait for Swish..

Trooli/Callflow do not seem to be that well regarded and don't have great T&Cs. The idea of switching straight after the contract term does not appeal either, with the potential for the clutter of multiple fibre cables and boxes.

There are several things I don't like about Trooli. I don't like the router lock-in - offends my Net Neutrality principles, apart from anything else. I don't like the 18-month contract - why do they need to do this if their service is so good? I don't like that they want final say on where the equipment and holes are sited - it's my house and my wall. Their Ts and Cs generally seem heavily weighted in their favour - punters are penalised for the slightest non-payment and can't escape early, but they can change the terms, prices whenever they like, and terminate the Agreement if they decide it isn't commercially viable. Their website has incorrect information about their supplied routers. They claim 99.99+% network uptime, but couldn't (or wouldn't) tell me how this is calculated and over what timeframe.

Comments on Trustpilot seem to be polarised into love 'em or hate 'em. If the installation is smooth then folks seem happy, but if it's necessary to deal with CS then that's where the problems can start.

They use CGN. They told me that home users can get a static IP for £5/mo, but this isn't in the price guide - only 5 ips for £15 for business users.

However the quality / safety of their FTTP build is very poor.

You can see an indication of Trooli safety and quality on streetview. Stuff gets left like this for months on end.


https://goo.gl/maps/m9SNCANuJgQ7KwDFA

https://goo.gl/maps/qM7Eoc5PJY85TqrL6

https://goo.gl/maps/4gi82CknmqDH7t58A

Edited by FibreBubble (Mon 07-Feb-22 18:21:32)

It's similar round here too. As in your pics, many instances of easily accessible boxes only a couple of metres or so off the ground, with coils of fibre sometimes taped up around, sometimes not even that.

Today's yoof are no doubt more interested in doing drugs or setting fire to the kids' playground, but when I were a lad in more innocent times, we would have taken great delight in shinning up the poles to find out what was inside them.

In reply to a post by Thaumaturge:

Thanks for the links. I was too lazy to scroll down to the comments.

@FireBubble commented here

However the quality / safety of their FTTP build is very poor.

I'd be interested to know details behind this remark.

I'm in a similar situation to @BlueWave97890 here. Trooli are accepting orders now where I live. Swish are building but likely not ready till Q4.

I now need to decide whether to sign up to an 18 month contract with Trooli who are taking orders to go live in December, or wait for Swish..

Trooli/Callflow do not seem to be that well regarded and don't have great T&Cs. The idea of switching straight after the contract term does not appeal either, with the potential for the clutter of multiple fibre cables and boxes.

There are several things I don't like about Trooli. I don't like the router lock-in - offends my Net Neutrality principles, apart from anything else. I don't like the 18-month contract - why do they need to do this if their service is so good? I don't like that they want final say on where the equipment and holes are sited - it's my house and my wall. Their Ts and Cs generally seem heavily weighted in their favour - punters are penalised for the slightest non-payment and can't escape early, but they can change the terms, prices whenever they like, and terminate the Agreement if they decide it isn't commercially viable. Their website has incorrect information about their supplied routers. They claim 99.99+% network uptime, but couldn't (or wouldn't) tell me how this is calculated and over what timeframe.

Comments on Trustpilot seem to be polarised into love 'em or hate 'em. If the installation is smooth then folks seem happy, but if it's necessary to deal with CS then that's where the problems can start.

They use CGN. They told me that home users can get a static IP for £5/mo, but this isn't in the price guide - only 5 ips for £15 for business users.

I decided to wait for Swish - Both Trooli and Gigaclear are due before, but there is definitely a higher rate of complaints regarding network stability and poor customer service than I'd expect.

At least in my area, the install timelines provided by Trooli for pre-orders were completely wrong also, when I made my last post, according to Trooli I would get an install early December. That same postcode now says it'll be another 10 weeks.

The Dept of Transport Code of Practice for Street-works is clear on this.

Unattended plant should be secure, tidy and not be able to be tampered with. Trooli routinely leave their plant insecure, able to be tampered with and easily strewn into live traffic. It is a serious safety issue that could easily result in injury or worse.

If Trooli are happy to leave the plant you can see in such a state you can imagine how they are leaving it out of sight and what they are treading on in the underground chambers.

Edited by FibreBubble (Mon 07-Feb-22 23:03:12)