Swish not connecting

I've had a long running saga with Swish ever since they announced plans to lay fibre in my village. Back in 2021 they were running an active sales campaign encouraging people to sign up in advance. And so on 2nd March 2021 I registered interest which they acknowledged and said they would 'keep me updated' as they finalised their plans 'within the coming few months'.

Nothing happenned till 28th Oct 2021 when they took an order for fibre 400 at £45/month and claimed 'We look forward to connecting you soon'. At the same time I set up a direct debit (which was not used then).

Then in May 2022 they actually cabled my road, and installed junction boxes at each house. I contacted them on 20th June 2022 asking them when the connection to my property would happen and they responded 'We hope to go like in the next 3-6 months'. No explanation as to why it would take that long, but still.

I contacted them again on 10th August 2022 asking them the status. Eventually on 9th September they replied and said they 'do not have exact dates' but 'once we get to this stage our installs team will be in touch'.

Again nothing till 5th November when they said 'I've just checked your property. It looks like it will be going live soon'. No date, though.

On 12th December the sales droid said 'I have spoken to the project manager and they are working with the contractor to try and get this built this month'.

Well of course nothing happenned in December. Or January. And now in February after a bit more prodding they replied:

"We are really excited to be expanding our network and bringing lightning-fast broadband to more people.
However, as we have been building in your area we have come across several engineering and permitting issues that have forced us to pause construction.
Upgrading any street to Full Fibre broadband requires carefully navigating old sewer systems, pipes, and wires.
We need to make sure we can do the work correctly and safely.
We are at currently reviewing our plans, but unfortunately, we are unable to give you a specific timeline or a guarantee that we will be able to resume our work.
Our team is constantly reviewing the situation and we will continue to update you immediately if there are any changes.
We do understand this is frustrating news for you, but we want to be completely open and transparent about what is causing the delays you are experiencing."

Which is kind of strange as the infrastructure is there right up to the junction boxes outside the houses. No 'upgrading to full fibre' required, it was done ages ago. And still no date as to when they may eventually connect me.

What I find rather strange is that they could be generating revenue for all the work they did digging up the road (which took a few days). Instead they seem to be actively holding off installs. Any one else come across this and had an explanation?

In reply to a post by keith969:

What I find rather strange is that they could be generating revenue for all the work they did digging up the road (which took a few days). Instead they seem to be actively holding off installs. Any one else come across this and had an explanation?

There may be obstacles upstream of your street causing them problems in getting the infrastructure they have already provisioned to connect to the internet spine.

Possibly true although a couple of my neighbours are connected ok.

It's the complete lack of any information and timescales that is the biggest problem.

My timeline with Swish is similar. Signed up Nov 2021, finally went live Oct 2022 thanks to some internal prodding by @Swish_Fibre (Chris) on these forums. Nearly all the status updates I've had have been via him - regular operational and order progress comms have been non-existent. Even now, my neighbouring properties here in Haslemere are showing on their portal as not taking orders even though my service is live.

Having said that, now that the service is live, it's been rock solid and I was even bumped up from 400Mb to 500Mb a week or so ago, well before my 1st anniversary of service.

Same here. Before installation Swish's communication was hopeless. They never volunteered any info, and whenever I phoned to ask I got a different story usually contradicting what I'd been told previously.

But I've had their service for 6 months now, and apart a few initial config problems it's been absolutely fine. Once I had thrown out their wretched Plume Pod and replaced it with a decent router, that is.

Well I'll wait and see if I get connected in the near future. In the meantime, Openreach have told me FTTP will be available here by 2026. The case for doing nothing is getting stronger.