Screwed over 90 year old relative

Elderly relative 10mb's adsl all that is available. Came to end of contract with John Lewis, no new contracts closing down. I asked openreach why the availability checker for address had a bunch of made up address's with different options. They said oh her village had been wired for fibre years ago, they just mixed up her address to she couldn't order it....

Then her options changed from adsl only to fttp only. No way to migrate adsl. I am not popular. But not all bad news, some benefit form fibre.

Signed her up to Zen, thought better service more able to hand the stress of migrating telephone number to new system and not all end in tears.

Zen after a few weeks of saying openreach was working on it now say ducting needs work and we must pay £1500 to continue?

We thought as retail product and only option installation was included.

So options, complain? Try again with BT retail, is it true that they are more likely to absorb installation costs? Beg openreach to reconsider and let her have adsl option again given age?

I am not popular. Just have to pray she lives for another few years and stress of my trying to be clever and making a mess doesn't...

Over £3K of install costs are absorbed by BT/OpenReach. Anything above that is charged to the customer. It is quite possible had they tried to order ADSL that it would have failed due to what is actually in the ground.

It may also be worth looking at 4G solutions if there is a mobile signal for one of the networks - unlimited 4G is not that expensive these days and may be a better option. Also, may be worth telling them that it is a vulnerable person and asking if there are any options to cover the excess charges.

In reply to a post by mnbvcxz:

we must pay £1500 to continue

Based on what Ian72 has said the overall costs must be around £4,500, if it was me I would be asking for more information about the works required as that sounds more than clearing/desilting a duct, possibly requires additional duct installing, is it currently DIG? what does the comments on the BTW checker say about the property?

There is a process for putting people back onto copper if FTTP has ECCs, your ISP needs to raise it to Openreach.

Sorry if I wasn't clear but she has working adsl at the moment, working with John Lewis. But expensivley out of contract and John Lewis say they are closing eventually. And she can't migrate to another providers adsl because they say she is eligible for fibre only... It's a mess.

Busy reading up on Openreach ECC charges. I would have more sympathy if it was sold as subject to engineering charges but the retail fttp products just say £15 setup fee and they will handle everything. No mention of covering the bill for their third party contractors, openreach. Perhaps it is in the terms and conditions for Zen somewhere.

Don't know about the ducting. Its hard to tell for sure as everything is though Zen. The copper goes up her driveway on poles but partly through a brick arch under a railway bridge and possibly they don't want to pin the fibre up with the copper but bury it instead?

As @jpm mentioned there is a process, see https://www.openreach.co.uk/cpportal/content/dam/cpp...

Although the WLR and FTTP priority exchange stop sells have been known about for some time many ISPs seem ill-prepared, especially in customer service training to handle exceptions.

You need to push Zen to expedite this. Presumably FTTC/SOGEA was not previously available - SOGEA+DV would be preferable to WLR+ADSL as SOTAP+DV doesn't appear to be ready.

Would they qualify for BT Home Essentials? https://www.bt.com/broadband/home-essentials

That's FTTP and significantly cheaper plus includes calls which is useful for old people.

That isn't the issue, AFAIK attempting to sign up for Home Essentials would not waive the ECCs for installing FTTP.

In reply to a post by mnbvcxz:

I would have more sympathy if it was sold as subject to engineering charges but the retail fttp products just say £15 setup fee and they will handle everything. No mention of covering the bill for their third party contractors, openreach. Perhaps it is in the terms and conditions for Zen somewhere.

The general Zen Ts&Cs are here. Paragraph 1.4 covers ECCs. I don't know at what point you would see those in the ordering process and found them by googling for "zen eccs".

In reply to a post by jpm:

There is a process for putting people back onto copper if FTTP has ECCs, your ISP needs to raise it to Openreach.

In reply to a post by tdw42:

As @jpm mentioned there is a process, see https://www.openreach.co.uk/cpportal/content/dam/cpp...

Although the WLR and FTTP priority exchange stop sells have been known about for some time many ISPs seem ill-prepared, especially in customer service training to handle exceptions.

You need to push Zen to expedite this. Presumably FTTC/SOGEA was not previously available - SOGEA+DV would be preferable to WLR+ADSL as SOTAP+DV doesn't appear to be ready.

Thanks to both of you for highlighting this.

I'd imagine this is not an oft used process; purely because the vast majority of people are covered by the pot of money that OR are prepared to use to establish a new FTTP service connection.

Does anyone have any direct or indirect experience of being through this process and how long it takes to action etc.?

It would be interesting to know more of the connection circumstances the OP aged relative that would incur such ECCs - for example is it an rural or ultra rural connection that has a very long connection point from the street or whoever the DP is located or something along these lines?

This sounds intriguing

In reply to a post by mnbvcxz:

The copper goes up her driveway on poles but partly through a brick arch under a railway bridge and possibly they don't want to pin the fibre up with the copper but bury it instead?

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

This sounds intriguing

In reply to a post by mnbvcxz:

The copper goes up her driveway on poles but partly through a brick arch under a railway bridge and possibly they don't want to pin the fibre up with the copper but bury it instead?

Yep, some idea of number of poles or total length, would be handy.

Perhaps the mention of "railway bridge arch" was the straw that broke the camels back

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Does anyone have any direct or indirect experience of being through this process and how long it takes to action etc.?

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2022/06/openre...

Ah yes. I remember that story. Interesting how the ECCs there varied so considerably between the ISPs

Thank you for the ideas, sorry late reply, everything is slowly going nowhere.

Short answer I'm going to write a grovelling message to openreach and see if they can just let her continue on adsl for a while. Otherwise will look into the very helpful links above on ECC exceptions.

Longer answer,

Drive is about 400m up a hill from main road and goes under main railway line.

http://oakhouse.byethost32.com/fibre/fibre1.jpg
http://oakhouse.byethost32.com/fibre/fibre2.jpg

If curious you can see above where the line goes along poles under the railway line. Having extracted a powerpoint from zen it does indeed appear they wish to bury a duct between the two poles through the tunnel. Possibly solid rock ground there. Why they can't leave it on poles who knows. That and cutting back seven trees is the main costs. Quote below which doesn't make sense to me, how that translates to us paying £1500 as contributing half?

What a mess, reading up on ECC charges they are indeed in the terms and conditions though most people say they apply where a line is additional or where they wouldn't commercially chose to put one. Which if its the customers only option on an existing line you would think they would be obliged to do it to continue some sort of universal service obligation, but perhaps not. Tried communicating with BT and asking if they were more generous in costs but they just insisted, "special offer no install costs" and when I pushed about ECC charges they just dodged confusedly and then ended chat or hung up.

############

ECC Chargeable Items:

Survey x 1= 0

Softway duct x 53M = 1585.76 (CP)

Tree Cutting X 7Span = 604.41 (OP)

Total Cost: 2190.17

Split Cost = (NO)

Total Cost to Openreach =604.41

Total Cost to CP = 1585.76

Build Days = 115

Job Description: 53M Softway duct and 7span tree cutting required.

There is a product she should be able to move to but no one can provide it atm.
The product is called SoTAP and is ADSL with out the PSTN line.
This would then allow VOIP to be used for a phone line.

Thanks
Dan

Just an outside chance, but you could try ordering FTTP with Vodafone. Anecdotally, they have been known to swallow ECCs.

USO usually requires OpenReach to cover up to a certain amount for any particular line - over that you pay the ECCs even if it is the only line to the building. I guess the only question is what level of ECC is covered for going from copper to FTTP.

However, I understood that it would cover up to about £3K whereas in your case it only seems to be covering about £600 - that doesn't feel right so worth challenging back. It might be that you would need to go via a good ISP that you can get to challenge the ECC.

In reply to a post by ian72:

USO usually requires OpenReach to cover up to a certain amount for any particular line - over that you pay the ECCs even if it is the only line to the building. I guess the only question is what level of ECC is covered for going from copper to FTTP.

However, I understood that it would cover up to about £3K whereas in your case it only seems to be covering about £600 - that doesn't feel right so worth challenging back. It might be that you would need to go via a good ISP that you can get to challenge the ECC.

If you're invoking the broadband USO, then the only ISP you can deal with is BT, for the simple reason that BT is the only provider of the USO (outside of Hull).

In reply to a post by ian72:

However, I understood that it would cover up to about £3K whereas in your case it only seems to be covering about £600 - that doesn't feel right so worth challenging back. It might be that you would need to go via a good ISP that you can get to challenge the ECC.

£1,500 for 53m of ducting sounds cheap so may not be the full price, openreach may have already taken off the bit they are willing to pay.

Hi,

Whilst you shouldn't be forced down the path of a specific supplier, in this case I think that going to BT is the best approach for several reasons:

1. They are the providers of the USO
2. They are the same company as Openreach (not that that generally makes much difference but it might here).
3. If you don't get anywhere then the BT chairman's office complaints process is often able to cut across both Openreach and BT retail, which might be necessary in this case.

I would cancel the Zen order, stick an order into BT and if you get ECCs coming back then respond with a complaint to the chairman's office.

Note that there are two possible outcomes here, one is that you get fibre (woohoo!), the other is that you are flagged as not having fibre available to you and you are offered ADSL. From what you have said, I think you'd be happy with either outcome.

Thank you more ideas. We are slightly limited by the main aim of my aunt being able to always pick up the phone and call someone. No loss of service or telephone number. Thats partly why Zen, they were the only one who said we could sign up and then once up and running move the telephone number afterwards. BT could have in theory but could only get sales droids who couldn't cope with this idea.

I do notice all the ECC pages imply it is for new additional lines. I wonder if we have confused things and not made clear we are a continuing existing connection have a manadatory upgrade... Perhaps it doesn't actually matter.

USO, we could have had the USO as internet adsl is only guaranteed at 4mbps. But only option offered was BT 4g 15mb/s for £52 a month which didn't sound attractive. Kafkaesquely now we can get fibre we are not longer eligible for the USO because in theory we can get gigabit internet even though we can't afford the charges to build it. So they will only contribute £3400 to the build cost when we can't get it, now that we can they won't help it seems...

Vodafone as above we were scared the fibre installation might fail and drag down the existing telephone number and internet into a dead end with no way back to John Lewis. Their prices are cheap but their customer service if there is a problem is not that good a reputation.

Trying again with BT is an idea. No body seems to know if they will actually swallow gerater install costs. And they are the cheapest for adsl with a call package oddly. So it could fail gracefully in theory...

The ground under the railway bridge is indeed solid rock with a large important storm drain in the way too so its not clear that it will ever be practical to duct through it without causing problems. Not sure where that leaves us.

Thanks

does the storm drain go underneath the bridge and b) who owns it?

if it goes fully underneath the bridge and out again the other side it might work. A fibre connection could go that way, its cheaper but theres is tons of hurdles

The costings supplied by the ISP show CP ( communication provider ) and OP ( Openreach ) , the CP element is what would be passed on to the consumer…the rate for excavation in unmade ground ( what Zen have inexplicably called soft way ) is around £29/m , so the duct between the poles at 50 odd metres ( approximately £1500 ) is what the CP ( and therefore the consumer) is expected to contribute , the pole/span clearance costs are borne by Openreach.
There are a few things to consider, the USO is already satisfied, the OP can get mobile in excess of 10Mb and apparently the previous ADSL/FTTC ( it’s not clear which ) was delivering around 10Mb.
There does seem to be some inconsistency in the way excess construction costs are applied , in this case , if it’s only the duct under the railway bridge that’s ‘new’ and that’s £1500 , it is less than the £3400 that OR/BT absorb under USO , but this isn’t a USO case.
The duct under the bridge could be interesting, if the surveyor has stated it’s a soft/unmade surface, but it turns out not to be ‘soft’ , and as that’s a railway bridge, it’s unlikely that any excavation can take place without some sort of Network Rail acquiescence , did the surveyor even consider this ?

Edited by Iniltous (Wed 06-Sep-23 21:38:50)

In reply to a post by Iniltous:

The duct under the bridge could be interesting, if the surveyor has stated it’s a soft/unmade surface, but it turns out not to be ‘soft’ , and as that’s a railway bridge, it’s unlikely that any excavation can take place without some sort of Network Rail acquiescence , did the surveyor even consider this ?

If the customer agreed to pay the £1,500 and it turned out to be a much bigger job with much higher costs could Openreach/CP come back to the customer for more money or is it a fixed price?

Thank you though the fear is the storm drain will be damaged by the duct trenching rather than offering a place for a conduit. I'm not sure exactly where it is buried to be honest.

Just as a passing thought have you actually checked what the mobile coverage is like? There are lots of cheaper options than the £52 per month you quote from BT for mobile network internet access. If the coverage is adequate and my limited understanding of the technology is correct, would it be possible for you to arrange to ditch the landline completely, transfer the landline number to a VoIP provider and then connect one of the VoIP compatible phones as discussed in the VoIP forum to the mobile router? That way the existing landline number could be retained even though the landline itself has gone while it would appear little different to your relative in terms of picking up the phone and making or receiving calls.

Edited by GonePostal (Thu 07-Sep-23 01:28:26)

Definitely should not be placing cables through drains.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/broadband-rollout...

there was this trial.....

Just a trial. Openreach won't participate

We never saw any updates regarding that ..

anyways its an idea struck off .. 😂😁

A bit off topic but remember this i3 Fibrecity project?

Fibrecity

Don't know if any of their other projects got off the ground or went down the pan.

I can't actually remember what happened to Fibrecity.. Hilariously i've been past Bournemouth town hall a few times and not realised it was the council offices.

In reply to a post by mnbvcxz:

Trying again with BT is an idea. No body seems to know if they will actually swallow gerater install costs. And they are the cheapest for adsl with a call package oddly. So it could fail gracefully in theory...

Probably worth a go. If they start off on the FTTP approach and come back with ECCs which you decline they can raise an exception with Openeach for a copper product and should be able to supply traditional WLR + ADSL (Openreach have delayed the stop-sell for this until Mar 2024 where other products are not available as SOTAP/SOADSL isn't ready).

Zen should be able to do this too if you can get through to someone who understands the situation.

In reply to a post by mnbvcxz:

Thank you though the fear is the storm drain will be damaged by the duct trenching rather than offering a place for a conduit. I'm not sure exactly where it is buried to be honest.

Still confused how an acceptable overhead cable route for copper has partially been replaced by a length of duct when it comes to the fibre route without an explanation to the person now having to pay for it. If the existing route is unacceptable then Openreach should have been back long ago to replace that part of the copper route.

Edited by PCJM40 (Sat 09-Sep-23 10:10:04)

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

In reply to a post by mnbvcxz:

Thank you though the fear is the storm drain will be damaged by the duct trenching rather than offering a place for a conduit. I'm not sure exactly where it is buried to be honest.

Still confused how an acceptable overhead cable route for copper has partially been replaced by a length of duct when it comes to the fibre route without an explanation to the person now having to pay for it. If the existing route is unacceptable then Openreach should have been back long ago to replace that part of the copper route.

I'm not sure this folllows, in reality at least. I imagine there are all manner of copper line routes which don't 'comply' with installation rules (and so officially would not be deemed acceptable) but exist and continue to provide service nontheless.

In reply to a post by binary:

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

If the existing route is unacceptable then Openreach should have been back long ago to replace that part of the copper route.

I'm not sure this folllows, in reality at least. I imagine there are all manner of copper line routes which don't 'comply' with installation rules (and so officially would not be deemed acceptable) but exist and continue to provide service nontheless.

I think its easier to accept when the copper is buried directly in the ground without ducting but this is an existing overhead route. As I said it would have been nice for someone to have explained why the existing route is now unacceptable and will incur a cost of £1500. Different surveyors possibly different outcomes as the duct route doesn't come without possible issues under that bridge.

There are many things that once were acceptable but now are not ,( brackets on chimneys or example) it’s pretty irrelevant that the current copper service is hanging off the wall of a railway bridge , it remains the fact that the new network has to be build under current guidelines……what isn’t done is anyone going around , discovering items not upto current standards and removing the offending lineplant leaving customers out of service.
FWIW , cable on wall is a perfectly acceptable method, so presumably the surveyor
decided that as it were not the customer’s property ( the bridge that is ) it wouldn’t be appropriate, or maybe even checked with Railtrack who said that cable on wall couldn’t be used , we can only speculate

Edited by Iniltous (Sat 09-Sep-23 19:53:24)

In reply to a post by Iniltous:

we can only speculate

True

What is the current position regarding brackets on facia boards?

I ask because a neighbour had problems with his copper dropwire bracket on the bungalow's chimney being replaced with a bracket on the facia board. This when an intermediate pole was fitted a few years ago. This resulted in the facia board being pulled off the rafters etc. He got nowhere with TalkTalk his ISP. He changed to Vodafone and recently took up their FTTP.

They (OR?) left the copper dropwire since the analogue connector had not been provided for the router and fitted an additional bracket for the fibre drop wire on the facia board 12/15 feet away!

Walking past this afternoon, I could see that the facia board is not hard against anything behind it....

Cheers!

Brackets on facia boards are deemed acceptable. (Though an eyebolt into brick is preferred)
If possible, try and secure with wood screws that pass right through and go into roof timbers too (though this is often not possible as these timbers might not be visible.


IMHO The property you mention Clive sounds as though the facia boards were not securely fixed the the property themselves.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

IMHO The property you mention Clive sounds as though the facia boards were not securely fixed the the property themselves.

Not all facia boards are designed to have cables hanging off of them, mine are only plastic and secured via special pins which are good enough for their intended purpose but then add extra load via a cable and damage is very likely.

Hi,

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

In reply to a post by mnbvcxz:

Thank you though the fear is the storm drain will be damaged by the duct trenching rather than offering a place for a conduit. I'm not sure exactly where it is buried to be honest.

Still confused how an acceptable overhead cable route for copper has partially been replaced by a length of duct when it comes to the fibre route without an explanation to the person now having to pay for it. If the existing route is unacceptable then Openreach should have been back long ago to replace that part of the copper route.

From the photos provided, it looks like the overhead copper run is not in any way attached to the railway structure. There would therefore be no problem from that perspective duplicating that with fibre if Openreach chose to.

Also from the photos however, it appears that the copper run is sufficiently long that the wind causes it to rub up against the structure and the copper has been protected to counter that. It might be that it is now Openreach's policy that an arrangement where its fibres rub against a structure is not permitted.

While in no way questioning Zarjaz, who knows his stuff, I would not entertain anything attached to facia boards. On older houses the wooden facias eventually rot, often at their mounting points to the rafters. In this case the facias are often neatly covered by plastic which may seem secure but it isn't. I've seen probably a quarter mile of fallen gutters to prove it.

Our 1968 bungalow had its BT line attached to its wooden facia. Around 1992 I noticed one of the securing screws had pulled out, the remaining one supporting some 30m of cable over what has become a very busy road. In fairness, BT was out within 15 hours of my call and fitted an eyebolt into the brick gable instead.

In reply to a post by Dassa:

From the photos provided, it looks like the overhead copper run is not in any way attached to the railway structure. There would therefore be no problem from that perspective duplicating that with fibre if Openreach chose to.

Also from the photos however, it appears that the copper run is sufficiently long that the wind causes it to rub up against the structure and the copper has been protected to counter that. It might be that it is now Openreach's policy that an arrangement where its fibres rub against a structure is not permitted.

When I looked at the pictures I also didn't think it looked as if the copper cable was attached to the underside of the arch. There is a special wrap that can be put on aerial fibre cables to stop them rubbing, normally for where fibre cables go through trees although very rarely used by either contractors or openreach engineers, this wrap I believe extends the life of the cable considerably.

The dropwire was attached to the facia only a few inches from the end, and whilst not a 90 deg pull, the dropwire to the new intermediate pole was taught. A bit of slack would have helped.

I am aware that chimneys are not now used, but surely a few courses up above the gutter line would be pretty secure.

Personally, when I arranged to have our dropwire moved a few years ago, I asked the engineer if he could use a Bracket 32 mounted on our fascia board - also near the end - but with the drop wire pulling the fascia towards the house rather than away. The Bracket 32 allowed the dropwire to be above the tiles.

It has worked out well and the same bracket was used 31st July for our FTTP (the copper dropwire being removed at the same time at my request - I am wary of lightning, this following damage which prompted me to have the drowire moved previously).

Cheers!

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

If the customer agreed to pay the £1,500 and it turned out to be a much bigger job with much higher costs could Openreach/CP come back to the customer for more money or is it a fixed price?

It's fixed price. At least, it was for my FTTPoD. After taking ages to fix a bunch of small blockages, when it finally came to pull the cable they found that a trunk duct was full, and they had to dig an extra 164m in the carriageway at their own expense