contractor declined to do the outside work - what now?

Last month I ordered fibre from Vodafone with a proposed activation date of 18.07.2024 (this coming Thursday).

A couple of weeks ago a contractor knocked on my door - the early signs were not good - he said he usually had someone with him but was alone today. He looked at the pole which serves my house and described it as a "toothpick" - clearly not enthusiastic. The pole supports a fibre mainline but on it there is not endpoint - the line goes through some trees to a neighbour's pole which does have an endpoint. He said this endpoint on the neighbour's pole would be his starting point and because it went through trees back to my pole he would not be able to do it - he would have to send the job back to Openreach. He then sat in his van for an hour - presumably so he could collect on the job.

I've heard nothing since with no update on the order. I''m not expecting activation this Thursday.

What can I expect from here?

I believe you should be chasing this the Vodafone.

Give your ISP a kick. My line comes through trees on a public highway to a carrier pole and then across to my house through my trees.


My neighbour recently ordered FTTP - three time OR sub-cons refused "becasue of trees" on both public highway and my garden (no objection from me). It took a high level intervention before OR sent OR technicians to do it - all easy for them. The three month delay meant about £600 in compensation! I believe the sub-cons will not do ones like as it may require a second operative and thus reduces what each are paid and secondly, it takes time and they are/were paid per job.

Had this before with an FTTC connection and a tree - if the tree is on public land then pretty much every council has an agreement with Openreach that they are allowed to prune the tree.

The Kelly subcontractor informed our site contact that we would need to arrange the tree to be cut and then marked the job as complete. An actual Openreach engineer turned up a few days later and completed the task with no problems.

Thanks. I contacted Vodafone who assured me the work would be done on time. I don't believe them - but it won't be the end of the world with £6.10 for every day it is late.

I saw a job recently where contractors had furthered it stating they were unable to deploy Tetra due to rendering on the house. Was unable to get a drop wire through trees. Was unable to climb pole due to ‘it being in a tree’ ……

The pole could easily be climbed, and the tiny branch near it pushed to one side.

A drop wire through the tree might have taken some time, but a light light persistence would have prevailed.

Oh, and as for Tetra …. well a quick look as walking to the front door showed an existing span of hybrid fibre and copper. Inside at the location where the NTE was required, was an NTE, the pair of which, went straight back to the cabinet, and the ONT was lit.

Customer said they sat outside in their van for an hour, then left, no explanation.

You can’t buy quality can you ?

seems like they get paid for just turning up - but the extra for actually doing any work is not enough

These subbies are on pitiful rates. If the BT guys were on the same deal, they would be doing the same thing.

In reply to a post by FibreBubble:

These subbies are on pitiful rates. If the BT guys were on the same deal, they would be doing the same thing.

But if they’ve just got to tone it back to the cab … handing back a tickle ?

I don't think there are many tone back to the cabs on fibre installs.