Pretty much, using the cherry picker (essential) they managed to find a way through the trees without touching any large branches, took them ages. There are a few small branches which are pretty close and some twig sized bits that just about touch the cable. When everything is finally finished I am going to see which of those bits and pieces I can carefully and safely trim off myself to help prevent trouble in a few years time. Stitch in time saves nine as they used to say..... I am only just getting within spitting distance of 70 so reckon I am still sprightly enough.

Completely agree that it is frustrating that it takes an email to Gavin.

Edited by Jax2 (Wed 16-Sep-15 22:20:13)

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

So, in the end, they carried on with the cabling work, even though the trees had only been half done?

It is certainly great news that *something* happened, but so frustrating that it takes an email to Gavin.

Good to hear your finally making progress, been through identical situation here rerouting a phone line to in improve fttc connection, shame it wasn't fttp though.
It took a email to Joe before trees were trimmed back, took two engineers two days to do all the new cabling, gone from 9Mb to 72Mb, so all the hassle was worth it.

Edited by Nightglow (Thu 17-Sep-15 10:26:29)

Two things this morning, one good the other laughable.

Good news first, internal install booked for 22nd September am. Woohoo!

The laughable bit, after five weeks got a call from the tree surgeons to arrange the time with me about cutting the trees having just received the notification from BT! I explained the situation and the lady just laughed and said that is typical of the lack of communication from a certain party! She is assuming that the visit is no longer required but obviously for their own reasons has to go back to BT to confirm that. Just have to hope that does not trigger BT to do something stupid.
Rang my ISP to warn them just in case and was told this sort of thing is not unusual when BT and tree cutting are involved. The ISP said that BT had confirmed the date for the internal install so not to worry.

Well you may have guessed by now, things did not work out as planned.

The engineer turned up about 12.30, did all the physical connection of the ONT, spliced the fibre and so on. The lights did not behave as expected so he rang Openreach to eventually find out things had not worked their way through the system and had indeed not even been entered into the system. This was sorted after about 30 minutes and then all the required lights were a lovely steady green.
Great I thought, job done.
Could not get the router to connect to the internet nor a spare one either. Rang my ISP who talked me through all the settings on both routers and spoke with the engineer too. No dice and the engineer left as all the physical connections at my house are working so there was no more he could do.
Spent ages with support who told me it was hard to raise a fault as the job had not yet been signed off.
They said they would have another look tomorrow when the job had been signed off and then take it from there.
Rang off.
They rang back about 10 minutes later to say they had just received a notification from Openreach that there was a fault (no indication as to what from Openreach) and that it would take an engineer to sort it so Openreach "hoped" it would be sorted by midnight tomorrow.
My ISP have promised to keep me updated.
To cap it all I had to complete a form online by today at the latest to claim some money due to me but the ADSL line was down this morning too due to some work being done so I could not get online at all. I should be able to claim the money back eventually but it will be delayed by several months now.
Not a happy bunny!

YAY!!!
Success!!!

My ISP rang this morning to say that all should now be OK, Openreach had not set the system up properly or the system had got "stuck". This was what the engineer guessed and he was right.
My old Billion 7800N will still not see the network for some reason but I had bought a Netgear R7000 in anticipation and that is cruising along nicely.

Apparently the connection will speed up a little once things have settled down (I ordered 80/20) but at the moment I am seeing 74/20 with a ping of about 7ms which for me is flying along.
Been a long frustrating journey but I finally have it, can't believe the speed things download now!

For all those who are still in the agonies of procuring it where available stick with it, the difference is well worth it. Oh and don't forget Gavin Patterson's email address, that was key.

Great result.