In reply to a post by edwincluck:

reminiscent of Soviet state industry, from behind the Iron Curtain in the days of Stalin

I find this quite funny. From your previous posts, this is precisely the state you wish our comms industry were in!

As the original OP, I thought I would provide a summary update��


Lines are installed, two months after order � a positive move.

Fibre yet to arrive � it is available again, and ordered, and promised by the end of the week.


What I have learnt during the process thus far:



� OR have a huge machine to run, on that they have my respect. However the OR machine does not appear to functioning well from a customer or ISP perspective.

� There is no way to speed up anything. There is no way to have a definitive answer as to whether anything will happen in an expected time frame, until a Field Engineer goes and has a look.

� The internal communication between Engineers (e.g. handover notes such as you will need a Cherry Picker) is non-existent.

� The OR machine takes time to update. It appears to take anything between 48 hours and 1 week for any work to show on their system, which an ISP can interrogate and in-turn tell the customer.

� The Field Engineers I have met have all been extremely proactive, knowledgeable and helpful, but all appear �in the dark� with information about orders and previous work conducted.

� My ISP (Zen) initially provided very poor customer service in chasing matters with OR on these orders � this being a real shock for me, as Zen has always been my first choice for business for 20 years. Subsequently they improved, but I still feel that Zen have lost their edge as one of the best ISPs. I put this down to current staffing issues. Interestingly I see other people having problems obtaining information from OR via Zen, and I am beginning to see a link here.

Re: Openreach being a bottleneck for internet to a new build

I think gt94sss2 that sadly you might have something here about Zen. Some posters gave me this impression, and I think your kind nudges were perhaps correct. To my mind Zen�s computer system is similar to OR, runs at one speed, throws up error�s, and little can be done. When tracking orders online, I am constantly told by customer services to ignore the information shown. What point is a customer tracking portal, if the information is to be disregarded? In my opinion, I still regard Zen as being up there as 'one of the best', but they are (currently) not as good as they used to be.

� The FTTC to the cabinet issue was only one card initially installed. A big thank you to all who helped with information and pointers!

� The cabinet has now been fully populated and available to order again �this happened two weeks ago, and I found this out from the OR Engineers on site � Zen had no idea and kept telling me that most likely I had to wait for someone to move in order to release connections.

� Thanks to everyone who helped with information. It would just be so useful for customers and businesses to plan, if OR could give a rough estimate as to when they conduct this work. My cabinet went from Available (original orders placed), to Non available (no reason � no plan, after 7 days and orders rejected by OR) like a flip-flop on a daily basis, then no plans for 2 weeks, then exploring solutions for a week, then available to order but not yet due to lack of capacity for two weeks, then not available again, and then High Demand, and finally Available to order, all in the space of 8 weeks. Note for anyone interested, it took just short of two weeks from the cabinet being fully populated to being able to order again.

� The Track My Engineer feature that I mentioned didn�t appear on the missed OR appointments, did happen when OR turned up, so Zen do use this, but don�t tell you about it, or perhaps more importantly to expect it.

So where am I now?

One very good Avanti Business Satellite Internet feed.
Phone lines installed.
FTTC lines arriving this week, maybe, and thus I should have what I original wanted in early October, but with extra resilience / backup / fail-over, of the Satellite connection.

Then the business unit will be on track.


But will it be before Christmas���.? I will let you know.

I agree with most of what you've written but this in particular resonates with me:-

In reply to a post by Mendip:

My ISP (Zen) initially provided very poor customer service in chasing matters with OR on these orders � this being a real shock for me, as Zen has always been my first choice for business for 20 years. Subsequently they improved, but I still feel that Zen have lost their edge as one of the best ISPs. I put this down to current staffing issues. Interestingly I see other people having problems obtaining information from OR via Zen, and I am beginning to see a link here.

Zen are "dealing" with a similar saga for me. 7 weeks have passed since order and I still dont have a working phone or broadband connection. I had initially thought Zen were fighting my corner and the problem was Openreach but as time goes on I'm not so convinced that Zen are doing everything they could be doing.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Instructions here http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/t/4313768-how...

Just replied to that thread to advise that the latest VERSION number is also used in FollowThatPage links as the page returned does vary... with the current lines cards in my (partly populated) cabinet full, using the latest VERSION shows Waiting List and FTTC estimates; using an old VERSION shows nothing about FTTC at all!

Edited by deleted (Mon 14-Dec-15 14:25:07)

As the OP of this post, the latest and final update of my saga......


After two months, lines are in, fibre is installed and working!

Quite a good setup really, being influenced by lack of information and delays from OR, 3 fibre lines and 1 Avanti business Satellite broadband link, feeding into a Draytek 3900, giving the business unit flexibility and redundancy.


I would not have considered the Satellite broadband initially, but when the order pasted the initial promised 12 days, I had to do something, and I have to say I am impressed with the Satellite service. It is on par with the Fibre in terms of speed (15Mb/s), but of course the latency is higher. However this is not a problem for the business.


Summary:


� If your order passes the initial order timescale estimate, you are in 'the dark zone'! Little information is forthcoming from OR as to when a resolution may or will be completed.

� I have become knowledgeable on all the various sites where you can obtain information, from where your cabinet is, the status, the technology inside it, number of premises covered, future plans etc., none of which is obtainable from OR, or in my case my ISP - Zen. In fact I obtained far more detailed information about capacity increases from the local council, than I ever did from OR or my ISP, and even totally incorrect information from Zen.

� In my opinion my ISP Zen has lost it edge as being the best ISP. They used to be perfect, proactive, and professional, and whilst in my opinion based on my latest dealings (see earlier in thread), they are still �up there� as one of the best, they have really slipped, and I cannot help feeling that the lack of information was in some part due to them. Would I use them for future orders? I would have to think about it, whilst in the past I would not have hesitated! Either they have current staffing issues, or are changing their core costumer target, and morphing into �a one size fits all, pile it high, sell it cheap, no customer service� provider � I really hope not, it would be such a shame to see a good company that strived to be the best deteriorate - I remember when Richard Tang started it with the slogan 'Military grade Internet, with military grade reliability and service'. Time will tell.

� OR Engineers are a credit to their company and I cannot fault their professional up-beat attitude when attending, in spite of the fact that each and every one of them admits that the company does not provide any handover notes from previous visits, and �the flow of information within the company is terrible / non-existent� - their words not mine.

� I understand that OR is a huge machine, and it puzzles me how it runs in its current modus operandi. OR appears to break down everything into tiny tasks to achieve for an example a line install. This looks good on paper, however when factoring in that an Engineer will be needed for each 'chunk' and then factor in traveling, manpower availability on the day, lack of any handover notes, and lack of tools equipment (that could have been prompted / avoided by handover notes), it appears in my opinion, being a Director of several businesses, to be overly complicated. Indeed I can recall the days (only a couple of years ago) when a line install request was made, the whole process was conducted by one Engineer, and in one day (everything from the Exchange, drop wires, and commissioning)! Now this does not seem possible, and indeed the Engineers have told me that in fact they are not allowed to do this, even if they have the time. There must be a much bigger picture somewhere that I and the Engineers in the field are missing, as it does not appear efficient to me or them.

� Thus the lines, FTTC connections and Satellite connection are all up and running, and I can leave my guys in this location to work unhindered now. It would have just been so helpful if at the beginning of the process, or close to it, OR could have said, sorry pair diverts needed � delay 1 month, FTTC capacity run out, but delay 2 months. No problem I would have said � business is all about finding solutions and working around problems. What I didn�t appreciate were several appointments where OR didn�t even bother to notify that they were not going to turn up, until 26 hours after the event, as at that stage they didn�t even know they needed pair diverts!! This point still amazes me, that once away from the Exchange, OR have no idea what actually is out there, and perhaps therein lies the problem, and perhaps to quote Donald Rumsfeld � this should be the Openreach mantra about their network until a site visit is conducted:

� (Suggested) Openreach customer service commitment: There are known knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know - until you put an order in for a new line or fibre product, and we can find an Engineer to go out and have a look to see what is there, or perhaps more importantly not there!


Project finished here, new business unit starting in February � first move Satellite in, then order lines and fibre � lesson learned!


Finally many thanks to everyone on this forum. You have all been very helpful in different ways, and this site is a brilliant and professional place for information. Many, many thanks to the people that take the time and resources to run it!



Merry Christmas to one and all!

Edited by deleted (Fri 18-Dec-15 09:08:24)

Been finding many of these FTTC "waiting" posts lately, it seems openreach in their usual wisdom are trying to save pennies by only installing minimum line capacity at each cabinet, I expect an accountant thinks they been clever by having customers waiting frustrated.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

Been finding many of these FTTC "waiting" posts lately, it seems openreach in their usual wisdom are trying to save pennies by only installing minimum line capacity at each cabinet, I expect an accountant thinks they been clever by having customers waiting frustrated.

It actually makes perfect sense and Openreach have been doing this since day 1 - simply as there is no point installing extra line cards where there is no demand. This also means that when they do install new line cards, they will be the latest generation/model they have.

What has caught them out is that the system is designed to place an order for a new line card when they existing one is 60-80%(?) full meaning that in theory a new line card should be fitted in good time - before the old one is full.

What is happening on some cabinets is that initial demand is so great they 'sell out' almost immediately meaning they can't pro-actively install a new line card.

That and FTTC is more popular now as awareness increases meaning that what was probably a slow burn on new Cabinets is now can be much faster - but I guess Openreach really don't know how much demand there will be especially on BDUK funded cabs -at least they now have a waiting system in place, before they would just refuse the additional orders.

Thanks for keeping us updated on the progress of your orders - I'm glad its all sorted now

In reply to a post by gt94sss2:

What has caught them out is that the system is designed to place an order for a new line card when they existing one is 60-80%(?) full meaning that in theory a new line card should be fitted in good time - before the old one is full.

What is happening on some cabinets is that initial demand is so great they 'sell out' almost immediately meaning they can't pro-actively install a new line card.

This happened to us; new cabinet which we'd been actively campaigning for, initial capacity sold out in about 60 hours. To be fair Openreach did then install an extra card only 5 days later, which took another couple of days to register, so fibre was available again after 7 days in total. We did prompt Openreach's programme team who we've been liaising with about ours (and all outstanding commercial cabinets in Hampshire which we're chasing them to deliver), so that may have helped.

In reply to a post by gt94sss2:

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

Been finding many of these FTTC "waiting" posts lately, it seems openreach in their usual wisdom are trying to save pennies by only installing minimum line capacity at each cabinet, I expect an accountant thinks they been clever by having customers waiting frustrated.

It actually makes perfect sense and Openreach have been doing this since day 1 - simply as there is no point installing extra line cards where there is no demand. This also means that when they do install new line cards, they will be the latest generation/model they have.

I agree - no point in wasting money on cards that won't be used for a couple of years. Much more useful to use this year's budget to buy more cabs.

Likewise, the jointers are a limited resource. Why have them wiring in tie pairs that aren't needed for another couple of years on day 1? Why not have them move to another cab that has no tie pairs at all yet?

We have an idea of just how many cabinets have needed a full complement of resources, because BT have shown us a snapshot of their cabinets. See this thread for more details - especially the link to the table of numbers

That snapshot detailed 34,000 cabinets, where 18,000 cabinets - more than half - were on their first card, and 11,000 had progressed to a second card. Only 0.2% of cabinets were approaching full capacity.

What has caught them out is that the system is designed to place an order for a new line card when they existing one is 60-80%(?) full meaning that in theory a new line card should be fitted in good time - before the old one is full.

BT have said the threshold is 75%.

I've also seen the jointers fitting new tie-pairs in a cabinet in good time too: They added tie-pair cables to a cabinet just outside the house over a couple of days recently, but availability of the cabinet had never disappeared.