And it continued to be ‘par for the course’ with my fod order!

After my last post, OR finally did the work on their 3rd date (still have no idea why the first 2 didn’t go ahead). Seemingly they then ‘discovered’ a loop of fibre that meant they only had to cable 300m rather than 2700… it’s unclear if they will revise their costing from this and reduce their £17000 build cost that has been paid (hahaha).

They then planned the cabling task for early November, and actually turned up on the day they had specified. First time and everything! Engineer came back a week later, said all was good and we would get a visit soon to run cable from the pylon to our house.

Of course in usual Openreach fashion, no one is still clear yet whether the audit and commissioning tasks have been completed. My update from OR through Cerberus for the last 4 weeks has been identical each week and opaque as usual.

11.5 months in, I may be nearly there, who knows!

Meanwhile a neighbour signed up for starlink in September and has been loving it.

I would be really hard pushed to recommend FoD to anyone, for such an expensive offering it has been the most frustrating thing I’ve been involved in in a while. No idea what all the planning stages involved as clearly it bore no relation to any work plan.

In reply to a post by bcsalt:

I would be really hard pushed to recommend FoD to anyone, for such an expensive offering it has been the most frustrating thing I’ve been involved in in a while. No idea what all the planning stages involved as clearly it bore no relation to any work plan.

The fact they have kept your build to a similar timeline as other previous orders during a national lockdown/global pandemic, while also massively increasing the pace of their nationwide fibre rollout, should be applauded.

You knew the likely timescales when your ordered.
I understand the lack of updates to be frustrating but I'm not sure why you expected your order to be any different from every other order example on here.

I knew the timescales but had anticipated at least a project plan, some sort of planned timescale of works or a basic level of communications for my several thousand pound investment.

I’m not sure why you find this an acceptable way of working for openreach? I don’t think the excuse that ‘this isn’t unusual for fod projects’ really holds up, and certainly wouldn’t find it ok from any other company.

It remains my opinion that I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone particularly with high speed, viable, cheaper alternatives now available on the market.

Both of you are right.

Openreach's planning and delivery process for FTTPoD is pants, and not really "acceptable" by a reasonable person's definition.

However, similar problems have been documented here several times over. So I'm afraid your experience is "not unusual", and it's what a thinkbroadband reader would expect as being a relatively common occurrence, although we don't necessarily hear about all the trouble-free deliveries.

As for discovering the nearer fibre: it sounds like the original surveyor didn't do their job properly, and that would be grounds to push back for a rebate.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Openreach's planning and delivery process for FTTPoD is pants, and not really "acceptable" by a reasonable person's definition.

If you go back to summer of 2019 there was a long discussion in an earlier version of this thread (starting at about https://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/t/4619519-re...) where some long-standing and well-respected members of this community took great offence when it was suggested that the FTTPoD process was not really "acceptable" and that it might even fall foul of legislation (to the extent that I was accused of stalking for having the temerity to support that view).

That thread was about the time my connection went live. Found some of my FTTPoD order 'update' posts in there

PhilipD the main protagonist of that commentary though hasn't posted in almost 2 years. dect is still here, baby_frogmella stopped posting here around the same time, but is active over at ISPreview

Got to hand it to BT, they make a pigs ear of virtually all FTTPoD installations and that becomes a justification for another pigs ear installation being deemed as OK.

In my former employed life similar treatment of customers would have caused justifiable termination of employment.

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

If you go back to summer of 2019 there was a long discussion in an earlier version of this thread (starting at about https://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/t/4619519-re...) where some long-standing and well-respected members of this community took great offence when it was suggested that the FTTPoD process was not really "acceptable" and that it might even fall foul of legislation (to the extent that I was accused of stalking for having the temerity to support that view).

Once I read 'well-respected' I knew you wasn't referring to me

Edited by deleted (Tue 21-Dec-21 16:08:37)

Absolutely, I spent a lot of time reading through others experiences on here before committing which is why I’m sharing my experience and opinion for others in the future.

Obviously it didn’t sink in quite enough how bad the normal was.

I think the landscape has however changed with starlink on the market as a real competitor for those of us who are rural. Before there really was no other option, so it was a case of suck it up, pay up and wait.

Im probably a bit sour as the public beta of starlink went live only a couple months after I signed up for fod and I would have been enjoying those sweet sweet download speeds for months, and have cash in the bank to splurge on a holiday (or not!).

I do (or did) share your pain. The memory recedes quickly when it's all complete - and you can console yourself that you won't be suffering Starlink dropouts or variable bandwidth.