How naive you are letting facts get in the way of personal, anecdotal and social media observations.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

If by "a few years ago" you mean "in the 1980's", then yes This 40-year-old technology is obsolete, expensive to maintain, and would be incredibly expensive to replace - for a service that generates declining revenue, in the face of OTT IP-based communication.

That long ago? Maybe in some exchanges, but I still remember in the late 90's the sound of the exchange in the building in what was our general post office, I am sure it was.
But then again thinking about it I had ADSL in 2000 and when it was updated to faster speeds i could not get any faster than 3Mb/s due to the cable going to the old exchange and then back on itself to the new one, so yes maybe the late 80's the exchange was changed here

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

If you are switching from Openreach to an Altnet, or from one Altnet to another Altnet, then yes you will need a new ONT. However, you will also need a new fibre connected to a different network, so this is definitely not a "self install" - nobody will send you an ONT.

If you are switching between ISPs on the same network (e.g. Openreach to Openreach, or Cityfibre to Cityfibre) then no new ONT is required. The new provider will likely ship you a router which you plug in yourself and connect to the existing ONT. That's no different to changing providers on FTTC.

I realise that switching between an Alt network and open reach network would need a different ONT and a different fibre as they are different networks after all, but I always thought that switching between different providers on the Openreach network would require a different ONT. I heard that from someone a few years ago who changed from one provider to another that someone replaced the ONT.
Oh yes, providers will still push their routers, time that was stopped and either they should ship a router that will work with all providers or tell people they have to supply their own. We had to supply our own modems in dial up days, it was ADSL that started this free modem/ Router stuff.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I don't think you'll find that postings on a forum like this are representative. The vast majority are installed without hassle, and nobody bothers to post about these. Openreach's FTTP network now covers about 9 million properties, with a 27.45% take-up rate, so that's over 2 million happy customers.

Even my sister-in-law had a small problem, first they put the splice box in the wrong place and then connection was lost on the second day, so when the Openreach bloke went back to sort out the connection problem, he moved the splice box to where it should have been.

Who say all these 2 million people are happy?

I was watching a video today of a fibre being spliced, it is amazing how they do that, I know it is a machine, but that tiny thin fibre looks so fragile, and it is amazing how much data is sent down there., it is interesting

Still, maybe the next house you move into will have FTTP and smart meters already installed - and then you won't have to worry about the installation hassle.

I have been here for over 24 years, so unless the other half buy a house in the city, and we decide to move in together which I can't see happening I expect to be here for a while longer

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I thought Openreach updated all the Exchanges a few years ago away from the old mechanical switching system for voice?

If by "a few years ago" you mean "in the 1980's", then yes This 40-year-old technology is obsolete, expensive to maintain, and would be incredibly expensive to replace - for a service that generates declining revenue, in the face of OTT IP-based communication.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

(2) changing to another provider if I need to is a pain in the neck as someone have to come around again to stick an ONT in, unless they send it these days.

If you are switching from Openreach to an Altnet, or from one Altnet to another Altnet, then yes you will need a new ONT. However, you will also need a new fibre connected to a different network, so this is definitely not a "self install" - nobody will send you an ONT.

If you are switching between ISPs on the same network (e.g. Openreach to Openreach, or Cityfibre to Cityfibre) then no new ONT is required. The new provider will likely ship you a router which you plug in yourself and connect to the existing ONT. That's no different to changing providers on FTTC.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

(4) been reading of too many people having problems with installations

I don't think you'll find that postings on a forum like this are representative. The vast majority are installed without hassle, and nobody bothers to post about these. Openreach's FTTP network now covers about 9 million properties, with a 27.45% take-up rate, so that's over 2 million happy customers.

Still, maybe the next house you move into will have FTTP and smart meters already installed - and then you won't have to worry about the installation hassle.

A very comprehensive response to a tiresome thread spoilt only be your penultimate paragraph. Of the 34 houses on my estate covered by the gigabyte voucher scheme, only for one was the service installed and operational with a single visit of an engineer. It was often at least two visits and in one case it was a staggering 14 visits over a nine month period before that eureka moment of three green lights.

I don't jump onto TBB to report such issues but I did escalate a situation when a Kelly engineer said "I don't get paid enough to carry out an installation that will take many hours to do". When an OR engineer came to do the install, he had to call for help and indeed the pair of them struggle for four hours to route the fibre cable. It was an excellent tidy install that required compliments to Openreach.

It becomes much more complicated where the installation requires cables to be run in communal hallways, which clearly would be visually unacceptable. Agreeing alternative routing is very time consuming. It introduces delays that go beyond contract expiry dates with ISPs that residents have. If you want to leave your ISP for pastures new, this becomes problematical. Certainly there is always an overlap of dual provisioning of services which is an unwelcomed expense. Does that make for a happy customer?

They go to use their landline and find it isn't working which opens up a new can of worms of what they should have done to retain their cherished held number, they had for decades, and can't understand why it cannot be reactivated for them. (Wasn't told about connecting the phone to the router instead of the master socket). They may have an excellent broadband connection, but most unhappy happy that they have been forced to accept a brand new telephone number. Instead of being enthralled with the wonders of Ultrafast broadband, it has been a big disappointment for them.

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

one case it was a staggering 14 visits over a nine month period before that eureka moment of three green lights.

Was this your's by any chance? I vaguely remember someone saying about a long running full fibre connection issue to a brand new property that hadn't been completed when the CFP was being organised and never had a copper service registered to the new property although it did to a site office on the same plot of land. I may be thinking of someone else?

This sounds like the best approach to sorting out the stranglers

Openreach Trial New FTTP Option for Copper Lines with Complex Faults

When I had my strange sync problem and Plusnet got Openreach here, it was a Kelly engineer I had first and to be honest he did not seem to be that interested, saying well I don't know what is wrong, as it is working as it is leave it be. The second and third call-outs were Openreach engineers, and they were more interested in the problem and went back and forwards to the cabinet and even got the manhole up on the pavement. Granted they came to the same conclusion as the Kelly bloke, but at least they took more time. The last one that came said he has never seen a fault like it before, as even his equipment would not sync at the cabinet or in my home and yet an old Huawei was the only thing that would.
Somehow over the months it was sorted, I don't know when, but when I connected the router directly about 8 months or so after it worked fine.

So while I am not a fan of Openreach, the engineers I had here from them were good, they even re-crimped the cables in the junction box in the house, the old box where phones used to be wired in directly, before we could plug them in

In reply to a post by dect:

This sounds like the best approach to sorting out the stranglers

Openreach Trial New FTTP Option for Copper Lines with Complex Faults

What happens to the people who don't have a problem? It has been a long time since I had a problem with my broadband, well, on the openreach side anyway. Routers are my problem at the moment.

i do see a couple of things with this idea,
(1) Openreach may call everything a complex repair, even if it is not just to get people onto Fibre
(2) they could, I am not saying they will, but they could make faults happen just to get people to change.

It is a business after all, and they do things to make people jump, I work in a supermarket and I see what they do to get people to use Scan and shop and stuff like that

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

In reply to a post by dect:

This sounds like the best approach to sorting out the stranglers

Openreach Trial New FTTP Option for Copper Lines with Complex Faults

What happens to the people who don't have a problem?

I think he was implying (jokingly) that there might be some extra "degradation" with the copper in those areas. A bit more water ingress into the joints than normal; intermittent faults which mysteriously appear and disappear; the neighbours who already have FTTP start using some very old TV sets; that sort of thing.

In reply to a post by dect:

This sounds like the best approach to sorting out the stranglers

Walk on by? Something better change? Let me down easy? No mercy? Down in the sewer? Nuclear device?

There seem to be no end of possible options there.

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

one case it was a staggering 14 visits over a nine month period before that eureka moment of three green lights.

Was this your's by any chance? I vaguely remember someone saying about a long running full fibre connection issue to a brand new property that hadn't been completed when the CFP was being organised and never had a copper service registered to the new property although it did to a site office on the same plot of land. I may be thinking of someone else?

Yep, I was involved in that one. Frustratingly I could see from day one what was required and feed all the information to the ISP but sadly the info never seemed to reach the guys who were assigned to get the service in. When it finally dawned on Openreach what was actually needed, it was a model of efficiency for a non-standard installation.