FTTP Installation Issue

Just wanted to give you an update on my FTTP Installation, and see if anyone has experienced similar issues. Also a caveat the ISP has been great in trying to get things resolved.

Here's the backstory....

I received an e-mail from Openreach in late November 2024 advising FTTP "Ultrafast Full Fibre" was available to order at my address. Knowing that I needed to have some electrics upgraded and that I wanted a socket for the ONT I held off until February this year.

Whilst I waited I looked into all the deals for a 12 month plan, and decided on Aquiss, who I had used before in 2016. Martin @ Aquiss was great, and advised me when to place the order for installation in March.

Roll forwards to Tuesday 18th March 2025 and I receive an SMS from OR regarding the appointment on the 19th March, which I confirm, then I get further updates on the expected time via a series of SMS messages.

Wednesday 19th March the engineer from MJ Quinn arrives and the "fun" starts. After a brief chat he goes out to the DP and then walks down the road, he then comes back to my house and askes where a certain pole is, I direct him to it's location, and about 5 mins later he reappears.

It turns out OR have given him the wrong DP to connect me to. Instead of the pole which is within 100ft of my front door they want to use one that's not even visible from my house. Obviously this isn't an option and the engineer offers to part complete the installation, however he seems a bit vague as this is a good idea, so I decline. He then leaves for his next appointment.

About 30 mins later he calls and suggests that IF I go ahead with the partial install he can contact another team and have the DP correctly reassigned. I agree and 5 mins or so later he calls back to inform me the job has been cancelled and I have to rebook.

The next suitable appointment I can book is Friday 11th April!

Has anyone else had a similar issue? If so what was the outcome and how quick did OR resolve it?

I have not had similar. But understanding the install process might have helped you.

The installation works 2 ways from the CSP [Customer Splice Point]. One leg goes inside to the ONT and the other leg goes out to the pole in your case. When MJ Quinn's bloke offered a partial install, he was almost certainly offering to do the inside work, ONT to CSP. Firstly there might have been a chance that the correct DP could have been sorted out quickly. And secondly, the other leg would be completely outside the house and could possibly be completed without requiring access to the house, apart from 5 minutes to check light levels.

A lot depends if the other cbt is on the same headend. If it is then my understanding is should be able to reroute on the day ..if it isn't then it probably has to go back to the CP as they may not have capacity on a different headend.

Hard to see how this can have occurred unless it’s something as simple as both the CBT’s in question , the quoted CBT to use , apparently on the wrong pole and the CBT on the correct pole but apparently with the ‘wrong’ CBT number may have been installed at the same time by the same ‘team’ who simply transposed the CBT reference numbers when labelling the CBTs ( done at the build stage ) this error causing a problem for the installer …
It’s entirely possible that an Openreach installer may have connected to the CBT on the most appropriate pole and then tried to authenticate the service, as stated , if both CBTs were on the same splitter the ONT would authenticate without any intervention, even if on the wrong splitter the ‘Tiger Team’ can sort these things out with data changes , a contractor more likely to consider it too much a hassle and move into the next hopefully straightforward installation

Edited by Iniltous (Sat 22-Mar-25 19:36:28)

It would be interesting to know if the nearest CBT and the other one they wanted to connect you too have any customers connecting to them already. If they do then the labels on them are likely to be right and its looking more likely to be some mistake with allocating of the CBTs. Worth saying not all ports on a CBT are always lit so that also needs to be considered.

Had something similar when I had FTTP installed. Openreach engineer told me my installation had been requested on the wrong pole. He phoned his support line and corrected the error and went on to do the install.

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

Worth saying not all ports on a CBT are always lit so that also needs to be considered.

normally thought thats either due to less properties than on the cbt (so an 8 port cbt and only 6 premises to cover), and or damage to one of the connectors.

but the OPs situation makes no sense unless its a db mistake from the team who built the pon and did the backend work

In reply to a post by Taras:

the OPs situation makes no sense unless its a db mistake from the team who built the pon and did the backend work

Until all the facts are known we are all just guessing fella

Edited by PCJM40 (Sun 23-Mar-25 13:47:02)

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

In reply to a post by Taras:

the OPs situation makes no sense unless its a db mistake from the team who built the pon and did the backend work

Until all the facts are known we are all just guessing fella

yup thats us 80% of the time

In reply to a post by DFScale:

I have not had similar. But understanding the install process might have helped you.

The installation works 2 ways from the CSP [Customer Splice Point]. One leg goes inside to the ONT and the other leg goes out to the pole in your case. When MJ Quinn's bloke offered a partial install, he was almost certainly offering to do the inside work, ONT to CSP. Firstly there might have been a chance that the correct DP could have been sorted out quickly. And secondly, the other leg would be completely outside the house and could possibly be completed without requiring access to the house, apart from 5 minutes to check light levels.

Thanks for the info, sadly the MJ Quinn engineer didn't explain that as an option. When I spoke to the ISP they asked if the engineer was able to install the ONT and the cabling up to the DP and then the routing could be sorted, however by that time the engineer called back and advised the job has been closed.