In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Not sad at all. You come to be cheered up by all the wonderful comments about Openreach ...
.
by the 'iggerant!

meh, don't care if people want to rant about Openreach or BT (organisations) but when it comes to people trying to make out the staffing situation is somehow the fault of the boots on the ground I find that a bit BS.

Fact is there is a huge fibre roll-out project underway which takes massive resource in itself coupled with severe weather causing damage to both overhead and underground line plant. Resources have to be juggled, OR is already employing record levels of contractors but their deal is they only do simple work... so broadband faults, UG faults etc are left to fully skilled direct labour... its not like you can just throw tools at some guys at the job centre and expect them to perform, they end up doing more harm then good (cause more faults) its been tried.4

anyway preaching to the choir i know

Edited by deleted (Thu 04-Oct-12 23:14:09)

BT though have had an ever-increasing backlog now for over two years and that nothing much appears to be being done other than attempting a bit of fire fighting.

Believe it or not the UK gets a lot of rain every year it is a normal part of the UK climate as is some flooding.

I suspect that a lot of the problem is that BT has seriously underestimated the work in rolling out FTTC and that they are over budget hence the reluctance to take on more resource.
I suspect they have also underestimate the cost of maintaining distributed active equipment in an uncontrolled environment and that they are having to use far more resource maintaining the equipment than planned
The next mega issue will be the BDUK work is now starting to come on stream. Most at present is in the BT planning phase but once it goes to the installation phase BT are in mega trouble as they have no resource for it.

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

BT though have had an ever-increasing backlog now for over two years and that nothing much appears to be being done other than attempting a bit of fire fighting.

They are clearly ahead of the original schedule.

Believe it or not the UK gets a lot of rain every year it is a normal part of the UK climate as is some flooding.

The overwhelming body of evidence is that that the last couple of years hve been highly exceptional wrt rainfall and flooding.

I suspect that a lot of the problem is that BT has seriously underestimated the work in rolling out FTTC and that they are over budget hence the reluctance to take on more resource.

As above - they are ahead of schedule. They have also taken on considerable extra staff.

I suspect they have also underestimate the cost of maintaining distributed active equipment in an uncontrolled environment and that they are having to use far more resource maintaining the equipment than planned

Once more something in your imagination, or simply deliberately invented, with zilch evidence. Pure trolling.

The next mega issue will be the BDUK work is now starting to come on stream. Most at present is in the BT planning phase but once it goes to the installation phase BT are in mega trouble as they have no resource for it.

Ditto. In addition, the BDUK funding will go where, if it doesn't go to resourcing the installation phase?

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

Where is this flooding. The Met Office and environment agency have no reported instances of flooding anywhere in the UK

Where?
You need to watch the news, then have been numerous major incidents reported recently and now that it has subsided work has to be done to repair the damage it caused.

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

Where is this flooding. The Met Office and environment agency have no reported instances of flooding anywhere in the UK

In reference to www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/9587811/Weather-48-hour-washout-...:

Weather: 48 hour washout as Met Office warns of further flooding
More flooding was expected in the south west of Britain on Friday as hot tropical air from ex-Hurricane Nadine collides with bitter Arctic sparking a 48 hour washout.

Edited by deleted (Fri 05-Oct-12 11:28:14)

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

BT though have had an ever-increasing backlog now for over two years and that nothing much appears to be being done other than attempting a bit of fire fighting.

Believe it or not the UK gets a lot of rain every year it is a normal part of the UK climate as is some flooding.

Complete rubbish, at the low points in the year we were getting to provides within a week of ordering - this includes all the OMC and Exchange work done first before the install engineer attended. The backlog started from the summer onwards and is at its peak now.

As for flooding being the norm, you really need to go check your facts, this weather is unpresidented, Its only normal if you take the last couple of years in isolation - no company would take on a permanet workforce based on a couple of years of data, yet:

Openreach has in that time swelled its numbers with record numbers of contractors doing reactive faults and provison work + formed a permanet moblie workforce on longterm contracts mostly made up of ex-military personnel for the primary purpose of facilitating the FTTC roll-out - what they won't do is now train a new army of engineers to tackle a sudden storm - since proper training takes months... by they time they would be ready the storm damage will already be repaired - as the last couple of years has shown.

Edited by deleted (Fri 05-Oct-12 13:22:18)

http://www.offta.org.uk/charts.htm provides some metrics/data to through into the mix