2Connect - Leased Line provision

Hi,

Is anyone signed up to a leased line package using 2Connect? The headline rates look quite good (for a London based service). Just wondering if folks have any experience of them.

Many thanks

In the process of getting quotes from 2Connect and various LL providers including Talk Talk Business, Virgin Media Business as well as some other resellers including Aspire.

I'm seeing a surprisingly wide variation in prices, which on the face of it is essentially a like-for like bandwidth / contract duration, similar construction fund guarantees, performance metrics, availability, SLAs, response and fix times.

The only company so far offering a "guaranteed" 45-day install is 2Connect....appealing, coming from my somewhat recent FTTPoD install which took nigh on 11 months and cost £6.5K (before VAT and any voucher scheme reduction).

Bizarrely when I look at the total costs over 3 years, I can get a Gig/on Gig leased line in what so happens to be a "well served" inner-London area for not a massive amount more than an "out of town" Openreach based FTTP(oD) service. They are quite different beasts obviously but fairly high ECC of the FTTPoD service skew things.

BTW - I'm not sure if this is the right place on the forum to discuss direct internet access / leased lines, if its not please point me in the right direction.

Edited by Pheasant (Sat 18-Jul-20 19:28:54)

Colours now nailed to the mast. I’ve accepted the quote from 2Connect for a Virgin Media based Gig on Gig service.

The survey has been booked, so we will see where the ECC’s come out in the wash....

It's odd how they've guaranteed a 45 day lead time. From experience, sales tools can be very inaccurate and the only way to sort of know when the circuit will be ready is when Openreach provides the survey results and CCD. Should also note that if you wish to cancel, do it before you get the CCD otherwise you will be hit with a £2k+ cancellation charge.

Otherwise congrats on your purchase.

out of interest how much are you paying if you don't mind me asking?

also as Sammm_ said the guaranteed lead time seems a little short especially for Virgin Media.

I help manage a relationship between a customer and Virgin Media that has over 400 connections and their lead time for leased lines is 70 days and that's not even guaranteed.

Would it not have been cheaper & quicker to get a new 1 Gig Openreach FTTP line as you already have FTTPoD? Unless you cant get above 330?

We ordered one in May, still waiting an install date. Getting regular updates. Obviously can't comment about the actual connection yet, but no concerns thus far.

In reply to a post by Highland76:

Would it not have been cheaper & quicker to get a new 1 Gig Openreach FTTP line as you already have FTTPoD? Unless you cant get above 330?

Different site altogether. No Openreach FTTP is available at the London site.

In reply to a post by danielhyde:

out of interest how much are you paying if you don't mind me asking?

also as Sammm_ said the guaranteed lead time seems a little short especially for Virgin Media.

I help manage a relationship between a customer and Virgin Media that has over 400 connections and their lead time for leased lines is 70 days and that's not even guaranteed.

They have put the 45 days in writing...

Excess construction fund is £10K. Virgin have ducts and chambers on the street already, serving their cable. There is a brand new lead-in conduit and draw rope fitted from their nearest chamber already.

Rental is somewhere between £300 and £400 ppm. I leave it to your imagination precisely where along that spectrum...

Gigabit leased lines in central London are dirt cheap, which is just as well because it's that or ADSL a lot of the time.

In reply to a post by jpm:

Gigabit leased lines in central London are dirt cheap, which is just as well because it's that or ADSL a lot of the time.

Hehe yeah define "dirt cheap"

Saying that 2Connect were several hundred pounds per month cheaper than VMB for the same service! I don't think VMB were really trying that hard...

Leased lines are cheap everywhere at the minute, 2Connect were the cheapest we spoke to but there were a few within a few pounds of 2Connect for us, and there were a lot who were more than double.

The '45 day guarantee' is a current promotion from Virgin themselves - in thaory any provider using VMB can (or at least should) offer that

I wasn't aware. Thats a really good lead time comapred to some I've seen.

£400pm for 1gbps is a very good price.

In reply to a post by Sammm_:

I wasn't aware. Thats a really good lead time comapred to some I've seen.

£400pm for 1gbps is a very good price.

Yes a pretty compelling deal and the price was well south of £400.

In reply to a post by merula:

The '45 day guarantee' is a current promotion from Virgin themselves - in thaory any provider using VMB can (or at least should) offer that

I have a direct quote from VMB, not only were they £200 per month adrift of the price I was offered by 2Connect there was no mention from them of a 45 day install time guarantee.

I can only surmise they either weren’t terribly interested or their sales guy was literally going though the motions....

"Leased lines are cheap everywhere at the minute" - not everywhere. In urban areas there are some very good prices, but in rural areas the prices are much much higher, and seem to be rising. Admittedly I haven't checked for a year, but 5 years ago I was quoted 325+VATpm for a 30Mbps on 100, but more recently the cheapest was a 50 on 1Gbps for over £700pm.

In reply to a post by sheephouse:

"Leased lines are cheap everywhere at the minute" - not everywhere. In urban areas there are some very good prices, but in rural areas the prices are much much higher, and seem to be rising. Admittedly I haven't checked for a year, but 5 years ago I was quoted 325+VATpm for a 30Mbps on 100, but more recently the cheapest was a 50 on 1Gbps for over £700pm.

I installed a 100/1000 leased line for a customer not that long ago in a rural area for £400 per month

That's not bad, but still a lot more than it would be in an urban area - and I'm guessing it wouldn't be that price in all rural areas.
A superfast connection would be nice, but even at that price it makes more sense to give up work and use the money to retire early.

In reply to a post by sheephouse:

"Leased lines are cheap everywhere at the minute" - not everywhere. In urban areas there are some very good prices, but in rural areas the prices are much much higher, and seem to be rising. Admittedly I haven't checked for a year, but 5 years ago I was quoted 325+VATpm for a 30Mbps on 100, but more recently the cheapest was a 50 on 1Gbps for over £700pm.

The gist of his “everywhere” comment was I believe about leased line service pricing elsewhere around the country as a whole.

Of course rural areas in comparison to urban ones (or where a provider has ready access to infrastructure) will virtually always be more expensive to connect for a single service. I know that all too well.

By way of update to this thread, we waved good-bye to 2Connect on 15 December last year, before the order had ever materialised.

We signed up with them on 16 July and after the initial survey was completed on 8 August, which came back all clear, we then went into planning and delivery. Order clock started officially ticking on 7 September (when planning was "complete") or so were told at the time.

A few weeks later around 24 September we were notified that excess constructions charges (or ECCs, for those unfamiliar with the terminology) of £2,800 were "found on this order and a little bit of extra work", but that these would be "covered".

More time passed, and on 2 October we were told "planning has been completed and this is now with the delivery team following the escalation"....although planning was supposed to have already been completed a month earlier on 7 September. First alarm bells begin ringing....

One week later on 9 October we were suddenly told "This order is being held up by a lead order, the lead order driving the fibre delivery in the area is subject to a wayleave agreement. The supplier advises they will update further next week."

Second alarm bells ringing...why all of a sudden was our dedicated leased line order being (a) linked with another order and (b) what the heck did any wayleaves have to do with us?

More time passes, and on 26 October we are told, "The lead order is in the final stages of planning but VMB rules are to complete the lead order and then ours can be installed. I'm going to keep working on the escalation to see if I can get more info/traction. The issue we are having is VMB are not obligated to keep us updated on the lead order just if it is progressing or not."

So the early sales patter about a '45 working day install guarantee' has now been long forgotten. Rather I'm basically told "we are waiting on this other order to complete. If this lead order slips there is nothing we can do about it I’m afraid."

On 9 December the update was "Blockages have been identified by the cable crew while working on the LEAD order, once these have been cleared the cable work can continue on the LEAD order."

By this stage my patience is really wearing thin. Bear in mind I have no idea (due to data protection) where this lead order actually is or how it actually relates to our order. I never get any more info on it. On 15th December I'm still getting told they are generating "blockage packs" on the lead order...not my order mind you...and they expect that the civil works on the blockages will be done in January!!

OK so enough is enough. After threatening earlier to cancel the order, on 15 December with no further real progress on this lead order, I finally pull the plug on the order and 2Connect.

Not a great experience tbh. But thought I should share in case anyone is contemplating using them and wanted any first hand feedback.

Before anyone asks, I did have another user on here contact me personally at the start of my thread and order. They too were using 2Connect, but for similar reasons many months into their own order, they also cancelled their 2Connect order.

The parting words from the chap at 2Connect in December was:

"...if you cancel the order you will be back at the beginning of the process again and on top of that wait, the price will also be higher as you’re pricing is part of a promotion we were running.

If you want to proceed then that’s great but we are looking Jan/Feb time to set expectations and NOBODY can get the order in any quicker."

To be fair they offered to pick up the tab for any cancellation charges(....but I wasn't prepared to pay any anyway!!)

I have subsequently signed a contract with another leased line service provider. The cost is actually lower than the quote I received from 2Connect in July. This circuit will be Openreach based (rather than VMB) and I have already had the Openreach survey completed last week. We are slated for delivery of the circuit in the next 10 days...

Edited by Pheasant (Tue 12-Jan-21 17:52:03)

VM are by far the worst supplier we've dealt with. We placed two orders for leased lines to a location that already had existing Openreach and VM fibres - the Openreach service went live 14 days after the order was placed, the VM one took four months and they insisted on running new fibre.

+1. They didn't exactly cover themselves in glory when I was once a VM residential cable customer.

Was honestly expecting much better from VMB, based on the promises that were made, but subsequently broken.

Lesson learned.

Please let us know how it goes. If it is installed in 10 days, or even a few more, it'll be a hilarious story for you and all of us. Frustrating Infuriating for you for the last seven months of course, but even so!

Is it a site to site circuit or is one end a POP site?
The linked order could be a driver circuit for the ethernet shelf at the PoP. The driver circuit leads the order for the whole shelf, including the power and remote management and the router to access the configs.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Please let us know how it goes. If it is installed in 10 days, or even a few more, it'll be a hilarious story for you and all of us. Frustrating Infuriating for you for the last seven months of course, but even so!

Hopefully haven't jinxed myself, but yes indeed!

POP to site. There was never any indication from VMB where the mysterious lead order was or how it actually related to our order, suffice to say that (1) apparently it *had* to be completed in full before our order could even begin to go ahead (2) "they" were paying the ECCs (I guess from the kindness of their heart, thank you!!!) and (3) this order had wayleave and duct blockage issues (the latter still unresolved as of December).

I've had exactly this situation happen before, where VMB quoted a price and a lead time and then decided to just put the order on hold until they had more interest from other tenants in the building so they could link the orders together. They never said anything about it before accepting the order, though.

In reply to a post by jpm:

I've had exactly this situation happen before, where VMB quoted a price and a lead time and then decided to just put the order on hold until they had more interest from other tenants in the building so they could link the orders together. They never said anything about it before accepting the order, though.

After I ordered, there were certain turns of phrase used in their update emails. The language/parlance that was transcribed, led my to believe that there was a middleman involved rather than simply 2Connect <-> VMB.

I subsequently had it confirmed - from private discussions here with another (former) 2Connect customer- that 2Connect were buying circuit via ITS. Nothing new there for the trade, certainly not a state secret in the slightest, but it was never admitted or revealed to me by 2Connect. Strike one for transparency (or the lack thereof) or just basic business ethics.

I strongly suspected that any order "linking/ bundling" was done by ITS and/or VMB.

Caveat emptor.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Please let us know how it goes. If it is installed in 10 days, or even a few more, it'll be a hilarious story for you and all of us. Frustrating Infuriating for you for the last seven months of course, but even so!

Progress today from Openreach. Not quite 10 days...but pretty good considering the current situation/times etc...

ADVA NTE installed, waiting for internal fibre cabling + fibre tray:
https://postimg.cc/yDyG173S

External cabling under way in footpath chamber:
https://postimg.cc/kBX61cF3
https://postimg.cc/JtRG0qFD

Is that a Colt splice tray or have Openreach changed what they use?

Prysmian (in the chamber)

Edit: apologies - no the internal splice tray is mine (MCL), that's not Openreach.

The Openreach internal splice tray (not in photo above) is a 1U Prysmian Otian 2A splice shelf...sitting in a cardboard box for now whilst the team try and clear a micro-duct blockage between the mini-node at the end of street and the main node a few blocks away....

Edited by Pheasant (Tue 02-Feb-21 15:43:02)

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

ADVA NTE installed, waiting for internal fibre cabling + fibre tray:
https://postimg.cc/yDyG173S

There must be some serious routing demands for that Mikrotik to be needed... I have only deployed CCR1009s, none of which have never broken a sweat.

External cabling issues between two street nodes soaked up a lot of the time with the OR cabling team today. Still remains unresolved.

Looks like they need to either pull in a new 7-way duct or install a fixed fibre cable between the nodes.

Cable from the footpath chamber new mini-node outside to the internal splice point has been done. Bit messy getting the UG duct revealed indoors (there was a 5-pair copper DP over that point previously). Nothing some new grey melamine backing wont fix Just need to re-seal the duct properly beforehand!

https://postimg.cc/nMx45f09
https://postimg.cc/62fvwTY2

Also need to run the internal fibre from the splice point to the network cabinet on their return.

In reply to a post by ft247:

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

ADVA NTE installed, waiting for internal fibre cabling + fibre tray:
https://postimg.cc/yDyG173S

There must be some serious routing demands for that Mikrotik to be needed... I have only deployed CCR1009s, none of which have never broken a sweat.

Yeah local neighbourhood ISP...

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Please let us know how it goes. If it is installed in 10 days, or even a few more, it'll be a hilarious story for you and all of us. Frustrating Infuriating for you for the last seven months of course, but even so!

With luck on the final stretch now....

As the law of Murphy predicts, we had an unexpected internal cabling nightmare when Openreach came to finish the install on 8 February! I've noted this in another thread in the Fibre section of the forum, but to keep all the information in one place, here are the gory details.

A 12-core fibre comes in from the street, terminates in an internal fibre splice enclosure, which transitions the external gel-filled black cable to internally safe cable. Openreach then pulled in a 2-core fibre cable to the equipment cabinet, using a roped run into a 40mm kopex / flex-coiled duct that I provided during property reconstruction. This duct runs in the finished floor and wall void space.

After everything was spliced up both ends internally it became clear after further testing/OTDR, that the new internal fibre was well...broken. As a workaround OR decided to pull in a new dual-bore blown fibre tube (BFT) micro duct and blow in a fibre bundle from the splice to the cabinet fibre tray. They did this by using the old fibre cable as a draw. There was however another coax cable (initially pulled in together with the fibre,) still left in the flexi-duct during this process.

Here the nightmare came to pass, and rather unfortunately the new micro-duct then became jammed up as part of running it in. Then continuing to try and pull through the new microduct with more an more effort, either the redundant fibre or the micro duct snapped/separated on the pull-in. Leaving a part run bit of micro duct that now stubbornly refuses to be pulled back. The coax cable also wouldn't budge.

We were left without any alternative but to fish through a new cabling run, open up several walls and install a fresh blown fibre tube. This was completed yesterday and Openreach installed, spliced and tested the entire link. All good.

Yeah, not quite what was expected, but that's life!

Now waiting on carrier tests to complete before the new CP gives it the green light (literally! on the ADVA)

The TL;DR summary is as follow:
- 2Connect got the finger back in December
- Re-contracted with Focus Group using Openreach circuit, order placed 15 December
- Install booked for 2 February, but there were some external OR cabling issues preventing completion
- Re-booked for 8 February to complete internal install - then major problem with internal cabling route
- Final visit on 3 March, after new internal cabling route and BFT installed.

Bet you are glad to get that all finished. Not bad only 1 month late. Hope it all lights up for you ( tomorrow).

In reply to a post by kitcat:

Bet you are glad to get that all finished. Not bad only 1 month late. Hope it all lights up for you ( tomorrow).

Yep relieved there's a green LED next to that access network port!!

24-hour test you reckon? It's wires only...still they're telling me "officially" its 10 working days for remote works and testing.

I have to say Openreach have been brilliant throughout.

Edited by Pheasant (Wed 03-Mar-21 22:23:23)

So since getting the glass connected we've progressed from...

ADVA:
1. Blinking green LED on network port (good) + solid red LED on access port (bad) - yesterday after cabling
2. Blinking green LED on network port (good) + solid green LED on access port (better) - this AM
3. Blinking green LED on network port (good) + in-time blinking green LED on access port (nice) - this PM

Router:
Tx and Rx ethernet packets are definitely to/from the SFP port on our router, but so far ARP table on router shows neither ADVA gateway MAC or gateway IP address....

Traceroutes to designated IP ranges are dying at the nearest London peer/transit so clearly OR still doing testing / CP hasn't done their stuff.....

If you have L3 stuff happening then Openreach have done their bit.

Only layer 2 stuff happening though atm. Nothing Layer 3 configured that I can see on the access port, yet.

Interestingly from our router port, I can 'see' the private IP address 172.16.xxx.yyy belonging to the ADVA and its associated MAC, just not got the real assigned IP range going, yet.

Edit - delving further into the 'neighbor' info from our router, I can see the assigned interface name in the ADVA- which looks like its the VPC port id from the wholesale service provider (Virtual 1) and an identity in the form of a host name of some sort, looks like a Juniper ACX moniker...

Edit II - on second thoughts that neighbour ID etc noted could actually be the Juniper router at the other end of the circuit....not the ADVA. Plot thickens...

Edit III - yes it is the Juniper ACX box at the other end of the circuit, as 80:AC:AC:xx:yy:zz belongs to Juniper Networks.

Edited by Pheasant (Thu 04-Mar-21 23:11:40)

Are you wires only then, so no managed router? If you can see Juniper stuff then you're connected to Virtual1, they might not have built the service yet.

Correct. Wires only. The service build doesn’t appear to be complete. Which makes sense given external traceroute fails at the peer/transit and this pipe has no Layer 3 evident yet,

Final config and testing call now booked for Monday with Virtual1.

Final configs all done and dusted this morning.

VLAN id's were provided and the router was configured. After a couple of hiccups, the configuration was resolved and all appears to be working v.nicely.

Thanks to Focus Group, Virtual1 and Openreach for great service!

https://postimg.cc/rDYDVqj5