Ongoing OpenReach sagas - any OpenReach Engineers?

InsideInsurance

So, been waiting since April for a phoneline and internet to be set up - our neighbours have been waiting since December. Never managed to get a real explanation from anyone as to the problems even after getting the executive teams and local MP involved but finally things are moving.

Last Friday finally got the phone line installed, dont actually want a phone line but no other way to get fast internet.

On Monday had our 5th engineer appointment to hook up the fibre internet but got a phone call from him saying that he could do the job because he had been told to hook everything up to cabinet A, that the ports had actually been set up in cabinet B but the wires and phone line all go into cabinet C (we can see all 3 from our front door).

He claimed that cabinet C is where things should be going and it has capacity for over 200 more connections but he couldnt do anything as the ports need to be set up.

Our provider have had to wait 24hrs to cancel the order and are advising they will put through the new order today with a view to getting it set up on Friday PM but given that some of us have been waiting over 7 months already this seems very short timescales.

Can someone with better knowledge than me confirm if the "building ports" in the cabinet is something that the engineers that do the internal work normally do or would this normally be done by one engineer and then a second later appointment for doing the internal work?

littleboo

I would expect that the cabs are configured and managed remotely, seperate from the guy in the van.

LazyTyper

I don't fully understand your situation, but it sounds like there are three PCP cabinets, and Openreach's inventory system believes your copper wires go into one cabinet but in reality go into another cabinet, and the fibre cabinet is patched into yet another cabinet...?

The 'engineer' simply jumpers a cross-connections from your copper-pair to another, and these must already be in place and ready for service. Unfortunately this needs Openreach to do planning and arrange for engineering works, so could take months...

InsideInsurance

LazyTyper wrote: »

I don't fully understand your situation, but it sounds like there are three PCP cabinets, and Openreach's inventory system believes your copper wires go into one cabinet but in reality go into another cabinet, and the fibre cabinet is patched into yet another cabinet...?

The 'engineer' simply jumpers a cross-connections from your copper-pair to another, and these must already be in place and ready for service. Unfortunately this needs Openreach to do planning and arrange for engineering works, so could take months...

There are 3 PCP cabinets.

Since December OpenReach keep changing their mind which one they want to use (though according to on site engineers all have masses of capacity).

To use the american terms of "block" as it makes the most sense in this case. Cabinet A is on the adjacent block to us, Cabinet B is on the opposite block to us and Cabinet C is on the same block as us. We are a new build line of houses occupying the site of a former massive property on the edge of the city centre and effectively on the corner of the block hence all 3 cabinets are in site.

Originally I'm told the plan was to use Cabinet C. They then changed their mind and dug a trench across the road to Cabinet B. Allegedly they then changed their mind again and decided to use Cabinet A using existing ducting. They then found the deducting to A was blocked and so were wanting to open up the road to replace it but the road was only resurfaced 3 months ago so that was going to be a non-starter.

We then get into the state that OpenReach dont have a clue of what they are doing because I got an appointment for friday on wednesday from the DSO to install my phone hooking it up to C for which no additional work is required.

On Thursday the DSO said to our MP that the only way to connect anything up is with Cabinet A and so they'll require his assistance to get round the resurfaced road issue.

On Friday we had our phone hooked up to C

On Monday they sent a chap out to hook up our internet to A but when he got to A there were no ports and no cables for us there (though plenty of spare ports). He did some checking and ports had been set up but in cabinet B but there was no cables there and our phone line wasnt present. Finally checked the prior job and finds that the cables and phone line are all in C but the ports werent set up there.

He says all they need to do is set up the ports in C and then repeat the install appointment but I have no idea if the set up the ports is an onsite job by a different sort of engineer or a remote job as suggested above or....

Of cause to add more fun to the matter we've been told the job had to be cancelled and reraised to clear the incorrect routing but after doing that it now says cabinet C doesnt support Fibre despite the onsite engineer saying it does and it has 200+ spare ports.

To date we are still awaiting the explanation of 6 months wait when an available cabinet was available without any roadworks, esp as no request was ever actually submitted to dig up the road to get to A.