Talk Talk Full Fibre upgrade- is it straight forward?

reddevildanni

I’ve had several emails from TalkTalk about a free full fibre upgrade and have now received a date for an engineer to come out and do the upgrade. I’m just hesitant and quite worried about it if I’m honest. I’m severely disabled and heavily reliant on my internet connection, gaming is my main thing that keeps me mentally well as I’m physically unable to do anything for myself. I’m worried that if I go ahead with this, new things are going to need plugging in etc, maybe the router will be moved into another room? I’m just worried because I can’t physically do any of that stuff myself, my mum is elderly and wouldn’t know what to do even if I told her and I would have to wait for someone to be available to come and plug things in which would mean I’d be without a connection for however long. Just wondering if anybody else has already had the upgrade? How was it? Was your router able to stay in the same place or did you have to move everything around? 

Thanks! 

Rodders53

Have you told Talk Talk all that?

Best place to ask is probably the TT Community Forum as many there will have been through the process and have specific info to give that may (or may not) reassure you. 
https://community.talktalk.co.uk/t5/Full-Fibre/bd-p/fttp

armith

I'm not with TalkTalk but I have just completed a move from "Fibre To The Cabinet" to "Fibre To The Property". The actual work was done by Openreach, which will be the same for Talk Talk I'd imagine. It should be slightly easier - I moved ISPs too, which meant co-ordinating leaving Now Broadband and starting with Zen.

Overall it has been overwhelmingly positive that this has been done. My download speed has gone from just under 10mb/s, with frequent drop-outs to a rock-solid 100+ Mb/s. The digital voice service that replaced my landline is good too - it's the same (geographic) number and has a weird feature that is a bit of a plus.

The install was a bit more work than I was hoping for. The old FTTC connection came from the road via a duct into the centre of my house - so the router was centrally located. The timeframe for the install slipped - no engineers available on the first date given, which put the whole process back about 4 weeks - which was a problem because I had to extend the Now service by uncancelling it and cancelling it later (Now were very good about this by the way). 

Openreach do this in two visits - one to do the work outside and the other to drill a hole to get the cable into the house and fit a little box with flashing lights to an inside wall. My wife was in when the Openreach engineer came to do the outside work. She asked for a duct/trench from road to house - but what they actually did was sling a line from the telegraph pole over the garden to a bedroom at the far end of the house, followed by cabling all over the front to the room where the internal box is now located. The Openreach engineer had persuaded her that the trench option would have been destructive to the garden - but having a wire over the garden is a bit of a pain because it's only about 10 feet above ground level at its lowest point.

The second visit happened without notice, first thing on a Saturday morning. The first comment the second engineer made was "why did they route the wire overhead? It would have been much better to have it in a trench". We asked if the internal wiring could be pushed through the attic (it's a bungalow) to the hall but he said that it wasn't something they do - so the router now sits on the lounge window ledge. The little box fixed to the internal wall needs plugging in - so we now have a multi-gang extension trailing from the socket so the lamp, the router and the Openreach box can all be powered from there.

As I say, these are really just minor irritations/first world problems - and with TalkTalk owning both old and new the scary part (almost losing internet for a few weeks) shouldn't be an issue for you. We didn't have to do anything ourselves - other than plug the new router in, which I'm sure Openreach will do for you, and hoover up when the engineer left (which Openreach probably won't do!).

Rob5342

armith said:

The Openreach engineer had persuaded her that the trench option would have been destructive to the garden - but having a wire over the garden is a bit of a pain because it's only about 10 feet above ground level at its lowest point.

What a lazy *******, making your house look a mess so he can save himself a few hours work.

iniltous

Rob5342 said:

armith said:

The Openreach engineer had persuaded her that the trench option would have been destructive to the garden - but having a wire over the garden is a bit of a pain because it's only about 10 feet above ground level at its lowest point.

What a lazy *******, making your house look a mess so he can save himself a few hours work.

Nonsense, if there was an overhead solution ( which appears to be the case ) why would OR want to do any unnecessary excavation, and the quip about being lazy ? , the tech doesn’t dig the trench, so if anything they were making work for themselves, by climbing  the pole etc , when the trench option would be undertaken by others ( and taken longer ) leaving a relatively small amount or work for the installer when they returned after the civil work was completed .
If the existing copper cable appears in the centre of the home , it almost certainly wasn’t ducted but DIG ( direct in ground ) , if it were ducted , the dig down on the duct outside the home , intercept it and bring a new section up against the external wall 
As the poster stated , they are generally happy with the way things are .

Rob5342

iniltous said:

Rob5342 said:

armith said:

The Openreach engineer had persuaded her that the trench option would have been destructive to the garden - but having a wire over the garden is a bit of a pain because it's only about 10 feet above ground level at its lowest point.

What a lazy *******, making your house look a mess so he can save himself a few hours work.

Nonsense, if there was an overhead solution ( which appears to be the case ) why would OR want to do any unnecessary excavation.

To make the street look nice - telegraph poles are a terrible bodge and the reason they use them is clearly to do it on the cheap.

iniltous

They didn’t put up another pole , they used one that was already there , FWIW, in general Openreach don’t use poles to upgrade areas that don’t have existing poles ( so housing built from the 60’s onwards ) it’s only rare when poles will be used if the existing service is underground, it’s not clear in the OP case but presumably there was an existing pole that was usable so they used it.

littleboo

I rather like poles 

phillw

reddevildanni said:

I’m just hesitant and quite worried about it if I’m honest. I’m severely disabled and heavily reliant on my internet connection, gaming is my main thing that keeps me mentally well as I’m physically unable to do anything for myself.

I would contact talk talk and discuss your requirements. If it's just replacing a wireless router with another, then they might be able to accommodate you.

If you have other equipment that will need connecting to the router or re-configuring (other than what you are able to personally use), then you might need the help of someone else.

NoodleDoodleMan

As I understand it, maintaining the status quo is not a realistic option as the existing copper wire cabling connection will be switched off in the not too distant future.

So it makes sense to convert to fibre sooner rather than later.