Does the Switch process apply as normal when moving from copper to full fibre?

Brimble

Got_problem said:

I put in an order to upgrade to fibre & change provider from Talk Talk to Vodafone in late September. The date for installation was late October. When the Open Reach engineer came it was discovered there was no free socket in the port in the outside box. I am still waiting, the latest installation date (3rd - today) has been cancelled the day before as every one before & moved now to 17 January, but given the way things have gone I have no expectation this will not be similarly cancelled. No one has explained why providing another 4 socket port (as suggested by the various Open Reach engineers who have come out to no avail) is such a problem. One cannot deal directly with Open Reach, and clearly Vodafone have no power to get them to proceed. Vodafone have now given me a small (less than month fee) compensation for the inconvenience.  One has to ask why an 8 socket port was originally fitted to a box that serves 10 properties in the first place. 

Meanwhile, without notice Talk Talk disconnected my service 19 November. They lied about it for nearly 4 weeks, going so far as to send an Open Reach engineer out to resolve a fault on the line which didn’t exist (he said it was an ‘authentication’ issue their end), they eventually sent out a new router which also made no difference as that was not the problem. I finally had an email which confirmed the line was disconnected and a technician told me on the phone that the reason they could not help me over the new router was that the line had been disconnected by them. So, what should be a ‘transfer’ is no such thing. I have been without any internet since 19 November in an area where there is very little signal.

I have been thoroughly worn down by the whole process & wish I’d never tried to upgrade to fibre. Meanwhile, because my area technically has fibre available I cannot get any other provider to replace the copper service, even though I have tried & failed to upgrade to fibre. 

Sorry to hear about your problem. We've been lucky in that sense, well so far anyway - our old copper wire service didn't cut off back in December on the switch date because of the problems upgrading us to full fibre, and that copper wire service is still operating now. Hopefully it will stay that way. We're paying full price for it obviously, as our 'deal' ran out and we can't get another one without messing up the switch, BUT whilst Vodafone are paying us £6.12 per day while we wait, that will end up being miles more than the additional cost of the old contract. For us, the full fibre was only a 'nice to have', so if they're going to pay us £6.12 per day, we'd be happy for them to take a year to do it if they want!

CAVEAT: As long as they do pay us the £6.12 per day of course. I've got confirmation on two different phone calls previously that they will pay it, so I hope they don't try to wriggle out of it at some point. Should be ok, as there is a precedent - our neighbour, the only other house in this little out-of-the-way area, had his full fibre installation delayed by a few months last year, and his provider (Sky I believe) credited his first bill with several hundred pounds to reflect the compensation - so Vodafone better not refuse to pay it when (if) we are eventually connected to full fibre...

Brimble

iniltous said:

Our records show the following FTTP network service information for these premises:-Single Dwelling Unit Residential UG premises served by 2.5 Inch plastic duct 56.

FTTP is available and a new ONT may be ordered.

This is normally good news , it means Openreach think the address has a duct so installation should be straightforward, however the state of the duct is unknown, it may be blocked , Openreach  won’t know until they try and use it ….although what the Openreach tech stated suggested that this is the wrong survey note , it makes no real difference, excavation is needed to either fix the existing duct or to provide a new duct to fix the issue , that they thought a duct existed but doesn’t .

Because of the delay Openreach don’t indicate to the ISP’s that FTTP work is done ( because it isn’t ) so nothing should happen to the existing copper service, however this isn’t always the case , either the old ISP doesn’t care that the new service isn’t available, and close your old account anyway , knocking your service off , or VF asks for your phone number , even though Openreach’s FTTP  isn’t ready to provide service ….then there is the least likely error that Openreach  tell the involved ISPs that everything is good to go , when it isn’t .

Thankfully our copper wire service is still running, so that's fortunate.

Latest Openreach update (via Vodafone of course) is that they are waiting for several different houses to approve the required drilling on a piece of shared access land - god knows what would happen if those houses stalled or even refused to give permission at all - would Vodafone just continue to accumulate a compensation bill of £6.12 per day forever? Presumably Openreach would then knock on doors and seek an iPad signature, I can't see anyone refusing face-to-face when they are barely going to be impacted.

In case it's of interest / use to others having problems, I'll continue to update when appropriate.

Brimble

Quick update: This morning I got an email from Vodafone saying that Open Reach have now cancelled the order (I believe because they failed to get the required authority to do the digging work needed on a piece of shared land). However they did at least confirm that they have credited my account with about £280, which will be paid to my bank account next month, so it's not all bad news. Looks like we'll have to wait a bit longer for fibre (or skip that and wait for whatever the next technology is, ideally one that doesn't need them to dig up a big piece of land shared between about 6 houses...)