Broadband is finally arriving to my house.. but will an engineer be needed?

[TomOwen93]

So after waiting for a long time for Vodafone to confirm I am actually getting broadband with them (I got sent a router and the order number wouldn't work online and I was sent ZERO account details or confirmation dates!!!), it has finally happened.

Unfortunately I am still a bit bitter from the store staff telling me the activation date would be really close to what BT promised (14th) when it was actually the end of the month (27th)

One of the more helpful livechat staff sent me an email with all my account details and dates very quickly after me having a good moan (it was my fifth time on the livechat after all).

HOWEVER, it says in the email "Activation Date: September 27th
No Engineer appointment required"

Can somebody clarify this for me please? I was told on the phone by the broadband team that Openreach will need to come out and reactivate my line and THAT is why it's not as simply as "activating the line" hence why the store staff telling me "oh yeah it's really quick to activate!"

Is "No Engineer appointment" referring to them not needing to go to my house directly?

I can't contact the team on the phone before tuesday so hoping to hear on here if possible. Cheers.

[Nabs]

@TomOwen93 Whether or not an engineer is required will depend on the situation.

If it's a new line the an engineer is needed. Likewise if it's a Fibre connection you will need an engineer.

If it's ADSL on an existing line I believe that can be activated remotely though so no engineer visit would be needed.

[TomOwen93]

Thanks for the reply.

There is an existing line in the house already, the previous tenant worked for BT and got cheap fibre broadband with them. I assume any engineer visit in this case will not be to the property but to the cabinet for the FTTC ?

I've been told they need to reactivate the line there or something, so to me that does sound like an engineer visit. I know they won't be visiting my property directly but it's still on the street!

I've had an email sent to me today that says I need to plug my router all in before 8am tomorrow. Fingers crossed it all goes well, we've been almost 2 months without Internet at this point ;(

[Nabs]

@TomOwen93 when my FTTC was installed they did attend the property to upgrade my master socket as i'd had never had Fibre before. Since yours has it will already have the latest master socket (the one with 2 separate connections) so an engineer wouldn't be needed for that.

I believe (thought don't quote me on this) that line activation can be done remotely so the only work an engineer would need to do is reconfigure the fibre link at the cab/exchange to point to Vodafone's network.

If the engineer does need to visit the house it would likely only be to confirm everything is working as it should, I think it'll be a case of wait and see to be honest.

Let us know how you get on though, will be interesting to know.

[TomOwen93]

Ah crap that's got me worried now... we have an open reach socket in the living room with one socket going into it... only the microfilters provided with the router seem to fit it.


Is this going to cause me to have slow speeds? Quite concerned as if an Open reach engineer has to come out to install a new front plate to its going to be a long time...

[Nabs]

The very latest NTE5C socket seems to only have a single connection, if your previous tennent was a BT engineer he may have been able to get his hands on one.

If it is one of the older unfiltered sockets then you are going to have issues.

Don't suppose you're able to post an image of the socket are you @TomOwen93?

[TomOwen93]

Ah okay that looks like it could be it... got the girlfriend to send a photo over (mind the mess). Tried to post it below.

http://i.imgur.com/lR6EXbb.jpg

[Nabs · Accepted solution]

@TomOwen93 You call that a mess... should see my cupboard of wires! haha
Good news is that looks like an NTE5 so it should be absolutely fine with Fibre as long as you use the filter that came with the router. 

Do you have any phone extensions anywhere in the house? If you do these will need to be filtered as well.

It doesn't look like the latest model of socket so If you find you have issues with speeds (of poor voice call quality when using a connected phone) once it's all hooked up you may find an upgraded one would help.

One thing to be aware of is that those sockets are actually owned by BT Openreach so it's not something you are able (at least not supposed to be able) to change yourself.

[TomOwen93]

Ah thanks that's a relief!

That's the only socket I know of apart from one in the bedroom? I'll filter that one too. I'm hoping that speeds aren't too bad with this socket as the minimum speeds offered were 50-60 Mbit.

I guess all I can do now is wait until tomorrow, been missing out on gaming/movies etc with this lack of Internet so it's all very exciting.

Appreciate the help!

[Nabs]

You should get a pretty good idea of what speed you'll get within afew hours of it going live, it doesn't quite take the 10 days they quote though if there are issues you'll have to wait until the 10 days are up.

Let us know how you get on @TomOwen93 😄