40 day Broadband Activation Delay

[Irinarici]

Hi all, we placed an order with Vodafone for Full Fibre 100 broadband on the 15th of October. We received the router, the activation was scheduled for the 9th of November and no one turned up. We have been chasing endlessly and we keep being told that the issue is with Openreach and that 'external work is required'. Vodafone keep giving us review dates when we have to contact them again, only for them to give us another review date and ask us to check back a week later, two weeks later etc. Our latest 'review date' is 20th of December.

The property had working broadband from NowTV before we moved in. They also use Openreach cables.

I kept asking for an explanation for what external work is actually required and the best I have received so far, from Openreach, via Vodafone, is:

"External work is yet to allocate engineers as confirmation needs to come for digging. We are waiting for a suitably skilled engineer to complete the external work. Currently we have extremely high fluids and workstacks and we are working through our tails in priority / chronological order."

Our property doesn't have access to any non-Openreach networks like Virgin Media or Community Fibre.

Although we live in central London, mobile reception and data speeds in our home happen to be awful. In the evenings, mobile internet is unusable (we tried Vodafone, EE and GiffGaff).

Does anyone have any idea:

• Why is digging work required if our property already had a broadband connection in place?
• How can I tell if the connection our property already has in place is FTTC or FTTP?
• At this point we are just desperate for internet, and are worried that if we try to go with any other provider, we will lose our place in the waitlist. Is there anything we could be doing to get any sort of internet connection any faster?

[Jayach]

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@Irinarici wrote:

Does anyone have any idea:

• Why is digging work required if our property already had a broadband connection in place?
• How can I tell if the connection our property already has in place is FTTC or FTTP?
• At this point we are just desperate for internet, and are worried that if we try to go with any other provider, we will lose our place in the waitlist. Is there anything we could be doing to get any sort of internet connection any faster?

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You say they had Now, therefore it had to be FTTC, as Now don't use FTTP.

The digging work will presumably be to get the FTTP fibre to your home.

Where FTTP is available, Vodafone will always use it instead of FTTC.

Possibly the only way of ensuring the FTTC is used is to go to Now.

Edit: I've no idea if any other ISPs will enable you to select FTTC instead of FTTP.

[Irinarici]

Thank you so much, this is really helpful. Having used BT's Broadband Availability checker, they do say that FTTP is Available, screenshot attached. Would this mean that the FTTP cables are already in place and the digging is for something else?

Would ISPs even be able to sell FTTP packages before their cables are even in place? 

[Jayach]

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@Irinarici wrote:

Thank you so much, this is really helpful. Having used BT's Broadband Availability checker, they do say that FTTP is Available, screenshot attached. Would this mean that the FTTP cables are already in place and the digging is for something else?

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No that means the infrastructure is in place, The final connection to the property doesn't happen until somebody orders it.

[Irinarici]

Right, so this digging that we are waiting for is for a cable that connects our living room to our local street cabinet? Apologies for the stupid questions, I am just trying to understand the potential reason behind the delay and work out what (if anything) we could do to speed things up.

I assume that if we start a NowTV installation in parallel, they will disconnect whatever Vodafone are currently doing? Long term we do want FTTP, but would settle for FTTC in the meanwhile.

[Jayach]

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@Irinarici wrote:

Right, so this digging that we are waiting for is for a cable that connects our living room to our local street cabinet?

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Probably not all the way to the cabinet, just to a manhole (I've got to say, I've never actually seen an FTTP installation). Some are done via the telephone poles, where the existing BT lines are already using them.

See if this explains it better. 

What’s Involved in an Openreach FTTP Full-Fibre Broadband Installation? | Increase Broadband Speed

[Jayach]

I know it shouldn't be like this, but these things seem to go much more smoothly if you go via a BT owned ISP.

They just seem to have a better relationship with Openreach, (Who are also owned by BT)

[RICKTARBUCK84]

Having been through this myself recently. The external works excuse is basically they are waiting for open reach to get their ##~## into gear. Stop ##~## about with wage disputes and do some work. External works is just a case of running the fibre cable from the pole/your local little green box. We ordered fttp on the 25th of July. It wasn't installed until 4th November. When the guys came to fit it, it wasn't open reach it was 2 Kelly communications guys. Who basically said the open reach guys are doing nothing. So kelly and other 3rd parties are backlogged with work morning till night. I know it doesn't help. And it really doesn't help that you have to constantly chase Vodafone for updates. They are not proactive at all, which I've submitted a formal complaint about on my order. You might get more updates from a different ISP but the delays will all be the same. Best off keeping your order until you at least have the cable install done if you are planning to go to diff provider.