BT and OpenReach - The Divorce

Soldato
Joined
22 Mar 2014
Posts
3,956
I live in a brand new estate in a London suburb. Surrounded by fibre....

New estate doesn't have fibre. It's 2016 and imo new builds should have FTTP but not even FTTC is pretty unforgiving.

Every time I enquire as to when it's a different reason. I am even connected to a fibre enabled cabinet.

Last week I listened to the Chancellor go on about 300Mb internet across the UK and 5g. I can't even get a reliable 8mb connection on the outskirts of London.

I know that is just mental, just shows how this whole country is a shambles and never thinks properly costing itself more money in the long haul, quick fixes arn't good fixes.

5Mb doesn't cut it either.

Just had mine upgraded from 8 meg to around 20 meg (ADSL to ADSL2+) about 3 days ago, it's nice the good ol porn doesn't buffer anymore! I can feel the arms getting bigger...
 
Caporegime
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
26,053
If you live on a new build estate and you don't have FTTP then it's the fault of the developers. Too many of them will build then go "lol didn't think about that, anyway BT can you put some phone lines in please? Oh and the roads haven't been adopted yet and we didn't build the ductwork, see you later I'm off to count some money". It should form part of the planning approval with the ability for the local authority to impose fines for not complying.
 

V F

V F

Soldato
Joined
13 Aug 2003
Posts
21,184
Location
UK
If you live on a new build estate and you don't have FTTP then it's the fault of the developers. Too many of them will build then go "lol didn't think about that, anyway BT can you put some phone lines in please? Oh and the roads haven't been adopted yet and we didn't build the ductwork, see you later I'm off to count some money". It should form part of the planning approval with the ability for the local authority to impose fines for not complying.

 
Caporegime
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
33,188
The UK average is only 28.5mb. IMO It's much more important to be getting the people on 2-3mb onto proper ADSL2+ speeds.

Connection speed has something of diminishing returns, outside of downloading large files there wasn't really a noticeable difference in going from 20mb to 80mb. By comparison the 512kb-2mb-8mb-20mb jumps were very noticeable.

Yup, despite say, downloading a 30+ gig game on Steam being significantly quicker on 80mb vs 20mb, your actual experience is the same. Given a base speed you can have 3-4 people all browsing, downloading smaller files, streaming netflix/other video and it all work fine.

The biggest issue now is BT being awful. I've just moved into a new house, the first two orders(done in the build up to the move) were basically ignored. Rather than contact me because they can see an order with a problem they just ignored it, I called them to get an update, ages on the phone only to be told to reorder but with no actual reason why it didn't work. Order again and phone back next day, still a problem so they finally try to find out why, say it's because the numbers the system has aren't actually for the house so I should reorder with a new line (which for whatever reason wasn't being charged as extra at the time) so I did that.

When it came to install date on Tuesday, engineer doesn't show up, excuse given is he could see an active line and thought it was a take over order. Despite the fact that a lot of orders are people moving to a new house and having to take over a line so many times it will be taking over a line not deactivated properly rather than use common sense, call me or come to the house to ask he just did nothing. Then it's taken 4 days and literally 5+ hours on the phone to get them to actually book a new engineer and the official date given is the 15th December. The first install date with the first two orders was the 18th of November. Supposedly he's put in an expedited request and he says it should be done before Wednesday, it's still a joke.

The order was done, three times, they ignored a stuck order and made zero contact about fixing it.

Hell I was supposed to get a call back yesterday, they couldn't get through so sent a text saying they couldn't get through and they'll call back on the 6th.... they can't get through so instead of trying 10 mins later, or the next morning, they'll wait FIVE ******* DAYS.

Now the real issue is if I go Sky, or Plusnet or whoever else, ultimately they still have to use an openreach engineer to do anything so it's all the same system and same bunch of idiots.
 
Caporegime
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
33,188
If you live on a new build estate and you don't have FTTP then it's the fault of the developers. Too many of them will build then go "lol didn't think about that, anyway BT can you put some phone lines in please? Oh and the roads haven't been adopted yet and we didn't build the ductwork, see you later I'm off to count some money". It should form part of the planning approval with the ability for the local authority to impose fines for not complying.

Government should make it law now to lay copper and fibre to some kind of standardised box at the entrance to the development and BT are then required to connect to the boxes with as fast a connection as they can do in the area.

Give developers, or almost anyone, an excuse to cut corners and they will.

Reality is a developer building anything from 5 to 500 houses on an estate can afford to pay for 10k BT green boxes and fibre connections, but if they can save 10k they will, it shouldn't be an option.
 
Soldato
Joined
30 Sep 2005
Posts
16,527
The UK average is only 28.5mb. IMO It's much more important to be getting the people on 2-3mb onto proper ADSL2+ speeds.

Connection speed has something of diminishing returns, outside of downloading large files there wasn't really a noticeable difference in going from 20mb to 80mb. By comparison the 512kb-2mb-8mb-20mb jumps were very noticeable.

My point is that there should not be anyone on 2-3mb in 2016. The fact that there are so many who are, speaks volumes.
 
Soldato
Joined
30 Sep 2005
Posts
16,527
Government should make it law now to lay copper and fibre to some kind of standardised box at the entrance to the development and BT are then required to connect to the boxes with as fast a connection as they can do in the area.

Give developers, or almost anyone, an excuse to cut corners and they will.

Reality is a developer building anything from 5 to 500 houses on an estate can afford to pay for 10k BT green boxes and fibre connections, but if they can save 10k they will, it shouldn't be an option.

I've been saying this for over 15 years!
 
Associate
Joined
27 Jan 2009
Posts
974
Location
United Kingdom
The house i rent has been "In scope" now for over 14 months (According to the open reach website) I get 6mb in Streatham (Central London for those who don't know) friend who's less than a 10m walk gets Virgin Media 200mb....

ANYTHING

ANYTHING that can change this i'm happy with however realistically I know nothing will change.

We have an appalling habit in this country of trying to upgrade and improve on ancient crap rather than build new. Roads, Railways, Internet etc.

You can only polish a **** so much and that's apparently with our crappy internet service when we compare it to East Asian countries for example.

EDIT: I'm surprised that's filtered and crap isn't =/
 
Soldato
Joined
22 Mar 2014
Posts
3,956
The house i rent has been "In scope" now for over 14 months (According to the open reach website) I get 6mb in Streatham (Central London for those who don't know) friend who's less than a 10m walk gets Virgin Media 200mb....

ANYTHING

ANYTHING that can change this i'm happy with however realistically I know nothing will change.

We have an appalling habit in this country of trying to upgrade and improve on ancient crap rather than build new. Roads, Railways, Internet etc.

You can only polish a **** so much and that's apparently with our crappy internet service when we compare it to East Asian countries for example.

EDIT: I'm surprised that's filtered and crap isn't =/

You can blame most of the MP's stealing the money and laughing at the working class.
 
Soldato
Joined
3 Jun 2005
Posts
5,365
Location
West Sussex
Openreach is the company with the most I-dont-give-a-flying-*uck attitude that I know.
The have a captive market, the don't need to give a good service.

They told me my delayed FTC was delayed because they only had one engineer covering my area and he was on long term sick leave. He wasn't going to be back for several weeks or months.

It was connected the next day so he must have made a miraculous recovery.
 
Associate
Joined
29 Dec 2014
Posts
2,328
Location
The "North"
Not Openreach but we recently had VM digging up the street to lay "fiber" in out area. I don't mind digging up the garden and the road as long as there's a worthwhile improvement but they've just laid the same Co-axial cable as everywhere else. Why when your digging up the entire street and going through all that effort would you lay the same outdated cable when you could easily put in FTTP with little cost different but far superior long term gains :confused:
 
Man of Honour
Joined
11 Mar 2004
Posts
76,634
Not Openreach but we recently had VM digging up the street to lay "fiber" in out area. I don't mind digging up the garden and the road as long as there's a worthwhile improvement but they've just laid the same Co-axial cable as everywhere else. Why when your digging up the entire street and going through all that effort would you lay the same outdated cable when you could easily put in FTTP with little cost different but far superior long term gains :confused:

i don't understand why planning regs don't force pipes and access points to be installed into roads and pavements, which the council can then rent out to recover the cost, means companies would just have to rent it then pull the cables through and maybe have to dig a whole for a street side cabinet. . Its mind boggling inefficient and expensive.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
11 Mar 2004
Posts
76,634
er.. because the council would then need to foot the bill for laying those pipes and access points. Duh. No council is ever going to swallow that upfront cost.

some of them and make far more money back. most would be installed as part of planning regs footed by the developers, like in new estates. Also when installing from scratch it costs peanuts compared to retro fitting.
 
Caporegime
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
29,490
Location
Back in East London
Not gonna happen. The council(s) would need to apply for a massive amount from central funding to pay for such a huge task, and especially in this political crap storm we're in that just will not happen. I don't care how much they make back - they simply cannot and will not get the funds to pay for it in the first place.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
11 Mar 2004
Posts
76,634
Not gonna happen. The council(s) would need to apply for a massive amount from central funding to pay for such a massive amount of cash. I don't care how much they make back - they simply cannot and will not get the funds to pay for it in the first place.

it wont happen because everything's so short sighted and see it as an all or nothing which just isn't the case, you have to start somewhere.
It would cost them nothing for new builds, developers already pay for things like the roads which are then handed over to the council to maintain.
 
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