This is feedback for the installation of FTTP at my residence in Milton Keynes. In summary, I would say the experience was a good one.
I was invited to join the trial at the end of January IIRC, and raised a few questions via the ticketing system. It took a fair bit of prompting to get answers, even resorting to the forum to ask someone to answer (remember this...) Once I understood what was involved, I signed up and was given an install date fairly promptly.
BT phoned a few days before the appointment to confirm and an engineer duly turned up when they said they would. He explained quite clearly what he would do, and set about it. Around 4 hours later, and having drafted 4 other engineers in to help, they gave up trying to get the fibre from the street to the house through the underground ducting. The problem was the way the ducting had been installed and they just couldn't get the fibre round the last bend which was, infuriatingly, about 2 ft from the terminating box. Still, they tried their best and explained that they'd need to call a contractor in to get to the duct.
Exactly 1 week later, the contractors turned up. They proceeded to do what they needed and, on checking afterwards, I couldn't find any trace of their visit. So they did an excellent job of digging down and clearing up afterwards. The next day, a BT engineer turned up to check their work was completed and that the install could continue.
I was called 2 days later by BT to set an appointment and then, confusingly, called by Plusnet with a completely different appointment. Crossed wires I think, but not a problem. I had to re-arrange for 2 or 3 weeks ahead, but again, the same BT engineer turned up to finish the job.
This he did - again, drafting in a colleague to test the connection was made properly. Checking his work I can tell you all he did a great job: very neat and no mess. Overall, I was very impressed with the BT guys I had contact with. They all explained what the problems were, what they were doing about it, and then seeing that through exactly when they said they would.
I confirmed via the ticket that the work was done. It took over 48 hours for my profile to be set. As it happens, it was set to FTTC - 37Mb. Great, and I only found out because I was sure I should be getting speeds up to 100Mb. Enquired via the forum and raised a ticket. This was then discovered to be set to FTTC rather than FTTP. It has now been changed and my last speed test should 82Mb down, 15Mb up.
In summary, this install went very smoothly and I'm a pleased customer. It's been running without a hiccup for 5 days now.
Lessons to learn:
1) BT might want to think about co-ordinating the colours of their kit: I currently have a black cable to a white box; a black cable into the inside of the house, covered by a white piece of plastic at the point of entry; obviously the black cable inside the house into the white ONT. Apparantly, some customers are also getting a grey cable guard at some point in the cable run.
White down the line would be a good thing!
2) Plusnet might want to think about their ticketing system. It's pretty poor in terms of response times and certainly shouldn't require prompting via the forum. Additionally, they might want to consider some form of "checklist" to ensure their customers are getting set to the right profile as they may well not know. Finally, I appear to have been charged £5-something-or-other which, whilst I don't mind, I don't recall being told about.
Andrew
