Cancellation of upgrade, due to Openreach 'Third Party' excuse...

[#1]

A result - of sorts. Keep us informed.

[jab1]

jab1

Openreach Executive team seems to have at last contacted the 'third party' sky fairy.....and he say Yea !

So have now had a phone call from Plusnet saying another 'provisional' date can be set for proposed installation of Full Fibre...but it's dependent on when Openreach can get their Team out to do a price up for a hard dig, across a side road on our old peoples estate... Will it be under the Customer has to contribute price limit, or over the limit; who knows...

 It's also now been discovered that around twenty houses on the estate will be in the same position as myself ...WHEN.... they eventually are forced to up-grade to Full Fibre.. 

[#3]

@Railman1 It is slow, hard going when the 'computer says no' but involving real people usually gets it sorted - slightly quicker.

[#4]

@Railman1 

Will the works for your property benefit the other 20 odd houses? If it does benefit some or all of then then I believe the "contribution" required (if any) will reflect this.

Brian

[bmc]

bmc

That will all depend on the 'work' Openreach are willing to undertake. Due to the layout of the houses ( all bungalows I might add) One 'hard dig' to feed my home would in future only entail 4 other 'soft digs' to feed 5 other house ( through shared front garden area). With the other 15 houses, and circular road layout, I would envisage them needing at least two more 'hard digs' again into shared front garden areas, to feed 7 or so houses from each dig..

(I'm not a 'civils engineer', I'm only going off 25 years experience of cable laying on the railways with the S&T ...so they might have different scenarios that they can work to....ALL controlled by a price, of course.) 

[#6]

@Railman1 

If I understand correctly then, the cost of the "hard" dig should be allocated over 6 properties by OpenReach.

Brian

[bmc]

bmc

Afraid not, they aren't privately owned houses, ( one or two may possibly be, under 'right to buy' but that's a different story) they are all rented properties, on an old peoples estate, run by a well known and somewhat respected housing company in the North West, so each home dig would be 'priced', or not, on what distance and type of 'dig' was required...There is a limit to what ISP's will fork out themselves, I think it's in the region of £3500 ????? but I could be wrong.

There's no saying I will be charged; it's just something I'm keeping in mind...to refuse.

[#8]

@Railman1 

Sorry, my wording is a bit off.

What I understand to be the case is OR do an internal calculation on the actual cost involved then add a discount relative to the number of properties that would / may benefit from the work. If excess charges are to be levied it is this figure which the customer sees.

If the limit that OR will swallow is £3,000 (I can't remember the actual figure) then I think the discount would be £18,000 (6 houses) so the actual cost would need to be above this before excess charges are applied.

I may of course be talking a load of .........

Brian

[jab1]

jab1

Result!

Openreach turned up the other morning, two excellent guys. Guess what...they found a telecoms cover on our side of the road..No hard dig needed. They dug in two bits of trunking into 'soft' garden area, enough to feed the four houses on our side  of the estate. Got an e-mail from Exec team at Openreach, whilst they were still digging.."Engineer booked to come Tuesday Morning to connect up". Then got an e-mail from PLUSNET congratulating me on being " Up and Running"..and telling me the 'engineer' is coming on Friday, they seemed quite happy and upbeat with ALL the work THEY said THEY had done...FOR me.

To sort out any new FTTP installation problems like mine..after booking it with Plusnet, cut out the 'middle men' and go straight to Openreach CEO and his Executive team...at least THEY'LL try and DO YOU PROUD.

[#10]

@Railman1 Very glad you got sorted - why it needs all this palaver has always been beyond me, to be honest.

I will never have the issue, though - I left PN about 4.1/2 years ago, for different reasons, and the difference in service I get from my ISP to what I observe on here is (almost) Harrods-like.  They don't have a forum, but when you contact them, you are talking to trained individuals who don't fob you off, and follow through until YOU  are satisfied, by email and/or phone.

[#11]

John,

You need to recall that’s what Plusnet looked like when BT were losing market share, could not compete and so snaffled up the competition.  The subsequent history we know all too well.

Plusnet being within the group makes rattling the BTOR cage neigh impossible.  Ratting on your sibling (even if permitted) is going to be career limiting.  Then if BTOR responded favourably there’s the risk of useless Ofcom squealing favouritism!

Most of the time being within the group does Plusnet no visible favours

[#12]

Totally understand that, @Townman . I can't remember, but I think we may have had a conversation off-forum whilst I was contemplating moving which explained my thinking back then?