Installation of Fibre Optic

[bruncher]

We're in the middle of a FTTP installation. It hasn't been a smooth process. The initial contractors working for Openreach who put a trench in our front garden (as expected) but removed a bolt in the driveway which is required to hang a gate. They didn't even talk to us about it. The other end of the trench is a messy job, and they left wet cement on the front wall which I had to wipe down - it had almost set on the paintwork. The re-turfing of the lawn was very rough, and finally the cable is in a corrugated plastic flexible pipe which IMHO should have been invisible - buried in the trench right up to the front wall. Just the optic cable itself needs to be visible, as it is taken a couple of feet up the wall to the new grey box.

I don't know how far I can get remedial works done to improve the appearance of things. Any ideas on this would be appreciated. Presumably this cable is going to be with us for .... 30, 40, 50 years, so the job should be done with consideration and care.

Later stages have also been problematic. The Openreach guy who came to do the internal connection, was unable to thread the cable through an airbrick - as we wanted - rather than drill a hole in the nearest and easiest spot. We didn't want any tech with flashing lights in our front room, and we wanted to avoid unnecessary drilling in our nice old house. So we had an electrician come and thread the cable through an airbrick into the void under the floorboards and up into the cupboard under the stairs where our electric meter and fuseboard is. Openreach should have been able to do this, but they only sent one young and not very capable guy. Can I claim back the expense of having to get my own electrician in to do what Openreach should have done?

[Gerry557]

My install went a lot better than yours sounded. I wanted the same idea for the routing into a position under the stairs but they wouldn't do it. I have all my cinema, network and phone equipment there. I even offered to install that bit for them under the floor but no joy. I did consider calling off the whole thing at one point but the team were open to suggestions.

Fortunately the equipment went in the hall and has been hidden. They wanted to put it in the lounge. Again they wanted to route across the lawn and flower beds. I convinced them to go around the garden as I might damage the cable planting bulbs etc. So it got tooked in around the path and one bit of flowerbed.

They had to pull up a bit of path and put it back better than it was. I felt they tried to do a good job rather than rushing any old job. Tea and biscuits might have helped too.

Hope yours gets sorted.

[tacpot12]

The flexible conduit should go all the way to the grey box on the wall. You won't get anywhere arguing that the only the fibre optic cable should be visible above ground - that cable isn't designed to be able to protect itself from mechanical damage, and may not even be able to withstand UV over the long term, so the conduit is required. You can push the conduit back underground yourself if you dig back far enough - I'd seal the end and stop it moving with some self-amalgamating tape - but I'd recommend installing a cable protector over the exposed fibre optic cable as you will be liable for the repair costs if it is damaged due to impact.

You can't claim back the expense of your electrician. Openreach would have been able to install the cable in a reasonable way. It's not reasonable to expect a new cable service to only be delivered through an existing hole - it's for the installer to determine whether this is possible. Your desire for a very specific installation method, while understandable, is not something that Openreach have to accomodate.

The messy remote end and turfing are things you should complain to your ISP about. They should be able to take it up with Openreach and get some remediation done. If you have home insurance, check to see if your have Legal Expenses Cover, as you might want to talk to the Legal Helpline if the ISP claims either that they aren't repsonbile OR that they can't get OpenReach to remedaiate the situation.

I'd recommend taking lots of photos of the rough work, as it can be very difficult to see how bad surface finishes are in photographs.

[Grumpsimus]

I had a very smooth Fibre install with OR. I phoned up my ISP and ordered Fibre and 9.00am the next morning a man from OR turned up to do the external install!

His thought was that they would have to get an external contractor to dig a trench under the block paving on the driveway. I suggested that they use the existing duct that the copper telephone cable used to enter the house. He had a look and said he would try this. It went very smoothly and he completed the job in an hour, putting the normally external box just inside our garage. One thing that did emerge is that OR have very sketchy or even no record of what and how anything is installed at many properties.

The second part of the install didn't go quite as well. The actual physical installation was fine, installing the ONT exactly where I wanted it via existing internal ducting. Getting it to work was more difficult. The ONT was expected to automatically update its software when powered up and connected to lit fibre, only it didn't. The OR man had to spend more than an hour on the phone in order to get the software updated manually. Eventually everything worked fine.

Going back to the OP question. A neighbour on the other side of the road had fibre installed. Contractors lifted block paving and put in a trench, but made a mess of putting back the block paving. He complained loudly to his ISP and OR sent a special remedial team who spent more than a day putting right the contractors shoddy work. This appeared to be a special OR team rather than another contractor, OR seem to be well aquainted with this situation. So complain loudly to your ISP, with as much evidence as you can muster.

[Tedx]

Yeah,mine used the existing copper cable ducting too. They had to do a little bit of digging around the border of the house (no slab lifting though), but it was all tidied up when they finished. I agree re: the sketchy knowledge of the layout. There was a lot of sonar type scanning being done on mine and subsequently my neighbour's properties.

All in all it went smoothly. The box is outside (apparently they're all outside of ease of maintenance). Mine is now hidden behind a plant. He did crack a brick when drilling in, which he repaired with some sort of glue. He also sealed the cable with a mastic. The cracked brick isn't a problem as I fitted an external cable shroud/cover thing. It's also going to be obscured with plant life in due course

The internal connection took less than half an hour. I had already received my Plusnet box, ready to be plugged in. The longest chore was logging everything back into my home network.

I mean full fibre is just astonishing (and we have a relatively low end 145mb package). When I think back to dialling into America Online using a free trail CD back in c. late 90's......But as the BT guy said, that's you done now. You can rev up your speed if you want/need just with a livechat with Plusnet, but to be honest, it runs my Sky Stream, my Firestick and a few other devices at the same time with no issues.

[stewamax]

The flexible conduit should go all the way to the grey box on the wall. You won't get anywhere arguing that the only the fibre optic cable should be visible above ground - that cable isn't designed to be able to protect itself from mechanical damage, and may not even be able to withstand UV over the long term, so the conduit is required.

Interesting. Presumably the cable is a different spec from the overhead one (which has the fibre plus a metallic strain-relief thread) or the summer UV will cause all the plastic outer sheaths to disintegrate.

[bruncher]

The flexible conduit should go all the way to the grey box on the wall. You won't get anywhere arguing that the only the fibre optic cable should be visible above ground - that cable isn't designed to be able to protect itself from mechanical damage, and may not even be able to withstand UV over the long term, so the conduit is required.

Interesting. Presumably the cable is a different spec from the overhead one (which has the fibre plus a metallic strain-relief thread) or the summer UV will cause all the plastic outer sheaths to disintegrate.

The plastic tube has been cut about an inch above ground, clearly without intention that it should reach the grey box which is more than a foot above ground at its lowest point. The pipe is about 6 CM diameter; why would it be so wide?

[kiloran]

I'm surprised they had to dig a trench. Five or 6 years ago, all the gas pipes in our street were replaced. They had to provide a new pipe from the street mains pipe to the house. They used a hydraulic mole thingy to bore through a stone wall by the street, under the lawn which is about 3-5 feet above street level, under another wall, under about 12ft of paving and then to a new gas meter on the side of the house. It only required a pit by the meter to connect the new pipe. Brilliant technology and zero disruption to the front garden.

--kiloran

[Lootman]

The flexible conduit should go all the way to the grey box on the wall. You won't get anywhere arguing that the only the fibre optic cable should be visible above ground - that cable isn't designed to be able to protect itself from mechanical damage, and may not even be able to withstand UV over the long term, so the conduit is required.

Interesting. Presumably the cable is a different spec from the overhead one (which has the fibre plus a metallic strain-relief thread) or the summer UV will cause all the plastic outer sheaths to disintegrate.

Our fibre cable is overground and it has not been a problem so far, in over 4 years.

It is on the north side and sheltered, so UV isn't an issue.

There are bright orange disks at key points warning of a "Fragile" cable, to avoid knocks and scrapes from builders.

No tunnel or undergrounding. Installation was about one hour and from memory 150 quid! So even if I had to reinstall it, it would not be a big deal.