[Technology] Open Reach & new Fibre Installs - Warning!!

[Official Old Man]

I've had many friends having problems with their updates from copper wire to fibre.
Open Reach are installing fibre to just about every house in the country, so a very busy job. When they come to you it's important you INSIST on the junction box, the box your current router is attached to, is installed in the same place. In other words, put their little white/grey box where your little white/grey box is now. Sadly for them it means running more fibre around your house wasting 30 minutes of their time.
You're thinking 'of course they will' to which the answer is NO! The lazy guys are drilling holes in the wall right next to the external junction box and shoving the internal socket there. This means the new router may be the other side of the house to your phone line and any Alexa hubs you have. In one mates case his router was wired up to his TV & Sky. New install is in another room and he had no Sky Q or TV plus his phone stopped as no one told him to connect his phone, again base unit in another room, to the router.
So be warned.

 

[Wardy's twin]

I've had many friends having problems with their updates from copper wire to fibre.
Open Reach are installing fibre to just about every house in the country, so a very busy job. When they come to you it's important you INSIST on the junction box, the box your current router is attached to, is installed in the same place. In other words, put their little white/grey box where your little white/grey box is now. Sadly for them it means running more fibre around your house wasting 30 minutes of their time.
You're thinking 'of course they will' to which the answer is NO! The lazy guys are drilling holes in the wall right next to the external junction box and shoving the internal socket there. This means the new router may be the other side of the house to your phone line and any Alexa hubs you have. In one mates case his router was wired up to his TV & Sky. New install is in another room and he had no Sky Q or TV plus his phone stopped as no one told him to connect his phone, again base unit in another room, to the router.
So be warned.

Not sure if they are lazy they are probably working to instruction to do x number of installs a day.....

 

[beorhthelm]

the master socket (junction box) is usually near the front door. any box you have elsewhere in the house is more likely an additional fixture, an extension. BT are not in the habit of running cables to random loctions for free, they'd do it for a price of course.

 

[Arthur]

They insisted my old man had his go through the front of the house. He refused as it would have involved drilling through tiles and asked them to go into the house where the copper went through which involved them getting on the garage roof. Engineer couldn't do it as he wasn't "flat roof trained"! My old man who is a retired BT engineer offered to do it for him!! The bloke said he'd get someone else round and sat in his van for four hours before knocking on the door to tell him no one with flat roof training was available. He had to re-arrange 3 weeks later. To be fair to BT they gave him a fair bit of compensation for the hassle.

 

[Official Old Man]

Not sure if they are lazy they are probably working to instruction to do x number of installs a day.....

They're lazy. By putting the new box in a different place to the existing box nothing works. Customers aren't told to install phone line into router so they have no working phone. Running a new cable takes less than 15 mins and means a further call out isn't needed.

 

[AmexRuislip]

No problems here.
The OR guy asked where we wanted the grey box.
We replied in the shed on the wall right opposite the old white socket on the inside of house.
He had to slightly drill hole as elec cables were detected.
We capped the hole both sides and tidied up with trunking, covering up the mess of wires that lead to BT hub.

 

[trueblue]

Had mine installed last year and didn't have any problem getting them to put the router where I wanted it. Old BT box was in the hall. New cable comes into the lounge instead, although it may have helped that there was already a hole there for the Sky cable. Had no issue earlier this year either when an animal - no idea what - absolutely wigged out and tore the fibre cable to shreds. They came round and reinstalled it, this time pegging it a couple of feet up the wall.

 

[Comrade Sam]

When we had Community Fibre installed, this young numptee got ready to drill a hole out the front of my house. As it was in an alcove where I keep records and my stereo, I requested he put something down to stop dust and rubble going everywhere. He got an A5 leaflet from his bag and placed it on the shelf below the drill. I stepped in and covered the area with a dust sheet. Then after 10 minutes of feeble drilling noise and no progress, he called his colleague in. Turns out neither had bothered to charge their electric drills. Fortunately another van was in the neighbourhood and the Chuckle Brothers were replaced by a competent young man. I now pay half as much for 10 times more internet capacity.

 

[AmexRuislip]

Had mine installed last year and didn't have any problem getting them to put the router where I wanted it. Old BT box was in the hall. New cable comes into the lounge instead, although it may have helped that there was already a hole there for the Sky cable. Had no issue earlier this year either when an animal - no idea what - absolutely wigged out and tore the fibre cable to shreds. They came round and reinstalled it, this time pegging it a couple of feet up the wall.

Our old socket sat in a plaster board wall, so to avoid any hassle, we purchased a white blanking plate.

 

[dazzer6666]

When we switched to fibre, Virgin (who arrived literally the same day we signed up) ran the main cable from the unit in the pavement directly along the edge of our drive, then along the house to where the TV box was, and we moved the router to the same place. They then wired the router through to the office where the old router was so the pc remained cabled. Brilliant service.

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

I have an Ethernet wired house with RJ45 sockets in most rooms.
The original BT master was on a wall in the lounge but has been relocated to the loft - just a blanking plate now.

To be honest, I use internet for a bit of on demand streaming, emails, and web browsing so could probably get by with 10 MBS
I'm with Now TV on 36 MBS @ £22 - Fibre was run from the green cabinet last year to the manhole on the pavement outside my house.

Having FTTP [fibre to the premises] would replace approx 8 metres of copper under my front lawn and up to the loft and I really cant see the benefit [for my use].
Who really needs 100MBS in a domestic residence?

Will I be forced to take this "upgrade"?

 

[deletebeepbeepbeep]

Not sure about the upgrade but in our recently purchased flat, the cable for the master socket has been drilled through part of the window trim and in my view looks like a bit of a bodge job.

I would like to drill a new hole from the exterior so the master socket can be located behind the TV unit and then I can replace the window trim.

Is this doable or do I need to get BT to do it?

5 minute job?

 

[chickens]

Our socket is a long way inside the house. When they came to fit they said they couldn’t run the fibre-optic through as it was too long a run and would involve two right angle turns at various points.

My understanding of fibre-optic cable was that it was effectively almost like glass in its physical properties and couldn’t be bent or do corners in the way of regular wire cables.

I cancelled the order at that point, they wanted me to get power points fitted in a bedroom that would have required WiFi extenders to work through the rest of the house.