Venting - Useless Open Reach. FTTP Rollout incomplete
Nothing to do with any providers, just want to get this out there as I am so frustrated with Open Reach and their failed delivery dates, the executive complaints team and their complete inability to get anything escalated or done to prioritise or finish our estates FTTP rollout.
#OpenReach
So attempting to cut a very long story short
We are in the heart of England, our estate suffered from very poor FTTC connectivity, green box over 2.1KM away and during lockdown a lot of the neighbours and I, were experiencing major connectivity problems. A few of us, got together and started a Community Fibre project (CFP), got just over 30% of the estate with positive responses and just shortly after I got the letter detailing the costs, engineers came round pulling blue rope through all the ducting. (Estate is 30 years old, no surface poles)
Speaking to our allocated project manager for the CFP, I was advised to stop the CPF as rollout was imminent in 2020. Three years later, all neighbouring area completed just a few streets left on our estate which they don't seem to want to complete.
Every time I contact the Open Reach Executive team for an update, the planned delivery dates keep moving, further in to the future. So far I have been given at least 4 dates, that have all elapsed, I have been given all manner of excuses for the delays, new spine needed, the headend needs to be installed, CBT and cables not installed yet....none of which tally with local engineer information or what I have seen with my own eyes.
Recently, several OR engineers and their sub-contractors have been around and walked our estate (August 2023, October 2023) they advised there is about 2-3 days work remaining, (all cables, CBT's etc were installed by December 2021, although Open Reach Executive complaints Team and the Local PM seemed to think this work has not been completed).
To be fair, both the subcontractor and the OR engineers were very good, had lots of local knowledge and both came back to give me an update once they completed their survey.
The Open Reach engineers even said, "they've already paid the contractors for the work, so my manager said we can't do it, even though we would love to as it would meet our quota for the quarter".
We are now in December 2023 and still nothing happens! Utterly useless, as the image shows we are now the only area that cannot get FTTP or alternative high speed internet provider (4G / 5G signal is also very poor, I have already tried 2 different providers, didn't get Starlink as dates were always immanent for FTTP completion and my research suggests might not be as good as it's made out to be) . Yellow line in the image is the new Spine and PON connecters ready for the remaining properties on our estate.
We cannot even get an altnet, not even VM, just poor FTTC for us which is not great but inexplicably improved over the last 12 months.
R
