Possible Upgrade to Full Fibre

[icesteelman]

Looking to upgrade from Fibre 65 to (Full) Fibre 150 before having some landscaping work done on our front garden (including widening the driveway) but have a few questions / concerns:-

1. Price - in my account the upgrade offer is 18 months at £36 / month but I see that new customers can get this for £32 / month (all be it with a £9.95 one off charge). Will have to call them to haggle I guess......

2. I know that Open Reach will need to extend the trunking / cabling along our road from next door since they had FF installed recently and the existing trunking under the pavement needed upgrading. How long will this likely take from ordering?

3. Do you get a site visit before installation for a survey to ensure that the new full fibre cable / trunking can be installed through your garden, paths, etc. to the house entry point required?

4. I also use three or four of the ethernet ports on my existing router for printers, Hive Hub, Home Plugs, etc. and so I am guessing I'll need a Switch as the Eero 6 Router only has 2 ethernet ports?

I'll likely have other questions at some point but acceptable answers to these might tip me to placing an order !

Any advice or comments would be appreciated.

Thanks

Simon

[icesteelman]

That would be good Arne, thank you 🙂

[Arne-TalkTalk]

Hi icesteelman

I will request confirmation that the activation date is the 1st Feb. 

[icesteelman]

Its all become much clearer today 😁

Three Openreach guys arrived on the road today to extend the fibre cable along the pavement and connect three of our properties to it -  as far as our external wall. Lovely men who explained everything they are going to do and that it would take around 4 days to get us all connected. Thought i'd keep them onboard (bribery) by feeding them tea and biscuits 😉

So as long as all goes well the next visit on 1st February should see us connected - maybe need to check with TalkTalk that they will send me a new Eero 6 router as I've heard nothing from them, just Openreach who to be fair seem excellent at communicating what is going on once there is a plan. Talktalk either don't get updated or I suspect are not so good at passing on the information promptly.

Happy days are almost here.

[Arne-TalkTalk]

Thanks for the update, let us know how it goes. 

[icesteelman]

Had a text from Openreach to tell me that they will be installing my Fibre connection on Thursday 1st February. It isn't too clear but I think they'll be doing both the external and internal work at the same time, but at least I have a date !

Hopefully we'll have full fibre up and working soon 🙂

[Arne-TalkTalk]

Keep us updated.

[icesteelman]

No updates received so went on TalkTalk chat and had a good conversation with Jose. He informs me that the Civil works (on the road/pavement) are provisional planned for 21/01/24 (odd as this is a Sunday) and once these are complete things should move along. I believe that the civil work is to also cover 2 other addresses / properties on our road at the same time, and so this makes sense since one of my neighbours yesterday told me she was expecting her full fibre connection to be completed on 02/02/24.

Fingers crossed things move along now.

[icesteelman]

Common sense may prevail !

Text message from Taltalk this morning:_

"TALKTALK Order Update: Hello, we have found a problem with your order. Our supplier needs to do some more work before we can get you connected. Don't worry we'll continue to workhard in the background to get you connected. We'll update you on 26/2/2023. If you need to speak to us use the link below"

Not sure that anyone will be working on Boxing Day here in the UK, but hopefully OpenReach will organise a date early in the new year to get their work done and things will be sorted soon after.

Cheers

Simon

[Arne-TalkTalk]

Thanks for the update. 

[icesteelman]

Had a call from someone at Talk Talk today (can't recall their name) to confirm their visit on 19th to connect me !

Told them that OpenReach still needed to do their work and it was pointless but he insisted it wouldn't cost me anything and to let the appointment go ahead - crazy 🤣

Hopefully Talk Talk will communicate with OpenReach soon and common sense will prevail, but there again....

Happy Days

[ferguson]

That's good to know, at least you seem to have an update and realistic timescale. It is all down to Openreach. In our case the upgrade was as straightforward as could be, they were able to blow the fibre cable down existing ducting. In your case, there is seemingly more infrastructure work to be done. The third team you mention I guess will finish the final connection from outside and fit the ONT inside your home. In the meantime, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and, as always, keep us posted!  🙂

[icesteelman]

Received a phone call today from Abbi, a lovely OpenReach engineer, who asked to visit and do a site survey. We were at home and so she has checked out the road/pavement which will need the fibre cable extending and worked out where they will run the cable from the road to our required entry pointNice yellow chalking all over !

She explained it will take three teams to get the job done, the first being the cable on the public footpath - as there are apparently 2 other houses further up the road with outstanding orders they should all be done at the same time.

A second OpenReach team will then lay the cable underground from the road to the house.

Finally, the third team (talktalk?) will complete the internal installation.

Abbi told me that it would most likely be planned for early in the new year, but I should be informed when it has been scheduled.

Seems like theres a plan coming together even if Talk Talk don't know it yet 😄

Watch this space

[icesteelman]

So, looks like December 19th is not going to happen 🙂

Received a text from Talktalk today:-

"TALKTALK Order Update: Hello, we are making progress with our suppliers and hope to be in touch with a new appointment date soon. Do not worry we will continue to work hard in the background to get you connected. We'll update you on 19/12/23. If you need to speak to us please use the link below"

Quite what this really measn I do not know, and why they can't give me a new date until 19th Dec is a mystery 🤔. Maybe my wanting to be present when OpenReach come to do their bit has put a spanner in things.

Will update further after 19th December unless I receive any communication before then 😊

Merry christmas everyone.

[Arne-TalkTalk]

Keep us updated.

[ferguson]

I'm still reading! Keep us posted.  🙂

[icesteelman]

Taken the plunge with Black Friday deal for Full Fibre 150 at £28 / month, 18 months. A reasonable deal, although I could have got cheaper with Plusnet I didn't want the hassle of switch my email address across many online stores and accounts 🙂

Been given December 19th as installation date but whether OpenReach and TalkTalk wil coordinate successfully I am not sure. Open Reach asked via text if they needed someone to be in the property when they come to fit the external box and cabling to which I said yes - I want to be sure they put it in the correct place !  That resulted in an automated response stating they would tell my provider that external and internal installtion would be done at the same time......I am not so sure about that as I think the cabling on the road my need extending not just up into our property. When my next door neighbour upgraded earlier this year he had a site visit from OpenReach to discuss where things would go but has been no mention of this to me.

I am in no real rush so not an issue at present but it will be interesting to see how smoothly this goes....keeping everything crossed.

[icesteelman]

Thanks again to all those who responded !

Life has gotten in the way of things at the moment but I do intend going full fibre before too long, just that other things are more important at present. 

Cheers

[Michelle-TalkTalk]

Morning,

Please let us know if you need any assistance 🙂

Thanks

[mrwrighty]

Also bear in mind meshing affects throughput as half the wifi bandwidth is used for backhaul, so each node you add further decreases the speed. If you can wire the nodes you will get better performance.

[icesteelman]

Will mull things over for a few days - will post updates once I  decide.