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FTTPoD fibre is in, OR thinks it's not.

lwsrbrts

Casual Member
Hi all, first post but I'm hoping there's someone, anyone here that can help move something forward with a FTTPoD order I placed last March 2019.

Long story short, I've coughed up £9,600 to get fibre delivered to the premises and it has taken a ridiculous amount of time to make any progress but I am now so close to getting it, I can both see and smell the fibre in my home, alas, the PON LED on the ONT is just flashing, and has been for 23 days.

My months of waiting and spotting the occasional Openreach van outside my home and in the estate culminated in the appearance of a couple of Openreach engineers on Monday 6th April (during lockdown I should add) who announced they were here to provide me with an ONT and splice in the fibre and needed a hole drilled in the house. I was gobsmacked they were here given this was during lockdown but they advised they couldn't enter and asked if I would be OK with drilling the hole. I was, and did. Fibre was run, the engineer spliced the fibre and after telling me that there was a little more work to do upstream before I had a flashing green PON light (LOS was red at this point), they went on their way.

As luck would have it, I was walking the dog on Wednesday 8th and saw that same engineer in the estate who happily shouted over that everything was now done and I should have a flashing green PON LED. He was right, I did. He mentioned it'd be about 24 hours after that the circuit would likely come live. He admitted it could be longer with it being an FTTPoD order.

Now, obviously I was on to the provider pretty quickly and they were as surprised as I was that there had been some progress. Unfortunately, that's where the progress from Openreach completely stopped.

The provider has now been trying their absolute best to persuade Openreach that I have an ONT and that an engineer has been to site but Openreach insist that an Audit & Commission event has to take place before I'll get an ONT. They have been saying for 3 weeks now that they're "waiting" for this audit and commission to happen but it would seem that the audit and commission has already happened, otherwise I wouldn't have my ONT and the PON LED certainly wouldn't be flashing green.

Obviously they're waiting for something that has already happened and is therefore not going to happen again. I'm at my wits end and while the provider is doing everything they can, they're stuck in the middle.

The latest information they've had from Openreach is this:
"The green light on the ONT is power only as it stands. There are up to 5 lights in total depending on status. The advantage of having ONT in status before service is commissioned is that they may be able to bring into service without having to gain access, which under COVID19 restrictions may not normally happen. We have tasked the BT Job Controller with chasing progress on Audit/Commissioning."

This is my ONT, with the PON LED flashing:
As everyone that can access the above video can see, yes, the POWER LED is lit...but the PON LED is also lit but is flashing green. They seem to be assuming that I can only see one LED and that is obviously just power. No, there's two, both green, POWER and PON, but PON is flashing.

Anyhoo, here I am 23 days later and still stuck in limbo land. Openreach are being obstructive and evasive, saying things haven't happened that have and assuring me that I'm looking at only one LED when I'm pretty sure I trust my eyes.

Does anyone know a way to get Openreach to do something that might move this forward?
 
If you privately send me your name, address and number then I can escalate to OR and find out what's going on next week.
 
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If it helps, back in 2017 when I had FoD installed, i had the green flashing PON light on my ONT for approx 3 weeks (after it was installed) before it turned solid and service went live. So there's nothing unusual with having to wait a few weeks during the last stage (audit stage) but hopefully Mark J can find out directly from Openreach what's going and how soon you can expect to go live. If you've waited a year, then a few weeks extra is nothing in comparison :)

Good luck!
 
I've prompted them so we'll see what happens.
 
Thank you all. It's very much appreciated. Fingers crossed there'll be some progress sooner rather than later!
 
Sorry to hear it has taken this long. My install was completed in the middle of February and was good to go immediately. The engineer even stayed to make sure everything was working before he left.
 
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Well, something has just happened, alas only outside the house. A small OR van pulled up and parked for about 10 minutes, then the engineer got out and pulled up the grid covers on each of the three that are nearby. I saw him pull up the CBT from the grid nearest my house, look at it for a few seconds, pop it down, cover up the grid again, get in his van...and leave. Total time out of the van about 3-5 minutes. Perhaps this is the "audit" part? I can but hope.

I suppose at least something has happened (thanks again all) but for now, there's still a flashing PON LED on the ONT...
 
I suppose at least something has happened (thanks again all) but for now, there's still a flashing PON LED on the ONT...

I have a Huawei PON modem and flashing PON means that the other end isn't connected to anything (either physically or software). It's trying to connect to something but it isn't there.

I don't even live in the UK most of the time now but we have two fibre termination points in the house from two different providers but the other one isn't connected and just flashes as there's nothing there.

Fun fact - the fibre cables aren't anywhere near as delicate as they make out.
 
Quick update as we head in to the bank holiday weekend and unfortunately the visit on Tuesday hasn't materialised in any changes for me and there's still a flashing PON LED. I've had no further communication from the provider either at this time - though admittedly I haven't chased them.

I'll continue to hurry up and wait. :(

Thank you to Mark and everyone else offering their assistance. First world problems and all that.

Thanks all.
 
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I think the bank holiday will get in the way of progress on this one as there will be nobody in the office for me to chase, but I'll come back to it on Monday.
 
Hi all, the saga continues...

I was contacted by the provider on Thursday last week (28th May) with an update they'd received from Openreach:

The field manager says openreach have encountered an issue with the cable-link which they are now trying to resolve.
This is not something the customer will have a view of (not local work) as the issue is located further down the route.
They have said they will chase the field manager again to ensure that he is pushing this fix through with the relevant team.
Once this is resolved they will be in the position to arrange the final site visit.
As soon as we have an update this will be shared with you.

Three hours later I had another update with a confirmation of an appointment from 8am on 1st June which, despite the provider telling them, Openreach insisted was required to check that the ONT was in fact in place. Apparently photographs aren't acceptable proof for Openreach.

Sure enough, yesterday came and the very helpful and chatty engineer was taken by surprise that the CSP was in, more surprised that the ONT was also in and boggled by the fact that the PON light was flashing!

I explained the situation, told him I'd been staring at the flashing green light for 50+ days and getting nothing but shrugs from Openreach since, until today.

He took a couple of details from the ONT - the last 8 or 10 digits from the serial number and contacted something I think he called DCOS or DCMS maybe? They had a quick conversation, exchanged some information and he advised me that they were going to "build the circuit" and it'd take about 10 minutes.

Sure enough, after about 5 minutes of chatting (and picking his jaw up off the floor after I'd told him how much it had cost) the PON light went solid green and has remained on since. It's worth pointing out now that we all knew this wasn't a hardware thing and that all someone would likely have to do is enter a few bits of information and press [Enter]. As it was, I was left to wait 50+ days for this 10 minute resolution.

The engineer asked me to configure my router so we could test, which I did, however I was receiving CHAP authentication issues. After about 10 minutes, he mentioned that he had to disappear to the next job but that he'd keep this one open in case and offered me his number to keep him updated.

After a few hours of continuing to get the CHAP authentication error, I decided to reach out to the provider's support team and was advised that because the job is still in the "committed" state on BT Wholesale's side, that I'd need to wait 24-48 hours for all systems to agree with each other.

So here we are now today. I've still not quite got there yet and still have the CHAP auth error, however I have had an update through from my provider just:

The service had been installed, however as it is not live yet.
Openreach have advised that they have an issue on their side which their ASG are currently investigating.
They have been made aware that the circuit was installed yesterday and are looking for an urgent resolution.
We will look to update you further by close of play today.
This is being dealt with as high priority.

We continue. To wait.
 
Ah this was the thing that was bugging me yesterday. I knew I was forgetting about something that had been chased, but couldn't remember which issue it was (I sometimes try to help too many people at the same time).

I recall I did try to chase Openreach after the first May bank holiday but they never responded. The longer this issue goes on, the more bizarre it gets. I'm going to give them one last chance to provide a proper response now.

Would you mine if I wrote an article about your experience at all?
 
I've been told we'll get a response tomorrow.
 
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If you're now getting a solid PON light, that means your circuit is in sync with the equipment at the exchange (OLT). Its now up to your provider (Cerberus?) and/or BT Wholesale to sort out the circuit - not an Openreach issue anymore.
 
Ah this was the thing that was bugging me yesterday. I knew I was forgetting about something that had been chased, but couldn't remember which issue it was (I sometimes try to help too many people at the same time).

I recall I did try to chase Openreach after the first May bank holiday but they never responded. The longer this issue goes on, the more bizarre it gets. I'm going to give them one last chance to provide a proper response now.

Would you mine if I wrote an article about your experience at all?
Hi Mark, not at all. Please, be my guest. People can use the article as a warning or a playbook!
 
If you're now getting a solid PON light, that means your circuit is in sync with the equipment at the exchange (OLT). Its now up to your provider (Cerberus?) and/or BT Wholesale to sort out the circuit - not an Openreach issue anymore.
Yes, I understand as much. The tortoise like pace is somewhat frustrating as you might imagine however.
 
Well, it has taken a significant amount of time but I finally have my connection!

9546893663.png


I'm yet to hear from the provider (Amvia) but ovbiously the carrier (Cerberus it seems) have obviously done something to get me connected.

Happy days.
 
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