jagnew
Casual Member
Hey Everyone,
I’m after some advice. Last year (21st July) I started my FTTPoD order through Cerberus Networks, paying £16k. Unfortunately the process so far has been very disappointing. I was aware when placing the order that other people have had issues. I receive regular updates from Cerberus Networks but they don’t contain a lot of detail and have included wrong information before. I don’t want to be bad mouthing a company so it is worth noting that another user on the forum had great experience with them.
We’re two weeks away from 1 year mark and my order has already been moved to high escalation team in Openreach but I’ve finally got the point where I don’t know how to get some common sense answers out of anyone.
The line is pretty much outside my house now. There was about 10 metre gap between the box and pole where the duct to my property is. I only know this as I’ve got friendly with an Openreach engineer who is meant to complete my cabling.
There was civils with TM needed to complete this gap but two times before no on showed to do the work. It typically takes 3 months to get TM. The most recent TM took a lot longer due water company working on the road. Finally someone showed up last week with digger, once they left I rung the Openreach engineer and he said he would visit on Monday to complete the cabling. When he arrived he explained they didn’t do civils correctly. They where meant to drop a box at the base of pole but they didn’t, he said they ran a duct to pole so said in theory you could run the cable through but a metre of it would be exposed and would likely lead to issues. He said he would try raise it internally at Openreach but I should do the same with Cerberus.
So I rung Cerberus but my support person wasn’t available so spoke to someone else. They did there usual the system says civils is still in progress, I explained I know it’s been done wrong, they said that Openreach person won’t know the bigger picture of the install to which I explained he had civils plan in his hand and showed me what they didn’t do. And he has the job for completing my cabling. I demanded proper update on how they expect to get my line live, I got this today:
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Hi Jason
Upon your message about Openrach engineer advising you that the civils is incorrect, please confirm exactly what he said was incorrect/ incomplete/ missing so we have all the information on record.
We ask OR about this and they did checks and confirm A55 job submitted to correct duct work, awaiting start dates.(Junction box required). So civils will continue and OR are aware of the issue. Nisha will continue to chase for civils completion date. Once civils complete correctly, then your order will move to jointing.
Sorry for any inconvenience caused.
Thanks
Kim
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It feels like they are saying it was intentional that junction box wasn't added. But they have no start date for it and surely it would require another TM which will take 3 months. It just feels like no one really knows what’s going on apart from the Openreach engineer. I'm not sure what to do next, I replied to Cerberus but I worry this going to drag out for ages.
--------
Hi Kim
Thanks for looking into this. As you said they dug a new duct but didn't place a junction box at the base of the pole which is what Openreach engineer (I believe he's my doing jointing job when civils are completed) mentioned. He couldn't tell me if job created for civils had the mistake or if the contractors doing the civils made the mistake. It is worth noting I spoke to the contractors when they arrived and they mentioned they were putting a box in so it's unclear why one wasn't done.
I believe (and so does Openreach engineer) that this junction box should have been added as part of civils work carried out last week. If OR is claiming that was not the case and it is a separate civils job to be carried out, why wouldn't we have a start date for it by now? And wouldn't it require TM which Nisha has claimed previously takes 3 months?
Thanks
Jason
--------
Sorry if my message is little ranty. I guess to summarise, am I being unreasonable? should I just let this play out? or should I be complaining/finding a way to bypass Cerberus and speak to Openreach directly? Any guidance would helpful.
Thanks
Jason
I’m after some advice. Last year (21st July) I started my FTTPoD order through Cerberus Networks, paying £16k. Unfortunately the process so far has been very disappointing. I was aware when placing the order that other people have had issues. I receive regular updates from Cerberus Networks but they don’t contain a lot of detail and have included wrong information before. I don’t want to be bad mouthing a company so it is worth noting that another user on the forum had great experience with them.
We’re two weeks away from 1 year mark and my order has already been moved to high escalation team in Openreach but I’ve finally got the point where I don’t know how to get some common sense answers out of anyone.
The line is pretty much outside my house now. There was about 10 metre gap between the box and pole where the duct to my property is. I only know this as I’ve got friendly with an Openreach engineer who is meant to complete my cabling.
There was civils with TM needed to complete this gap but two times before no on showed to do the work. It typically takes 3 months to get TM. The most recent TM took a lot longer due water company working on the road. Finally someone showed up last week with digger, once they left I rung the Openreach engineer and he said he would visit on Monday to complete the cabling. When he arrived he explained they didn’t do civils correctly. They where meant to drop a box at the base of pole but they didn’t, he said they ran a duct to pole so said in theory you could run the cable through but a metre of it would be exposed and would likely lead to issues. He said he would try raise it internally at Openreach but I should do the same with Cerberus.
So I rung Cerberus but my support person wasn’t available so spoke to someone else. They did there usual the system says civils is still in progress, I explained I know it’s been done wrong, they said that Openreach person won’t know the bigger picture of the install to which I explained he had civils plan in his hand and showed me what they didn’t do. And he has the job for completing my cabling. I demanded proper update on how they expect to get my line live, I got this today:
--------
Hi Jason
Upon your message about Openrach engineer advising you that the civils is incorrect, please confirm exactly what he said was incorrect/ incomplete/ missing so we have all the information on record.
We ask OR about this and they did checks and confirm A55 job submitted to correct duct work, awaiting start dates.(Junction box required). So civils will continue and OR are aware of the issue. Nisha will continue to chase for civils completion date. Once civils complete correctly, then your order will move to jointing.
Sorry for any inconvenience caused.
Thanks
Kim
--------
It feels like they are saying it was intentional that junction box wasn't added. But they have no start date for it and surely it would require another TM which will take 3 months. It just feels like no one really knows what’s going on apart from the Openreach engineer. I'm not sure what to do next, I replied to Cerberus but I worry this going to drag out for ages.
--------
Hi Kim
Thanks for looking into this. As you said they dug a new duct but didn't place a junction box at the base of the pole which is what Openreach engineer (I believe he's my doing jointing job when civils are completed) mentioned. He couldn't tell me if job created for civils had the mistake or if the contractors doing the civils made the mistake. It is worth noting I spoke to the contractors when they arrived and they mentioned they were putting a box in so it's unclear why one wasn't done.
I believe (and so does Openreach engineer) that this junction box should have been added as part of civils work carried out last week. If OR is claiming that was not the case and it is a separate civils job to be carried out, why wouldn't we have a start date for it by now? And wouldn't it require TM which Nisha has claimed previously takes 3 months?
Thanks
Jason
--------
Sorry if my message is little ranty. I guess to summarise, am I being unreasonable? should I just let this play out? or should I be complaining/finding a way to bypass Cerberus and speak to Openreach directly? Any guidance would helpful.
Thanks
Jason