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Full telegraph pole so Hey! Broadband wont install

Reunat

Member
Hi all,

I moved to hertforshire over 2 years ago and part of my home buying criteria was a fast broadband connection speed. I researched and saw that they were in the process rolling out FTTP so I made my decision and moved. It took 18 months for the rollout of FTTP from Hey! Broadband to get to my road and I was chuffed when I saw the upgrade of the telegraph pole on my street happening which shortly followed its availability on the Hey! broadband website for my property. Well..the availability was for almost all the properties on my road but not mine and a few with lower door numbers.

I contacted them highlighting that my pole has been upgraded so this must be system mistake and so Engineers came out to look at the pole in May 2022. They updated me with the following email :

As I had promised to get back to you in regard to the time frame of having you connected. Our network team had advised that the pole has too much on the top and it cannot fit anything else on. They even tried using a special device where you can add more but it did not work.

We appreciate your interest in our broadband network and should there be any changes to this we will let you know.

Should you have any more questions, please do not hesitate to give us a call.
Kind Regards,

I replied for clarification and they sent the following :

I hope this finds you well.

As I had promised to get back to you as soon as I had received a response from our team, the update was that looking at the top of the pole there is no space to install another box and it is this exact reason that we are unable to add our boxes.

We use the same network but not the same cables, we use our own cables which unfortunately on this occasion will not fit onto the pole.


I asked them to contact openreach to resolve the pole issue as it is surprising that they have recently upgraded a pole and made it full but they have said that openreach would not make it a priority. I have missed all the promotional deals of the 900Mbps symmetrical connection and I am in limbo and out of contract with my 200Mbps Virgin connection paying over £55 a month as I have not wanted to commit to another contract for a slower, more expensive connection than that which Hey!broadband are offering as the FTTP providers in the area. I am at a loss now and could really do with some advise on how to get things progressed as Ideally, I would like to get the Hey Broaband FTTP line installed.

Thanks
 
Pole loading capacity is sadly a known and growing issue.


In theory, the altnet could perhaps build another pole, but the cost of doing this may not result in enough of a financial benefit to make it viable (e.g. if the issue only impacts a single house). In that case, they'll be reliant upon Openreach to find a solution. In time, the removal of copper lines may help this.
 
Unlike Openreach, an Altnet has no obligation to provide service anywhere. So if it's not cost-effective for them to serve a particular property - or there is some obstacle that prevents it - they will not serve you, as you've found, and you have no recourse.

It sounds like they've allocated individual ports to individual houses (i.e. if I understand what you've said, there are other properties served by the same pole who can order service). That's silly, because not all houses will want to take their service. It would be much fairer and more efficient to have a pool of ports shared between a larger group of houses, on a first-come-first-served basis.

But that's probably down to a limitation in their GIS, ordering and/or provisioning systems. Again, they're not going to spend money fixing that if it only gets them a few extra customers.
 
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If its like near me Hey! (FW) appear to install to demand. If they have already provisioned to a pole and that capacity has been exhausted (good for them) then increasing capacity may require an additional splitter unit and mount position.

To increase capacity OR may need to install an extension bracket but the current positioning of existing OR block terminals or drop wires may prohibit that. Re-engineering the pole would be chargeable and probably any additional brackets.

In East Grinstead OR FTTC, OR FTTP and FW reside together fine but poles and their history vary.
 
Thanks for the replies @Mark.J @candlerb @Green Meanie and @Meatball. It seems to be the case that Mark and Meatball most accurately describe which leaves me in a precarious position. I have already been paying the out of contract fees for this sub par Virgin connection. I could go to another FTTP connection like BT but they do not offer symmetrical connections so this is not a like for like alternative and it is still more expensive than Hey!

Funnily enough, as I had been intently monitoring the progress of FTTP I was hot on when my pole was upgraded to facilitate the service so I must have been one of the first to request a connection from Hey! When it was upgraded (I had to inform them the pole was upgraded as their systems hadnt updated yet). This means a newly upgraded pole was commission with not enough space for the alt provider to install a line for me from the start which, as a consumer, forces me to the more expensive, inferior connection. I cant understand how this can be legal.

My attempts to contact openreach have not been fruitful but I cannot bring myself to be bullied to sign up to the BT FTTP connection. What a mess!
 
I’d order an Openreach based FTTP connection - and see if matters improve pole congestion wise in the next 12 months. There’s not much else you can do or stay as you are on Virgin.
 
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OR-based FTTP may not be as cheap as Hey, nor have as fast an upload, but it's likely to be better than Virgin.

I agree with @Pheasant that you should take the 12 month view and re-evaluate after that. Aquiss are offering FTTP with 12 months contract, half price for first 6 months, and no installation fee (although router is extra if you don't already have a suitable one).
 
Depending on what you actually *need* an asymmetric service may not be an actual problem, when our local CFP went live, I discussed with a good chunk of the people covered what they actually needed (rather than what they thought they needed) & of the 200 or so there were actually only 2 or 3 (a professional video editor in 1 case) who actually needed anything better than the standard asymmetric service (& even then they decided the extra cost of going for a 1000/200 service over and above the standard one wasn't cost effective).
 
There are even providers (such as Cuckoo and I think Giganet) who will do 1 month contracts on Openreach FTTP.
 
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