[LINK] We can screw up fibre as badly as we did copper

[Andy Farkas]

On 09/12/2016 19:27, David Boxall wrote:
> Aren't we clever? :/
>
> <https://choice.community/t/the-never-never-broadband-network/5224/23>

David, this story sounds a bit sus to me....

>> NubglummerySnr    Oct 13
>>
>> We were fortunate enough to find a rental property to move into 
>> that's in one of the few areas that actually have fibre to the premises.

It seems he is in Tasmania somewhere.

>> Firstly, because the area was flagged as NBN ready, we couldn't 
>> simply port our ADSL account over

Any decent RSP will gladly "port" you over and keep you on the books.

>> which was a problem because our house wasn't actually connected to 
>> the NBN fibres that lived out under the footpath across the road from us.

There's my first alarm bell. When NBN builds^H^Ht FTTH, it connects to 
your home.

>> We were originally hoping to go with Optus because they had a better 
>> value plan that we liked. So after contacting them, they organised a 
>> date for the NBN Co contractors to come out and connect us up.

This is where NBN come and install an NTD *inside* your home.

>> Problem was, there were no contractors available for at least two weeks.

A limited number of contractors for the entire country, understandable.

>> So we had to wait, with no phone or Internet, even though there was a 
>> fully functioning old phone jack on the wall that produced a dial 
>> tone, but which was connected to the old copper network, so we 
>> weren't allowed to utilise it.

Alarm bell #2 - if you get a dial tone, you can make phone calls; it is 
connected to the exchange.

>> A couple of days before the big day we got a message from NBN Co that 
>> there was a shortfall and a team would need to investigate

What is this "shortfall" he speaks of?

>> which would again take a couple of weeks before anyone could come out 
>> to look at it again. Optus told us that they couldn't do anything to 
>> help us without the house being connected and said we'd have to 
>> contact Telstra because they're the only telco that actually have 
>> technicians in our area, so we had to sign on with them for a more 
>> expensive 2 year contract in order to get the ball rolling so we 
>> could get the cables attached to our house.

Alarm bell #3 - Optus and Telstra have nothing to do with it. It is the 
responsibility of NBN.

>> After many weeks of delays and remade appointments we eventually got 
>> someone out who discovered that we weren't connected to the optic 
>> fibres out in the street, which is what we kept telling them because 
>> there was no box attached to the house.

Possibly this was one of the first areas that got FTTH *before* they 
switched from 'demand drop' to 'build drop'. That's the only thing I can 
think of.

>> More delays and cancelled appointments happened and finally an NBN Co 
>> contractor arrived with vast quantities of fibre optic cables to 
>> connect us to the outside world... except, he didn't have permission 
>> to climb the poles in our long driveway so he could attach the cables 
>> to them. Apparently they were owned by Telstra and NBN Co would need 
>> to make a formal request to use them.... even though it was Telstra 
>> that had told them to do the work in the first place.

Another alarm bell - all LiC should be underground. Plus Telstra own the 
poles? I thought it would be more likely owned by the power company.

>> Friday last week we awoke to a red light on the NBN box saying that 
>> the optic cable was no longer providing a signal and Optus probably 
>> would've just thrown their arms up in the air saying they didn't know 
>> what to do again.

Optus would call NBN who is responsible for everything up to and 
including the NTD *inside* your house.

>> We contacted Telstra who organised for NBN Co to arrive the following 
>> Monday

Which RSP is this guy with again?  And this time he called on a Friday 
and they come out on Monday. That's pretty good service.

>> Monday morning an NBN Co contractor arrived and discovered that our 
>> personal optic fibre wire was somehow exposed from the pit it lives 
>> in across the road from our house and had been severed, probably from 
>> a lawnmower or whipper snipper. They suspect the last person doing 
>> maintenance in the pit forgot to clean up after himself and didn't 
>> tuck our wire away when he put the lid back on the thing.

So somebody tried to jam the lid of a pit back on with a large loop of 
fibre cable sticking out?  Hmmm.

>> So the NBN Co contractor that originally climbed our Telstra owned 
>> poles had to come around that afternoon, and climb them again, in 
>> gale force winds, to replace the entire cable which runs along 5 
>> power poles in order to get from the pit across the road, to our 
>> house along our extended driveway.

Telstra owned power poles... hmmmm again.

>> All working again now. It was a journey to get it in the first place, 
>> and is quite vulnerable if the maintenance people don't pay attention 
>> when they're packing up, but we're very happy with it for the most part.
>

Like I said, it's a bit of a sus story. Maybe some of it is true.

-andyf