27 October (Part 2) - Lack of moral fibre too?
A couple of weeks ago Bexley Council was bemoaning the fact that
25,000 homes
in Bexley lacked access to fibre optic broadband. Deputy Director Paul Moore said
that fostering good relations with BT was “critical”.
A week or so before that BiB gave a little publicity to
the campaign to get
Broadband into the Bellegrove Road area of Welling the absence of which would
appear to be directly attributable to an unhelpful and failing Bexley Council.
Yesterday BT itself chipped in with its two-pennyworth
posted to
the campaign website…
We have been in dispute with Bexley Council concerning permits to undertake
streetworks and this was preventing us undertaking any work in the borough to
deploy fibre broadband. I’m pleased to say that the dispute has now been
resolved and we have resumed delivery work.
The street cabinet serving your home is one of those that our Openreach team is
planning to upgrade, subject to there being no issues being identified when we
put forward the proposed site for the new fibre cabinet. Unfortunately, when we
tried to undertake this work previously, there was an objection from at least
one resident, although the regulations have since changed so this should not be a problem now.
I hope this helps. You should see the status change on the Openreach site as work progresses –
https://www.homeandbusiness.openreach.co.uk/fibre-broadband/when-can-i-get-fibre.
When it comes to telling porkies I am no longer sure which is worse, Bexley
Council or BT but if our Council has been obstructing the installation of fibre
broadband it is utterly disgusting and some heads should roll.
Maybe now, residents stuck in the stone age will at last be able to stream a few videos if
they fancy the idea. I wish them better luck with their fibre installs than my sister.
Hers was installed on 4th August and struggled to get 20 Mb/sec. She had been
promised something approaching 80 and her next door neighbour gets 70. The ISP
twice sent printouts from BT’s line checker which said there was a fault in BT’s
copper wire that runs to the street cabinet.
BT said it was a fault on her internal wiring and twice sent out a man who said
he could find no fault at all. Three times I drove to Hampshire to change
things around to the extent that my sister now has no internal wiring.
Temporarily everything runs off BT’s master socket. And still BT said there is
no fault - until yesterday that is when she somehow picked up a service agent who spoke English.
He tested the line, said there was a serious fault (her line buzzes and cuts
off) and he promised to have it fixed by tomorrow. BT has been pretty crap since
I retired after a half a lifetime working inside telephone exchanges.