New fibre installations confusing BT...

[joll200x]

Hey all,

Got my shiny FTTC activated yesterday and all is working perfectly - but not after a bit of a faff with BT.

The engineer turned up when expected so no problems there, but he was expecting there to be a hub already delivered for him to carry out the work. I tried to explain that all I needed was the modem but their instructions are to only activate the FTTC connection if the new hub is on the premises ready. I wondered if by 'hub' he perhaps meant the VDSL modem as he said that was meant to be delivered and that's why he couldn't continue. I thought about it for a while, then it clicked that by 'hub' he actually meant a BT home hub. A few phone calls later to IDNet (who were awesome as per usual, many thanks!) and the BT engineer (who foolishly forgot to withhold his mobile number when he called to say he was coming) and the confusion was finally cleared up. The engineer came back (with the VDSL modem this time) and installed the new service port and ran some tests. After having a chat while he was installing it, it sounded like his training had told him to not activate the service without the BT home hub in place which makes sense, as the customer wouldn't have a PPPoE capable device and couldn't use the new service. But this only makes sense for BT customers; they hadn't been made aware that there was any difference for customers buying through a third-party ISP so potentially BT could turn up to other non BT installations and leave the customer having to re-book another appointment 5 days later
Thought this would be worth a mention for any other folks who are expecting their FTTC activation and get an engineer who tries to leave without doing any work because there isn't a homehub (no disrespect to the engineer who turned up, he was very helpful when he stayed more than 30 seconds  )

[Rik]

Thanks for the heads up. BT rule OK. 

[.Griff.]

When the engineer arrived for my FTTC installation he asked me to produce the Home-hub. A quick explanation that I'd ordered it through IDNet rather than BT later and he was fine about it and proceeded.

Sounds like you got unlucky with your engineer.

Edit - Rik can you move this to the FTTx section please matey?

[Rik]

Done.

[zebrum]

FFTC uses PPoE? That's the first I've heard of this...if this is true then it means we can use PPoE ADSL modems and Airport Express for routing!!!

[.Griff.]

FFTC uses PPoE? That's the first I've heard of this...if this is true then it means we can use PPoE ADSL modems and Airport Express for routing!!!

It also uses VDSL2 so good luck trying to use an ADSL modem 

[Bill]

if this is true then it means we can use PPoE ADSL modems and Airport Express for routing!!!

Forget the modem, you have to use the BT one, but an Airport Express should work fine. I needed the extra Ethernet ports on the Extreme, and I've got plans for the USB HDD facility.

[.Griff.]

Forget the modem, you have to use the BT one

AFAIK it's not really a case of "must use" the BT provided modem rather a case of there's so few VDSL2 modems on the market so Openreach provide their own.

[Bill]

Could be, but BT interrogate the modem for SNR, error rates etc to feed the DLM.

I wouldn't put it past them to ask it other things as well and stop talking to it if it doesn't give the right answers... don't forget that if you've got fibre, the "demarcation point" for BT ownership is the Ethernet port on the router, not the back of the master socket.

So I believe anyway.

[Rik]

That's going to make trouble-shooting easy. Try second router, not working, call BT out.