BT fibre installation – what does the engineer do?

Having BT Infinity installed in a couple of weeks but there’s no computer at the house right now as it’s a holiday house where Internet use is mostly BT tablet/phone/tv.
Read something about the engineer setting something up – do I need to take a computer to finish the job? If so is a Mac ok (I presume so as it’s probably just a matter of connecting to the routers web interface and entering some details)?

the usual, drills a couple of holes in your walls, runs a cable, has intercourse with a goat, wires everything up including a new telephone point (you may with to be in to ensure its where you want it), reads fifteen bible passages backwards followed by the slaughter and eventual (slightly messy) consumption of aforementioned horned beast, drinks a cup of your tea, sits in his van for a bit, comes back out and tests the line, buggers off.

and thats about it.

We had it installed on Wednesday.

The only reason you would need to have a computer there is for the engineer to show you that it is working.

Edit – MrNutt’s version of what happens made me laugh!

Attaches a really bulky new master socket box, tests line, connects new router, discovers the broadband doesn’t work, goes outside to the cab’, comes back, finds bb still doesn’t work, ‘phones his manager, ‘phones BT Retail to find out why bb doesn’t work, fails to get a satisfactory answer, apologises, declines the offer of a cup of tea, ‘phones manager again, waits, receives call from manager to say that BT Retail have failed to schedule switchover from old service to Infinity, apologises profusely, suggests it may be on by midnight, leaves number to call BT Customer Services, leaves.

3 days later, following some hours spent on ‘phone to BT Customer Services to complain about total lack of bb service, speaking to quite a number of individuals, some fluent in english, others not so, another engineer turns up, vows not to leave until service is working again, fiddles about, does tests, reconnects old service, declines offer of a cup of tea, apologises profusely for the BT Retail **** up, leaves.

Ever heard the expression ‘if it ain’t broke…’

Good luck.

^ pretty much sums it up 🙂
Stage 2 kicks in after a month, when still not working BT Retail offer you £10 compensation for lack of service

All the above plus.

Accidentally drills a hole through some of your mains wiring, apologises (a bit) then sods off leaving you with no electricity for 24 hrs until his mate, ‘the fixer’ (who actually has some qualifications) comes to sort it out.

The fixer will explain that his mate ‘hasnt got a clue’ and that he has do this sort of thing all the time.

I wouldn’t buy an ice cream off BT.

Worked in a house a few weeks ago, home owner having bt broadband installed,older chap sweating profusely, again refused cup of tea, wiring up the internet,gets it all lights flashing,looks relieved and then says you need a new plug for power for the router,customer asks why cant we use the one its plugged into now, he states because your table lamp was plugged into it, customer asks can we use an adaptor, bt man says, yes probably, and then walks of with the cheery aside, i think its working now,but ive never done one of these before.

Oh and it didnt work, and no goat was available.

Great.. Can’t wait! Thankfully the house isn’t needed until new year so maybe they’ll have it sorted by then!

My was painless.

He was late but did phone to warn me he would be.

My internet went down for about 30 mins before he turned up as he worked on it in the street. He came in and fitted a big box to the master socket and an additional box to my home hub, as the new one never turned up.

He then asked me to do a speed test, I went from 3mps to 50mps, so I was very happy.

He was a pleasant bloke and it all took about 15 minutes.

BT customer service is crap mind. My new home hub is a week late still not here.

Had mine installed yesterday. All in took about an hour, as above swaps the existing master socket for a new chunkier one runs all the tests and goes. We recently moved our master socket from midway up the wall to just above the skirting and its obvious. He wasn’t bothered and in fact tracked down a loose connection and fixed that too. Gave him nice fresh coffee and a bit of cake so he was happy! Connection gone from 10meg to 70meg and its awesome, I can now fast forward or rewind streams for the Pi.
To check the connection works use a tablet or even smart phone. BTW, it is recommended to reboot the modem and router a few time in the initial 10 days days (in the morning) to get the fastest connection.

the usual, drills a couple of holes in your walls, runs a cable, has intercourse with a goat, wires everything up including a new telephone point (you may with to be in to ensure its where you want it), reads fifteen bible passages backwards followed by the slaughter and eventual (slightly messy) consumption of aforementioned horned beast, drinks a cup of your tea, sits in his van for a bit, comes back out and tests the line, buggers off.

and thats about it.

I’m glad I was out when ours was installed now O.o

Having BT Infinity installed in a couple of weeks but there’s no computer at the house right now as it’s a holiday house where Internet use is mostly BT tablet/phone/tv.
Read something about the engineer setting something up – do I need to take a computer to finish the job? If so is a Mac ok (I presume so as it’s probably just a matter of connecting to the routers web interface and entering some details)?

So what does the engineer do?

we had loads of fun with bt’s customer service. they are useless. the technicians that have been have all been very helpful/apologetic for the customer services crappy service. although the technician that came out last time we had a fault said that everything he had done could/should have been done by the tech bloke on the phone.

We had a BT openreach bloke come to fit the new socket for our plusnet broadband a few weeks ago.

We’ve got the master socket in the hall and a cable running under the carpet/floorboards to the lounge. It was like that when we moved in, which is handy because the router sits there so I can plug the TV, console & NAS into the router without having cables stretched for miles all over the place.

He started off looking at the master socket in the hall but when I said there was an extension and that’s where we wanted it he was fine putting the new socket in the lounge. He stuck the box to the wall so we can move/remove it. The bog standard phone cable (http://www.cabledepot.co.uk/rj11-plug-cable-p-1688.html <- one of those, I think) that was already in place goes into the new master socket (from the hallway socket) and then the phone line and the fibre BB cables come out of it.

I thought the BB would involve new cabling from the street to the master socket but it seems it’s just a case of flicking a switch and splitting the incoming cable into phone and broadband at the socket(or was for us, anyway).

There’s a difference between FTTC and FTTH

Fibre to the cab (green box) and fibre to the home (your home). I don’t speak from experience but I would imagine one is considerably more expensive than the other.

Just got it installed this week, Openreach engineer (young lad) not too good at installing a cable extension and the BT modem that he stuck to the wall fell off, but hey who cares when you get 80meg 😀

Fibre to the premises involves blowing (yes!) the new connection through the duct. Takes half a day if you’re lucky, have a look on The Register for tales of woe!

Firstly to be pedantic, he’s not an engineer. I’ve done a first aid course but can’t call myself a doctor. When I had infinity installed he came in, fitted an extra box to the wall, plugged in the BT router, did some tests on the line with a handheld multimeter device, rang somewhere to get everything made live, I fired up my computer and did a Ping test to see what speed I was getting, which was 37mbps against a max of 40, which he claimed was as good as I could expect given the distance from the exchange and that was that. All of 20 mins.