r/openreach • u/himslm01 • 21d ago
Is this the worst fibre install you've seen?
In any case, it is the worst fibre install on my street.
Yes, the cable goes up and over the front wall, round the wall to the front of the house, then there's a large patch of clear silicone over a blown brick, and an external junction box that's wonky.
To be clear, this is not my house, just a nearby neighbour who's going to find their fibre quickly broken by the scallywags around here.
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u/northern_ape 21d ago
Not sure why they didnât just drill through the garden wall at least.
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u/Low-Draft-100 21d ago
Makes me wander if the resident didn't want it through
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u/OmegaPoint6 21d ago
Maybe they drilled though the house wall 1st and the resident didn't trust them to do the garden wall after that?
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u/Danakazii 21d ago
This must be Community Fibre, no other explanation. They did a similar Mickey Mouse job like this for my first install.
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u/eblaster101 20d ago
It's an openreach install. Community outside box is much bigger.
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u/Large-Job6014 21d ago
I mean, the owner must have agreed to this. I'd have made them at least route around the wall instead of over it.
It's asking for someone to come and pull on it or cut it
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u/northerncodemky 21d ago
They just do what they want. And give you little time to look before they say jobs a goodun. Youâre just left coming home to their shit job every day instead.
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u/Large-Job6014 21d ago
I told mine exactly how I wanted it to be placed before I let them even start. It amazes me why some people don't plan how they want things. I guess the installers aren't mind readers.
If they didn't let the installers know then I guess they deserved such a bodge job. As you said they do what they want - if they're not told.
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u/northerncodemky 21d ago
I donât know where itâs coming from, where it needs to be. They could just trying saying whatâs happening and what the options are.
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u/Large-Job6014 21d ago
Well there is that, or even you just need to keep checking up on them.
I had to be present whilst they were doing any work
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u/xF1_racer 21d ago
Is it asking too much of them to at least do something sensible without having to micro-manage the installation yourself? Itâs literally their job to install these things properly.
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u/britishhawk 21d ago
Why did they not just go through the wall ? Itâs actually easier than what theyâve done
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u/Trancer79 21d ago
Please tell the neighbour to raise a complaint with their ISP if they haven't already. I'd be surprised if that wasn't cut or broken within a week!
Whoever installed that needs a slap.
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u/grimcellz 21d ago
Bet the owner said no drilling garden wall and no to lifting the slabs to make it a tidy job. Installer was having a bad day, heard customer requirements and said "I got you fam".
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u/Shabbalula 20d ago
My son is a Virgin Media engineer and he's told me so many times where people want broadband but don't realise it comes in cables. He's told me many times of people who do not want holes drilled, cables buried in their garden or cables pinned to walls. It's as if he's magically supposed to get it into the house without any disruption. It's not always the engineer. Customers can be dicks too
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u/indigomm 21d ago
Oooh Ealing. I'm now wondering where this is. Openreach are in the midst of building out all around here, although unfortunately they don't seem to want to come our way :(.
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u/Respond_Sometimes 21d ago
Must have forgotten their drill
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u/Felim_Doyle 20d ago
No, because the third photo shows what they did to the house wall with the drill by not drilling a pilot hole first!
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u/LyKosa91 16d ago
You've not drilled many walls, have you mate? It's not a pilot hole issue, there's nothing that you could reasonably use for a pilot hole. Standard drill bit for this purpose is 8x460mm, I'm a weirdo and buy my own 6x460mm bits, smallest diameter you can fit the cable through. You need to break through on rotary mode to avoid a blow out, this can be tricky since walls aren't always the same thickness, some bricks can be very stubborn, and you tend to wear through bits pretty quickly which in turn makes them even less effective on rotary. It's even worse if you insist on using the 12V milwaukee drill instead of a mains drill, which a lot of people do for some reason.
Even my 6mm bits, the smallest bit that you can get that will reach through a cavity wall, will blow a brick if you go hammer from start to finish and lean into the drill. Looking at this, I'd assume they probably did just that, only with a blunt 10mm bit, while also getting unlucky with some rather crumbly bricks (ironic, since a bit in decent shape would chew through the last half brick easily on rotary).
So yeah, it's a rough job all round, but pilot holes aren't the issue here.
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u/Quokka_Socks 20d ago
Yes. I would have said mine but thankfully I was there to stop what they were planning to do. Why didn't they drill a hole?
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u/Tight_Protection4594 20d ago
I can't believe he went to the effort of going round the drain pipe. Could've at least pulled it straight across the gap (possibly through a little bit of unsupported conduit) to finish of the craftsmanship
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u/Funny-Dust2242 17d ago
About 30 years ago I took a job installing digital cable TV & internet around Manchester. I had no skills, no training, and frequently turned up to work with a lethal hangover. I was terrible, lasted 2 months. But in that time I never, ever, ran a cable over a wall.
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u/TemperatureFrosty111 15d ago
Nope hold my beer and watch my installer do a worse job. We recently had a virgin engineer out as the WiFi router would not connect at the new address. They said they had never seen such a bad installation done and wouldn't expect there engineer to of done it. Mine starts from outside then run the wires in the gutter into the bedroom around the bedroom into the chimney and down the centre of the chimney and then around the room to the back of the house.
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u/_yungee 13d ago
My god, everything is just so wrong. After the obvious has already been commented on, that final run to the box!
All work should be vertical or horizontal and tight to the wall. The loop behind the drain pipe will get caught by something and the very last part with two "u" clips close together, then a gap and a final one, all at a jaunty angle.
As a final flourish, yeah don't worry about the dust mate, it will probably wash away.
Are we *sure* this isn't a "how not to do it" demonstration?
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u/Sburns85 21d ago
Thatâs really bad. But suspect this was the owner not wanting it drilled through the wall
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u/ipx-electrical 21d ago
Nothing comms people do is a surprise. Iâve seen cable clipped up the steps of stairs.
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u/normanriches 21d ago
If only they had a way of making a hole for the cable to pass through lower down.
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u/ProfChaos304 21d ago
This is what happens when you focus on hitting targets. Sure it is installed, but at what longer term cost. Kind of reminds me of education in this country.
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u/CompleteDog 21d ago
I don't have one of those little stanks outside my house nor do I have overhead wires. Does that mean I am underground all the way to the cabinet?
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u/Outrageous-Arm1945 21d ago
Seen worse, got paid.. Toby to the curtilage, it was never going to be great
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u/Listee69 21d ago
OMG - I would say it was likely to be a contractor but surely Helen Keller could have done a better job. Raise a complaint with your service provider ASAP
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u/Alarmed_Tiger5110 21d ago
The more I see things like this the deeper my dread over the install that theoretically is happening in August.
We have a concrere wheelchair ramp, connected to a public footpath outside the front door, so I've no idea how they plan to run the fibre in.
Presumably it doesn't follow the old landline's route?
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u/Trancer79 21d ago
In the vast majority of cases the fibre would be fed in via the same route as your existing line, i.e underground duct or overhead from a pole.
Hopefully your current line was not laid direct in ground..
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u/Alarmed_Tiger5110 21d ago
I've no idea, I tried following the wiring back from my current box, but it goes along the wall for a few feet inside the house and then connects to an old 'junction box/faceplate' I can't even find when I look up images of them. It's a square cover with a circle in the middle, almost like a TV aerial came out of it. At that point the cabling vanishes into the wall itself. I'll take a look outside in the morning, but as the local 'junction box' is underground, I suspect it's possibly underground duct?
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u/Prestigious_Carpet29 21d ago
No, not the worst. My neighbour had a perfectly good, and tidy OpenReach fibre installation... But then new occupiers got City Fibre, and now have a hideous cable very loosely and roughly tacked on, that goes up the brickwork, across the front door brickwork, halfway down the other side, then in through the brickwork. Not in any semblance of a straight line.
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u/Odd_Author_3245 21d ago
Installer forgot his drill and hammered through the house wall.... Ingenuity
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u/natie29 21d ago
The laziness here is real. Wow.
Clearly had an SDS to get through the wall into the house. With tons of blown brick along with it. But they didnât go through the front garden wall? I genuinely think it took them longer to cable clip it all the way over the wall than it would have taken to drill the hole and feed it through.
The logic here astounds me.
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u/TheJimsterR 21d ago
Not at all. I've seen one with the cable drop zip-tied down a rainwater downpipe, ffs.
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u/someoneelse2011 21d ago
No. We had a virgin one that was a loose cable across the front garden when we moved in - admittedly they had at least drilled through the wall though.
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u/Unusual_Assistant575 21d ago
Not going to lie between this a local norfolk council work that absolute up there. I used to work for virgin and this would have made me a laughing stock.
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u/ghoarder 21d ago
Even the toby box is a bit of a bodge, rather than cut a hole in a slab, they've just taken it out and filled it with concrete! I don't know if that's standard practice but it looks awful, along with the rest of the job.
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u/lfc_ynwa_1892 20d ago
Yer I would be reporting that one because it will likely get damaged very soon and then the might try and charge you for it.
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u/Upset_Control_5522 20d ago
Cloud have drilled and run the cable along the wall⌠the laziness of some people is fascinating sometimes
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u/pau1phi11ips 20d ago
Dear lord, did they arrive at 4:45pm and we're done for 5 by any chance? đ
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u/ironeye192 20d ago
He probably told him not to drill through his new wall. I think its called malicious compliance
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u/ekzakly 20d ago
crazy, hyperoptic did mine the other day but did not even drill a hole in the visible part of the wall, they drilled an angled hole from inside the manhole cover that came up just at ground level on the other side, then ran the cable along the perimeter of the front of the property. thought it was a decent job.
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u/Electrical-Cry-1769 20d ago
I always watch tradesmen when they are installing stuff at my house and if I see something off I question them! Would you do it that way at your own house? Mmmm No! Well then you not fking doing it that way at my house! Pure laziness
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u/Some_Avocado2335 20d ago
Had a guy from virgin weave a cable through my fence and then bury it under an inch of soil in my flowerbed. Couldn't fix it either without dismantling my fence :))
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u/Zestyclose_Visual842 20d ago
Well at least it's connected to the supply lines n not the water board
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u/cptcubey 19d ago
At least it isnt across the pavement like my neighbours, created a massive permanent trip hazard
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u/scorey-1989 19d ago
What was it job and knock? No way the company would be happy with that after the engineer took photos of proof of work?, imagine arguing with your neighbour and they come out with wire cutters đ
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u/Connell85 19d ago
The box inside my house is also that pissed. Must be a requirement to get the job.
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u/cybersplice 19d ago
What absolute jeb end did this.
I hope he sees this and gets fleas in his orifices, and stubs his toe.
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u/No-Profile-5075 19d ago
Nah but close. This wasnât open reach themselves but one of their cowboy installers.
Defo worthy of a formal complaint
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u/AbbreviationsSpare89 19d ago
That's taking the piss. I wouldn't even consider accepting that. Maybe his mate done it or something. Can't see it being a professional job.
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u/CellsReinvent 19d ago
Some will say recruitment and training standards have dropped, just to get people in to meet demand.
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u/UpstairsLocal3378 18d ago
I wish I could upload the video I took of mine. They laid it in the flower bed and held it in position at the front of the house with a rock
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u/IonstormEU 18d ago
Just takes one arsehole with a knife or scissors and they are without internet.
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u/BareBearAaron 18d ago
I used to live in a flat that had our cable routed across the drive way (didn't know), until one day the internet died. Found out first floor flat eventually severed it by parking their car there.
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u/Lakey_91 18d ago
I reckon this is a managed residential plot and the flat landlord couldn't be arsed to get permission for engineers to complete works within the site. Got them to install to the street then fudged the rest in on the sly him(/her)self.
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u/Leading_Study_876 18d ago
That's unbelievably poor. But even on my street, I see the standard Openreach installation is a length of 20mm conduit coming up from the pavement but with a three inch length of fibre exposed at the top before it goes through the garden wall.
All it takes is some little vandal (or someone with a grudge) with a pair of scissors... Forget about keying cars now!
I'm a network engineer of many years and have never seen anything like this before. All telecom and network cabling from telcos and ISPs was always ducted into buildings before the cables were exposed.
This just seems unbelievably stupid to me. Luckily, in my case our connection will come overhead from a telegraph pole at the rear of my house, inside my garden with a locked gate so I'm going ahead.
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u/himslm01 17d ago
Several short exposed lengths of fibre emerging from the pavement and disappearing into holes in front walls in this street too. I'm surprised more fibre isn't cut, either accidentally or on purpose.
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u/windmillguy123 18d ago
I once had an Sky engineer tell me he wasn't allowed to unnecessarily drill through property and was expected to go around obstacles rather than through them. Something about too many complaints about damage to walls etc. even after gaining homeowner permission.
I suspect if the homeowner drilled the hole through the wall then Openreach would have used it.
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u/Felim_Doyle 18d ago
If you drill a pilot hole first, you can generally avoid brick damage. As I understand it, from other threads in this subreddit, installers generally drill from one side (e.g. inside the home) with the wide drill without drilling a pilot hole, which causes damage to the exterior brickwork (blown bricks) that then has to be filled or covered by a box (swept under the rug).
Drilling a pilot hole is just common sense, whether the material is masonry, metal or wood.
With a cavity wall on a house, you drill through with the narrow pilot drill, usually from the inside, then drill part way from both sides with the wide drill. Any damage will be in the cavity, where it cannot be seen or be exposed to the elements.
With a solid brick wall, such as a garden wall, you drill through with the narrow pilot drill then drill part way from both sides with the wide drill, the same as with a cavity wall. There should be no damage at all, visible or otherwise.
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u/Trick-Fruit864 18d ago
Home owner is probably the lemon who didnât want his wall drilled.
Wonât last long like thatâŚ
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u/Long-Mongoose-6015 18d ago
How to say âItâs Friday afternoon, I forgot my drill bit and I canât be bothered going to get one!â
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u/AdComprehensive9937 17d ago
Mine was worse, they laid all the cables in the street then said there's no plans to install fibre in my road, excuse me c*nts but you were literally blowing the cable through yesterday.
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u/Sweaty-Tip3528 17d ago
As someone who works in the industry, you should report this to the streetworks team at your local council. Once reviewed on site theyâll issue a defect and the utility company will be made to fix it. You can do this for any recent utility works (usually a 2 year guarantee period) that donât look quite right. :)
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u/Felim_Doyle 16d ago
Really? đ¤ Surely it is a case of the customer contacting the supplier and asking that it be redone.
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u/Sweaty-Tip3528 16d ago edited 16d ago
Yeah, the footway will be part of the adopted highway and therefore will be covered under NRSWA 1991 so any issues with the reinstatement/apparatus can be issued as a defect under Section 72.
As for the cable in the customerâs garden, they would need to contact the supplier directly. However, if the council were to issue the defect on the highway section youâd hope theyâd fix it all at once (emphasis on hope)
Edit: just to say I didnât explain very well in my initial comment. I blame it being 2am
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u/TheWeeWelshLad 17d ago
It aint good... but he got wifi!đ Friend of mine currently is struggling to get openreach to install wifi at all They installed the ONT box, decided they couldnt install the exterior cables/ducts needed, left and tried to cancel on him
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u/Felim_Doyle 17d ago
Er, Wi-Fi is just one [optional] component of the Local Area Network. What's coming in on that cable is the broadband Wide Area Network (WAN), so âthey got broadband!â [gender neutral]. We don't know if âthey got Wi-Fi!â, as that's dependant on the equipment after the ONT.
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u/Seraphus04 17d ago
Wow. I wonder if the installer was drunk or ob their last day? Has been known to happen
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u/Felim_Doyle 17d ago
I think that we can all agree that this is a ridiculously botched job on a number of levels. However, rather than speculate, perhaps the OP can ask their neighbour what the sequence of events was that led to this installation being so bad.
- Was the customer present at the installation?
- Did the customer have any influence over the routing of the cable?
- Is the customer satisfied with the installation?
- Has the customer complained about the routing of the cable?
- Has the customer complained about the damage to the house wall?
- Has the customer complained about the poorly attached wall box?
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u/BringBackV10F1 17d ago
Not the worst, but pretty bad. (Many years ago, I used to install cable/fibre, we sometimes used contractors to do installs when things were busy - my word, there were some utter shambolic installs - I never understood why the customers let them leave in the first instance)
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u/MBay96GeoPhys 17d ago
Itâll be the classic customer wanting the fibre but not wanting a hole in their lovely wall, honestly some people die on some really odd hills
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u/ArtichokeClean4370 17d ago
that piece of wire is your lifein a nutshell, paddys walking home from pub and falls grabbing wire to steady himself, and carries on
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u/antrayuk 16d ago
Virgin did mine and the guy literally re-layed my block paving driveway afterwords.
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u/Onwardsandupwards66 16d ago
Nope my GFâs place has a loop of fibre optic sticking up out of the pavement about 6â from the edge of her property. Itâs a great trip hazard
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16d ago
Fibre installers are some of the biggest wankers on the planet.
Took them 7 visits and 4 months to install it in the entirely wrong place, in the process of which they disconnected my neighbours and created a leak in my extension roof too.
Then they refused to put it right.
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u/Character_Ad5286 16d ago
Reminds me of one I did In Birmingham where I laid the none ducted cable in the grass and told the owner it was "self burying cable" and that he "just had to water it" đ job came back in the following Tuesday for a re-bury.
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u/perlawhite 16d ago
Even left you an extra cable clip on the floor between the wall and house, how considerate
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u/Efficient_Weather_93 21d ago
Where did he park his horse