Well here we are rapidly racing toward the end of January 2012 - doesn't the year fly past quickly I hear you say.

Interestingly, BT Infinity roll out for the Forest Hill exchange remains stubbornly and inexplicably patchy.

As we have gathered from several sources the roll out would be phased and the phasing would be determined by completion of the fibre optic cable lay. Best information seemed to tell us that this these phases would be complete by end of 2011 and that all of the area covered by Forest Hill would have Infinity - in either of the FTTC or FTTP forms.

Not so - many cabinets and their associated areas of coverage still have no provision and interestingly no forecasts. Once more it would seem that BT are institutionally inept at managing even a simple programme.

For those of us lucky enough to have be in an area with an activated cabinet and the BT offering of FTTC - installations appear to be fairly quick and relatively painless.

However if you are in an activated area and being offered FTTP, connections to the service are being deferred and delayed by BT by upto four weeks and this without guarantee or certainty and with the probability of further delays.

The problem appears to be two-fold.

Firstly BT seemingly cannot adequately organise the "required property survey" and it would seem that even after the first detailed survey, further visits to site are deemed necessary resulting in slippage of any planned installation date.

Secondly if excavation is required to lay new ducts and cable, this adds a seemingly unquantifiable delay where any planned date offered by BT comes with a health warning about the absence of certainty.

If I were to speculate, it seems possible that BT are packaging the excavation work into small batches of adjacent properties that have ordered the FTTP option - a practice that indicates that the excavation teams are being imported from outside London and therefore do not travel in to do single installations.

Having suffered two deferrals for an FTTP order, one without explanation and having received a revised February (2012) date for completion (with the obligatory "of course this may not be achievable..." warning) , it has become tedious making new arrangements for the required Engineer Installation visit.

Has anyone spotted any new source for revised dates for the phased roll out ?

Almost as an aside, for those business properties where the fibre optic cable lay past their premises is complete and the area has become active, BT Business still decline to take orders for the Infinity product.

As late as last Friday I was advised by an informative BT lady that even though connection was possible, BT Business had not yet published plans for Forest Hill and would be contacting customers directly only after that event.

Has any BT Business customer had any calls from BT on this point ?

This post was last modified: 24-01-2012 10:05 AM by jgdoherty.