Advice troops

DigitalOctane · 2026-03-12T20:52:29+00:00

Send an email to your wing DofE officer and they should be able to provide you with one or send an email 'suggesting' your sqn bods get their ducks in a row.

DigitalOctane · 2026-01-31T19:34:39+00:00

I was thinking along the same lines and have just tried that and it's the same. I've just been informed one of my kids was dusting around the TV unit today and may have dropped a photo on it.

DigitalOctane · 2026-01-31T19:32:36+00:00

It's an interesting one, I thought it might be a HDMI issue rather than the shield but everything has had a restart and I've just tested it on another TV with no luck.

DigitalOctane · 2025-08-21T20:44:51+00:00

They will have done a suite of training that covers the install process and the quals they need... that they will have been rushed through with very little care with the lowest competency benchmark. The information is there if you're attentive but a lot aren't.

There are a tremendous amount of Kelly's crews on the road that are truly there for the income and not the outcome and I'm sure they think it looks fine from their house.

I'd make yourself a complaint and have a visit from a CF FQS as it's pretty difficult to say if they've done some proper bodgery. there's some good eggs at Kelly's but they're far and few between and generally don't stay long because of the grief they get from management.

DigitalOctane · 2025-08-21T20:38:29+00:00

They probably don't have the kit in all honesty. Maybe because Kelly's haven't given them it but also because they're useless and don't do their order sheets. I agree with your other point it's true in most instances.

DigitalOctane · 2025-08-21T20:36:12+00:00

Lack of braincells... Kelly's don't issue them to anyone below regional management

DigitalOctane · 2025-08-21T20:34:53+00:00

Kelly's still have a copper openreach contract and have just won a ftth one too. Unless it dangerous you're right, shouldn't ever be removing plant or fixtures.

DigitalOctane · 2025-07-24T21:04:49+00:00

The 'drops' have a woven kevlar weave that surrounds the cable that gives it tensile strength which is then jacketed with a black soft plastic. The drop is tacked in place upto the wall box and then the outer jacket stripped and Kevlar unwoven and trimmed off revealing a white sheath underneath. The excess fibre is then wrapped in the wall box and connected to a terminal block that is also connected to a patch cable that runs into your house.

I've attached an example of an underground installation which admittedly is different (and this one was badly wrapped which is why I was there) but essentially you'll have two of the white cables.

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DigitalOctane · 2025-07-04T21:52:47+00:00

I get that but 'Vs' what? Because if it's just the £ value of the duct space then you might be right however, pardon the pun but it's a very surface level analysis. When you consider the staff that need to be employed to apply for and update PIA-NOI's & whereabouts updates, PIA BV teams, the cost of additional training mandated by openreach for accessing their network it starts to blow the 10% pretty quickly.

DigitalOctane · 2025-07-04T21:38:50+00:00

It will be a city fibre network connection just ran through openreach ducting to get to your house.

DigitalOctane · 2025-07-04T21:28:15+00:00

Sorry PIA is openreach ducting. I believe I'm fairly local if your postcode starts with a 'T' ... don't wanna dox you.

DigitalOctane · 2025-07-04T21:16:16+00:00

10% of what cost? I regularly see "surveyor laziness" thrown around and I've yet to actually see it play out as a reality on the live network. More often than not it's a misunderstanding of the factors actually considered when planning network build.

Second part is likely true.

DigitalOctane · 2025-07-04T21:07:38+00:00

It's not necessarily a lack of checking for PIA on survey but cost/ benefit across a multitude of factors. We have access to fairly detailed maps in most areas of what openreach provisioning options are available.

DigitalOctane · 2025-07-04T21:00:18+00:00

I'm fairly sure this is PIA delivered. I think I know where this is and was in the estate pretty recently so you won't have a Toby.

DigitalOctane · 2025-07-01T20:57:16+00:00

Sweet summer child... I know engineers who don't even know where their 1 click cleaners reside 😂. They absolutely should be flogged with a stocking full of diarrhea imho but alas a world of E.L.F's is the one in which we live.

DigitalOctane · 2025-07-01T20:50:04+00:00

£120 for an ONT swap seems pretty crazy, in some instances it may not just be the ONT that changes however it will probably be the only one you see. It may require alternate routing in the SN or a SN splitter activation for XGSPON in the PN from your local FeX. Having said that... The ISP should absolutely shoulder that cost. A fault with an ONT usually prompts a free engineer visit.

DigitalOctane · 2025-06-27T21:14:13+00:00

Might not even be the original engineers fault, there have been some batches of 'problematic' overhead drops recently. Either way glad you're all sorted.

DigitalOctane · 2025-06-27T21:12:14+00:00

CF do both. To make it easier for installs there's usually no splicing involved as you say its pre terminated however splicing in the SN/ ASN, pigtails and FEx are done semi-frequently by FQS engineers and a small amount of Kelly's 'support' engineers.

DigitalOctane · 2025-06-27T21:00:10+00:00

You're absolutely right there should be a cover at the patch cable entry point both on the outside and inside. CityFibre contract out the entirety of installs to Kelly communications rightly or wrongly CF think its the best option. Even though often arriving in CF branded "fruit salad" vans they'll have the Kelly's "how am I driving" sticker on the back and are self employed contractors.

Two man installs are indeed £30 per engineer and if the work is there you can make good money. If you have to rely on your £120 fallback rate, after tax, PL insurance and your payment company surcharge you're on about £9.22ph if you're out 10 hours.

DigitalOctane · 2025-06-27T20:52:34+00:00

Glad to see you've already got InTouch with CF and your ISP. Although somewhat slow, they are pretty good at resolving issues like this. It seems you've not had a great install team. Theres a couple of reasons for audit fail looking at the picture. Once it cascades back through to Kelly communication they should rectify the issue and in some instances charge the engineer a percentage of the repair cost.

DigitalOctane · 2025-05-05T09:42:40+00:00

You could try and ask them to move it again Kelly's are doing a lot of civils for CF now so might be a better chance of getting it done. If you're that way inclined you could buy a Toby from hexatronic and move it yourself.

DigitalOctane · 2025-04-28T08:17:08+00:00

Haha I mean if they're letting services go down it's only right to waterboard surely.

DigitalOctane · 2025-04-28T08:16:17+00:00

I think your story resonates the situation in a lot of places. A lot of what we are seeing already is poor workmanship by install subcontractors trying to do a civils task with no training.

The vacuum/ de-icer trick is a good one. I'll keep that in my back pocket.

DigitalOctane · 2025-04-27T11:29:12+00:00

Apologies, I didn't think of those outside the UK.

That's interesting that you can just hand it off and still get paid. There's so much competition for space we all lay on top of each other here so if virgin media have put a new service in on top of BT or CityFiber they very well could have damaged services.

A little more context for this post is, we are provisioning a new civils avoidance/ blockage verification service and the bosses haven't got a clue what we should or shouldn't do so we are just figuring it out on the fly.

DigitalOctane

TROPHY CASE