For the past few years, pretty much every evening for a couple of hours, I would stream while playing games on my PS5. Before that I went through a period of streaming while playing games on my VR gaming setup, often mucking about in things like cyubeVR and Gunman Contracts. It was a fun time and I got the chance to make some fun acquaintances online. All of this was made possible by the fact that I had a really nice, fast fibre connection where I lived.
Late on last year I moved. Unfortunately the location I moved to didn't have fibre available. That's not to say the house lacked fibre; it was that it wasn't even possible to get it to the house. For some time it wasn't clear that it ever would be. So I was back on 35Mbps down and 3Mbps up, on a good day. Not a good streaming experience at all.
I tried. I had a few sessions. Sometimes it would fail. Sometimes it would work but the quality would be bad. It wasn't a good time. Because of this I've taken an extended break from streaming.
The complete lack of availability of fibre changed a couple of months ago. Since moving I've made a point, every few weeks, of going and seeing if there are any plans to run fibre to our location. Finally, back in March, one day, I checked and I COULD ORDER FIBRE!
I'd actually been through this whole thing once before. When I moved back in 2019, I went from a 35/3 connection (which still seemed pretty fast then) down to a horrible 5/0.6, on a good day, kind of connection. That was hard (although a deeply worthwhile trade under the circumstances at the time). When I finally got fibre at that place it was amazing. I went from 5/0.6 to 950/150 overnight. It felt like I had my whole Steam Library locally available the whole time.
So, when I realised that fibre was available to me again, that was an instant sell. As I say, this happened back in March and I still don't have it, because actual digging and stuff has had to happen. People had to write to people to get permission to do things, and so on. It's been kind of agonising watching the slow but steady progress towards being very online again.
But, soon enough, I should be back. I won't stream as much as I used to, just because the move entailed having other things to be doing in my evenings, and having new responsibilities. But I do aim to get some gaming in two or three times a week, most weeks. Also, whereas the last few times I've streamed it's been me mostly messing about in Death Stranding 2, once I have a reasonable connection again I think it'll be time to pick a new game and (attempt to) play it through.
No plans on which game yet, but there's a handful on my "to consider" list.
Despite the fact that I am not, in any way, superstitious, I kind of have this rule: don't make definitive statements about the absolute happening of an event until it happens; it kind of feels like you're tempting the universe to prank you. I don't always follow it, I know it's kind of silly, but it's there and hard to shake. It's normal. It's human.
Sometimes it happens that it looks like I should stick to that rule.
Eleven days back I wrote about how I was aiming to return to streaming thanks to the fact that I'd once again be the proud owner of a full fibre connection. The thing that, in part, prompted me to write about that was the fact that I'd had an email, that morning, from Openreach, to let me know they'd done some work and that fibre was now available at my property.
The email proudly stated:
Hello Dave,
Congratulations, you can now get Full Fibre on the Openreach network at [my home address].
With Full Fibre broadband, you can choose your package based on the download speeds you'll need from 40 Mbps to 1.6 Gbps. Need some help choosing? Then read our blog before ordering to find out what's a good download speed.
We also have the UK's biggest choice of broadband providers, so you can find a package and price to suit you.
After a button that linked to a site for finding a provider, it went on to say:
After you've placed your order with the provider of your choice, we'll arrange a day and time with you for one of our engineers to connect Full Fibre to your property if it isn't there already.
They may need to drill a small hole in your wall, or they may be able to use the same access point as your current line. Either way, they'll take care of everything and leave you with a broadband that's ready to deal with anything the future brings. You can find out more about what's involved in our handy Full Fibre installation video.
I found this whole email mildly amusing because it was obvious that the work they'd done, that made this possible, will have been the result of the call I made to EE back in March to order fibre in the first place, when it became apparent I was finally able to request it.
So, yeah, when Openreach -- the people who do the cables and stuff -- email you to let you know they've as good as hooked your place up, you know it's a safe bet.
Today was the day. This morning, between 08:00 and 13:00, was the window I'd been given for one of their engineers to turn up and do the hole drilling and the box screwing and all the stuff and then this evening I'd be in a position where, once again, I could download the whole Internet and stream utter nonsense in the highest quality (both creating and consuming). I was looking forward to this.
Everyone in the house was.
The time window started, and kept going, and kept going, and eventually it was 13:00 and nobody had turned up and my house had no extra wires or holes and I was on the phone to EE to ask WHERE IS THE GLASS INTERNET PIPE?!?
Long story short: it wasn't turning up. At all. It appears, at some point in the recent past, Openreach simply cancelled the order and nobody thought to tell me. Openreach (the people who sent me the email 11 days ago) didn't think to tell me. That's the same Openreach who sent me the SMS on the 7th of this month to give me the date of the work; apparently they could not send me an SMS to let me know they'd decided against this.
Of course, it's not all on Openreach. It would also seem that EE knew, from their own system, that the order had been cancelled and they too had failed to email me, message me, call me, something, to let me know I'd be wasting my time clearing half my day to receive them and have the work take place.
So: pretty shitty service all round.
The main explanation I've been given is something to do with a "CBT"1, or something related. This means that it's just not possible to deliver fibre to my address. This is after:
I called to check in March
I was told in March it was possible
Openreach checked things out, said more work was needed, did the work
I literally saw them doing the work, with a trench and barriers and everything
I was emailed by Openreach after the work took place to say they'd done the work and I could have fibre
Even today, even right now, if I go on their site and put in my exact address:
Not "no". Not "eventually". Not "soon". Now. It says now.
At this point this is where I have to say, after making a bit of a mess of all of this, EE have done all they can to smooth things over (especially given there's sod all they can actually do about this). They've compensated me for the missed appointment (despite the fact it wasn't technically missed; it had been cancelled and nobody had let me know), left me to hang on to all the new equipment for if/when the fibre does turn up (meaning I'll have a backup router I guess), and have also compensated me for 3 months of my current copper-based broadband by way of an apology.
On top of that they didn't just brush me off with a "sorry, can't do anything about this", they went to bat for me during a 90 minute phone conversation, chasing up more detailed explanations of what the issue was with Openreach, as we talked. While I don't actually have a solution that is anything other than "you'll have to wait", at least now I have something of a better explanation as to what the actual problem is.
So where does this leave me? Here's what I do know:
The issue that stopped my installation is solvable and, in all likelihood, is the sort of thing that will be solved in the next few months (mention being made of a reasonable range of between a 2 to 6 month wait).
Almost every alternative provider I could go to would have the same issue, as they all work over the fibre that Openreach would install.
From what I can see no provider that isn't Openreach-connected is even the least bit interested in providing fibre.
Openreach have promised that the moment they have a solution to the technical problem that stops the installation, they will call me and arrange to kick things off again (or at least, I guess, let me know it's safe to place the order with EE again).
To be clear too: we're not talking about providing a service to a house in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere, not even a house in some out-of-the-way village. I live in a reasonably large town, far bigger than the village I lived in before where I did have full fibre.
All of which concludes with: I started today excited by the prospect of fast downloads, fast uploads, and returning to talking nonsense on YouTube while being terrible at playing games; I'm finishing the day with no clear path to having fibre, and a wait time that could extend well into the rest of this year, and perhaps even into next.
I hope it won't be that bad, but I am deflated and disappointed.
Also, on the very remote chance that either Sharon or Neil from EE ever stumble on this blog post: thank you for all the effort you went to to get actual answers for me. It's a shame that it needs to be said, but it is rare these days that you call a customer support line at a service or utility company and get people who are willing and able to work in a way that isn't just following a script.
Well, except for the bit right at the end... I'm fine Neil, I don't need to swap mobile provider. ;-)
So after the screw-up by Openreach and EE, where I was promised full fibre and then it never happened, I'd assumed that nothing was going to happen for quite some time. I was told that (likely) Openreach would contact me when they'd solved whatever the problem was, but I wasn't holding out much hope that it would be a swift turnaround.
Yesterday, however, I got an email from EE claiming that full fibre was available at my address. While sceptical about this, assuming it was just some marketing nonsense that wasn't paying attention to the details of where I live, I called them to check. I explained the problem, I had them read the notes on my account, I had them acknowledge all that had happened and they reassured me that, for real, no kidding, no nonsense, this was all gonna happen this time.
So... watch this space. I already have an installation date (it's next month) just from the order-planning call -- something which didn't happen the last time. Within the next few weeks, I will either finally be returning to streaming, and enjoying all the other benefits of full fibre, or I'll be writing yet another post about how EE and Openreach messed up.
I knewit was too good to be true. While a little bit of me hoped it was going to happen this time, mostly I was expecting it to not happen.
It didn't happen.
Today was the day when Openreach were supposed to turn up again and deliver me a full fibre connection. The engineer was booked to turn up some time between 08:00 and 13:00 (as before). I was ready at 08:00. I was ready before 08:00 if I'm honest.
By 12:00 there was no sign of them. Despite there being an hour left to go, I'd written them off as a no-show again. I was wrong this time though. There was a knock on the door about 10 minutes later.
The engineer introduced himself, said he needed to go for a walk around first to get a feel for how and where the work needed to happen, and to figure out where the fibre was to come from (I kind of feel like this would be the sort of thing they'd know up front, but it's not my job and I trust them to know it).
Another 5 minutes and he's back... to tell me they can't do the job because the pole the fibre needs to come from is too far away. O_o
Now, I'm not going to get annoyed at this chap; presumably someone should have done some sort of site survey beforehand. Presumably this was the sort of thing that should have happened before the previous attempt to deliver the product?
So now I'm still without fibre, but with part of the job done. He installed the wee box that goes inside the house, and also the wee box that goes on the outside of the house. Of course, he drilled a hole and hooked them both up. So now I'm down an electrical socket, but have gained a box with a little red light that tells me I don't have full fibre.
He left assuring me that, having done this, it ensures that the actual delivery of the cable is turned into a priority. I can't say I'm that convinced, having sort of been here before. Some time later I got this text message:
We're sorry we couldn't get you connected today. The job is a bit more complex than usual.
We are going to get it sorted though and promise Full Fibre's worth the wait. We'll be back in touch in the next few days.
Again, I'm not convinced, having sort of been here before.
If I was a little more cynical and a little more prone to seeing a conspiracy where there was just a cock-up, I'd almost be tempted to entertain the idea that they turned up and fitted the box knowing full well that there was no fibre to be hooked up. Doing half a job is starting the job, after all. Presumably on some sheet somewhere that looks better than failing to do the job a second time.
I'm going to give them a couple of days to get back to me, as per the message, and then I think it's time to chase up EE and ask why, once again, they've failed to deliver me a product they promised me was available.
We came to see if we can connect your property to our Full Fibre network yesterday.
The good news is we can, but the engineer found that the existing network connection point wasn't suitable for private land's underground connection, so we need to plan a new way to bring the fibre cable to your home, which may also require a specialist engineer for a flat roof connection.
We're really sorry for the delay, but we're on it and will update you again in the next 10 days (we're usually much quicker).
We promise Full Fibre's worth the wait. It's the UK's most reliable broadband technology.
The flat roof thing was... interesting, but okay, I'm sure they know what they're doing and that it's some automated system with a restricted set of outcomes.
Skip forward one day and I get an SMS out of the blue:
Hi, it's Openreach on behalf of EE/BT.
Sorry we missed you.
Book a new date for your Full Fibre installation here: [removed]
The "Sorry we missed you" was very odd. They didn't miss me. I saw them two days earlier. But, again, okay... I followed the link and it also seemed to be written as if one of us had missed an appointment and I needed to pick another day. Anyway, I ignored what it said and just used the date picker to pick the next available day (which was today: as in the day I'm writing this).
Fast forward to today and there's a knock on the door at around 08:30. Around two hours later, and this is what I was seeing:
To be clear: this isn't the actual speed of the connection. This was a quick test from my Mac, in my office, via the Wi-Fi connection. I don't currently have a Mac or PC wired into the router so can't measure the full speed. Testing on the router itself, it's much closer to 943Mbps/100Mbps. But, yeah, I'm good. I finally have full fibre again!
There was an immediate downside though. Once it was all set up, with the new router (which I swapped to as it has Wi-Fi 6, so why not?), I noticed that the ping times between my Macs were all over the place; this was also noticeable in that the ssh connections were so jittery to the point of being almost unusable.
Bugger.
So I did a bunch of digging online and, without getting too deeply into it (because I'm not a networking guy): the problem is AirDrop/Sidecar. They don't play well with a Wi-Fi 6 connection, so do stuff in the background that causes your ping times to be all over the place.
The solution? Turn this off for the Wi-Fi connection on the affected Macs:
I can't find anything that suggests I'm going to regret doing this for the couple of Macs in my office, and for my MacBook Air, and having done it, the performance is fine again.
This is why I avoid anything to do with networking: it always seems like if you improve one thing, it degrades some other thing, and it's only ever fixed by remembering to tweak some reasonably obscure setting somewhere on some particular item of hardware.
I woke up this morning to find that EE had sent me an email at around 00:30 last night.
We're sorry we didn't stick to our appointment or give you 24 hours' notice that we couldn't make it.
We've added a £32.31 credit to your next bill to try and make up for it.
You don't need to do anything, we'll add it automatically.
If you have any questions, please visit our help page.
And then at 08:17 this morning, I got an SMS:
Hi from EE.
We're sorry for not sticking to our appointment or giving you 24 hours' notice that we couldn't make it. We've added a credit of 32.31 GBP to your next bill. You don't need to do anything, but please go to ee.co.uk/go/compensation if you have any questions. Thanks.
Which is kind of weird, because I remember someone turning up yesterday, and my broadband speed is now 935/107 Mbps at the router (vs. the 35/2.7 it was at the start of yesterday). Perhaps it's their way of saying sorry for the failure to deliver the other day? Who can tell though, it doesn't actually say when and why.
