[Snap] Getting a New Gigabit UFB Connection is Like Pulling Teeth :(

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Ninelight

2 posts

Wannabe Geek

#173569 27-May-2015 21:53

I really want to like Snap, I do. I'm glad to hear that the majority are getting great service from them, but unfortunately it hasn't been the case for me.

It's nearing on 4 months since I've put the order through, their router's been chilling on my desk for almost as long, but still nothing. Not a peep from Snap until I called up to ask for updates (updates that were promised for the usual "end of the day" deadline by each subsequent call center handler). And twice now this month, I've been booked for an installation/connection only for Chorus to stand me up (bookings that I've specifically confirmed over the phone to still be happening the afternoon before hand) with, again, not a single word from Snap until I phoned them up, only to be told that Chorus is still waiting on my neighbour's consent because of our shared driveway, BOTH times.

I had not been aware that it was still an issue because my neighbour told me, in person, that they filled out Chorus' online form and gave me the email address with which they used to do so back in April, which I've passed on to the call handler BOTH times. In fact, I had not known it was an issue in the first place until I asked Snap for an update on my order at the start of May after no communication whatsoever after the router shipped.

Here's a neater timeline that's gathered from my recent communication with Snap:

Feburary - Put my UFB order through.

Mid April - Chorus apparently came around for an appraisal of my property that I was not aware of (I am under the assumption that I should be present for that to discuss how and where I want the wire to run. Or is that part of the installation process now?).

Late April - Neighbour consent given.

Early May - Finally became aware of ongoing driveway consent issue.

Mid May - Consent seems to have been sorted because Snap booked me in for an installation. Neither Chorus nor their service company showed up. Phoned Snap for an update, told to wait for a reply by the end of the day.

Mid May - Ongoing communication with Snap, apparently consent still hasn't been received. Told that my order will be followed up ASAP.

Late May - Second confirmed installation booking with Snap. Consent must have been received then. Day of installation, Chorus still no show. Phoned Snap, still waiting on consent. Told that my order will be escalated and to wait for a reply by the end of the day.

And so here we are, I have no idea how Snap and Chorus communicate but it's a little ridiculous to be booked in for installations that were never going to happen on Chorus' end. Still waiting on consent that was given a month ago. Still having to extend the contract with my old ISP that should have ended 3 months ago. Still have no idea what to do at this point.

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1647 posts

Uber Geek

#1313200 27-May-2015 23:40

Any problem with UFB install, you can blame Chorus.

With DSL orders, you leave a comment with Chorus, they will reply the same day or tomorrow the latest. With UFB, it's at least a few days, if at all. If you call them up, the people there don't know anything about consents, they can only pass a message on. Appointments get changed and the ISP isn't told.

Chorus CEO admitted some people have "really bad experiences" with UFB, unfortunately it seems you're one of them. But 4 months isn't too bad, it's the median time for getting connected on a shared driveway.

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#1313202 27-May-2015 23:42

DarkShadow: Any problem with UFB install, you can blame Chorus.

With DSL orders, you leave a comment with Chorus, they will reply the same day or tomorrow the latest. With UFB, it's at least a few days, if at all. If you call them up, the people there don't know anything about consents, they can only pass a message on. Appointments get changed and the ISP isn't told.

Chorus CEO admitted some people have "really bad experiences" with UFB, unfortunately it seems you're one of them. But 4 months isn't too bad, it's the median time for getting connected on a shared driveway.

well, only in the Chorus areas.

Bit of a stretch to blame Chorus if the LFC is Northpower, Enable or UFF :P

fe31nz

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#1313207 28-May-2015 00:10

Yes, it is a bit of nightmare getting Chorus to do things. My order was placed at the start of December! My impression is that Chorus is now one of those old style monopoly bureaucracies, where getting the paperwork done is what matters, not getting the job done. Even though they seem to have largely done away with paper and are pushing electons. Snap do seem to have a problem with calling back to let you know what is going on, but whenever I have called them, they have invariably been pleasant and helpful and have done the best they can to prod Chorus into doing the next step. And whenever Snap has said they would do something, they have. But Chorus - they seem to be able to invent new obstacles from one day to the next. It feels like my install has been jinxed from the start.

Without going into the entire saga (it would take hours) I have now actually got a fibre installed along the street to our right-of-way, in the duct up the ROW to our pole, up the pole and over to the house, and down the wall to the ETP. And then another fibre from the ETP under the house and up into the dining room where I have an ONT on the wall. But if I turn it on, the ONT's "Optical" LED goes red instead of green. That happened on Monday. On Tuesday, the installers were back fault-finding, and now it appears that the long fibre previously installed from the street to the house (probably over 45 metres) has a break somewhere and will have to be replaced! So now all that Snap was able to tell me today is that Chorus have now scheduled my install to be completed by the 4th (I have had various dates, 11th, 19th and 25th before that). Chorus have not called me to let me know, despite the project notes Snap has access to saying they will coordinate with me directly. I am guessing that, like the original install, a day or two before the 4th, the outside install team will be back to replace the original fibre, and then on the 4th, they will need me to be available again for the inside installers to complete the work. Except that all the inside work is actually complete, so as soon as the outside fibre is replaced, I am going to turn on the ONT and it is likely to work. The inside installers will then need to cut off the old copper line where it comes from the pole into the ceiling of the house, and re-route it down the side of the house to follow the fibre from the ETP to new copper connections next to the ONT. The copper is already in place to do that, it just needs the old line to be cut and connected across to the new one, and that work is all outside under the eaves and should not need me to be available. Changing over the copper will allow me to connect the FritzBox VOIP into the house phone wiring as it will no longer be connected to the street copper.

The worst delays I have had to deal with all seem to be because Chorus (and/or Downer) tries not to ever contact the end customer directly (except for access inside the house). At one point, after the consents had all been given for using the ROW (1st week of January), they seem to have sent someone around to dig down to the duct in our ROW to make sure it was OK. We were away on holiday at the time, so I do not know any of this for sure. They appear to have dug down, not to our duct (which is quite deep - over a metre), and found their own 20 mm phone duct that takes the copper phone lines in from the street and then down to our duct. Having found their 20 mm duct and thought it was our duct, they appear to have concluded that our duct is too small and could not be used, and hence set off trying to design another method of getting the fibre to us. Now, since that 20 mm duct was theirs, if they had actually done their paperwork right, they would have known that, and would have kept on digging. Or they could have just picked up the phone and talked to me or my neighbours who put the duct in and are also getting fibre, and we would have told them it was a 50 mm duct. But no, they seem to have spent about two months messing around, then one day, without notice, we found a crew putting in a 20 mm duct along the ROW fence, which they never got our permission for or even talked to us about before they started. They had to stop installing along the fence when they got to the next fence, the concrete block one at our property boundary, as it is only held up by the jasmine growing all over it - all its mortar seems to be decaying and the blocks are shifting. If they had bothered to talk to me, I would have told them about that. So after that, I contacted Snap, and sent them a photo of the real 50 mm duct the neighbours had taken as it was installed, and Snap added that to the project notes, and finally Chorus went back to the old (as initially agreed) path for the fibre using that duct. So, two months of wasted effort on Chorus' part, and who knows how much money spent, when one phone call directly to the customer would have prevented it all.

So, Chorus, please, just TALK TO YOUR CUSTOMERS!!!!! DIRECTLY!!!! WHENVER YOU DO SOMETHING!!!!

Ninelight, as best I can determine, the communications path is like this. You call Snap customer service, who note things on their file and pass them on to the Snap provisioning team. They are happy to put you on hold and talk to the provisioning team while you wait if you call during working hours when the provisioning team are available. The provisioning team talk to Chorus, presumably by phone, email and so on, and also have access to the special Chorus web site where the Chorus project notes are kept and apparently can add to them also. The customer service people have also called Chorus directly for me, but again only during working hours when that can be done. Unfortunately, Chorus does not do the actual install work, just design and management. The actual install is done by the subcontractors, and here in Palmerston North that is Downer, who I believe are also doing the work in lots of other places. Directly contacting Downer I have found to be virtually impossible. When they came to put in the duct on the fence, I tried to find out who was doing it (technically, they were likely tresspassing and doing criminal damage as they did not have permission for that work and would never have been given permission had they asked). The contract Chorus had me sign initially says in black and white that they will get the customers agreement before doing any work. But despite calling Downer on their public phone number, they said they were not doing the work, and everyone else I called (Snap, Chorus, even the city council) said they had no idea who was doing it. But it turned out it definitely was Chorus who had told them to do it, although it may have been a different subcontractor (or sub-subcontractor) than Downer who was actually doing the work - I never did find out fully what happened.

The moral of my story, and I suspect Ninelight's also, seems to be that if you are getting an install down a right-of-way, it will take months and lots of heartache before there is any chance of it happening.

One thing Snap got very right was offering to swap me over to their ADSL until they could get my fibre done - the thought at that point was that it would be only for a month or so, but their ADSL was cheaper than my old ISP and also unlimited, and that has proven to be good. The Snap ADSL service is just as good as my old ISP was, and I now have no worries about a cap. And the deal was that there would be no extra cost to me for the changeover to fibre, just the usual ADSL signup when I initially transferred to Snap. If I had known it was going to take anything like this long, I would have moved to VDSL at that time, but it does now look like I might finally get a working fibre by the 4th. If nothing else manages to go wrong.

Lias

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#1313240 28-May-2015 07:51

For those of you old enough to remember when Telecom was a truly evil company, riddled with greed, disdain for its customers, and a bloated monopoly bureaucracy, well pretty much all of those parts of Telecom got spun off to form Chorus.

Those rare times Chorus does manage to provide good service are by accident rather than design.

I'm a geek, a gamer, a dad, a Quic user, and an IT Professional. I have a full rack home lab, size 15 feet, an epic beard and Asperger's. I'm a bit of a Cypherpunk, who believes information wants to be free and the Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. If you use my Quic signup you can also use the code R570394EKGIZ8 for free setup.

dan

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#1313255 28-May-2015 08:57

If it makes you feel any better my last 4 UFB installs were

6 months
4 months
5 months
7 months.

but yes as your consent problem - i had the same issue on the last install, consent was given/done and like month 5, waited another month for something to move along, called SNAP to see whats up, Chorus bumped
the install back to "waiting for consent" on the chorus system even tho it was done a month ago.

SNAP are completely at the mercy of Chorus like any other ISP.

Behodar

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#1313261 28-May-2015 09:14

DarkShadow: Chorus CEO admitted some people have "really bad experiences" with UFB

Interesting article; my install (in Whakatane) was done on a Saturday so it's definitely possible under the current system, but might be up to the individual installer. Admittedly it was supposed to be done on Friday but some of the work in the street wasn't complete so that was done on the Friday with the in-house part done on Saturday.

RalphFromSnap

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#1313263 28-May-2015 09:16

Hi Ninelight

If you could DM me your customer number or username I'll have this looked into. Something doesn't seem quite right!

Thanks

Snap

0800 BROADBAND (276 232)
www.snap.net.nz

@SnapInternet on Twitter
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Our Social Media Team:
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^AT Ashleigh - Retail Marketing Coordinator

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Wheelbarrow01

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Chorus

#1313266 28-May-2015 09:19

The OP needs to call Snap and demand that they clarify with Chorus what sort of consent is outstanding - I reckon they are giving you the wrong information due to a lack of understanding....

There is no way any RFS install date (let alone two) would have been confirmed before MDU/ROW consent was signed and lodged. Your neighbour says they did it, and you were advised an RFS date, so I believe the MDU/ROW consent is in place in your case.

I can almost guarantee the delay is because the Civil Consent Form (a.k.a Chorus End User Terms) has not been signed and returned to the service company, so they are delaying the install until that is received by them.

The civil consent form is different to MDU/ROW consent, and is required for ALL Chorus installs. The civil form is signed by you (the end customer), sets out exactly what work will take place on your property, and gives permission for the installation to proceed. This form also has a clause which states that if you are not the owner of your house, that you have sought permission from the owner.

A blank copy of the civil consent form can be found here: https://www.chorus.co.nz/installing-fibre/fibre-in-your-home-or-business/ufb-installation-easy-as-abc

If you have had a scope visit already, the scoper should have given you a copy of this and asked you to sign it. If they did not give it to you, or you have not signed it and given it back, that will be what the hold up is.

Download it, sign it, and flick it back to Snap, or even better, try to get it direct to the service company via email if you can.

The views expressed by me are not necessarily those of my employer Chorus NZ Ltd

Behodar

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#1313269 28-May-2015 09:22

Wheelbarrow01: The civil consent form is different to MDU/ROW consent, and is required for ALL Chorus installs. The civil form is signed by you (the end customer), sets out exactly what work will take place on your property, and gives permission for the installation to proceed.

Not to derail this thread too much, but that's very interesting - I already have UFB and have never seen that form in my life. I wasn't asked to sign anything (even after the install was done I asked whether there was anything I needed to sign, and was told no). Bizarre!

vexxxboy

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#1313273 28-May-2015 09:33

Behodar:
Wheelbarrow01: The civil consent form is different to MDU/ROW consent, and is required for ALL Chorus installs. The civil form is signed by you (the end customer), sets out exactly what work will take place on your property, and gives permission for the installation to proceed.

Not to derail this thread too much, but that's very interesting - I already have UFB and have never seen that form in my life. I wasn't asked to sign anything (even after the install was done I asked whether there was anything I needed to sign, and was told no). Bizarre!

like you i have never seen this form and i never signed anything to do with my UFB install.

Common sense is not as common as you think.

insane

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#1313282 28-May-2015 09:53

DarkShadow: Any problem with UFB install, you can blame Chorus.
...

That's only one part of the story here though, the lack of promised comms from the ISP has clearly added to the frustration

Wheelbarrow01

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Chorus

#1313283 28-May-2015 09:54

vexxxboy:
Behodar:
Wheelbarrow01: The civil consent form is different to MDU/ROW consent, and is required for ALL Chorus installs. The civil form is signed by you (the end customer), sets out exactly what work will take place on your property, and gives permission for the installation to proceed.

Not to derail this thread too much, but that's very interesting - I already have UFB and have never seen that form in my life. I wasn't asked to sign anything (even after the install was done I asked whether there was anything I needed to sign, and was told no). Bizarre!

like you i have never seen this form and i never signed anything to do with my UFB install.

That's a real concern. My understanding is that it should be done for all Chorus installs. A lot of delayed jobs I have tried to get moving have been as a result of this form not being signed, so it is interesting that there seems to be no consistency.

Other LFCs have similar forms as well. Enable call it an LTI (Licence To Install)

The views expressed by me are not necessarily those of my employer Chorus NZ Ltd

lxsw20

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#1313285 28-May-2015 09:59

vexxxboy:
Behodar:
Wheelbarrow01: The civil consent form is different to MDU/ROW consent, and is required for ALL Chorus installs. The civil form is signed by you (the end customer), sets out exactly what work will take place on your property, and gives permission for the installation to proceed.

Not to derail this thread too much, but that's very interesting - I already have UFB and have never seen that form in my life. I wasn't asked to sign anything (even after the install was done I asked whether there was anything I needed to sign, and was told no). Bizarre!

like you i have never seen this form and i never signed anything to do with my UFB install.

I signed to say they had completed the install, but nothing prior to that.

Wheelbarrow01

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#1313312 28-May-2015 10:33

lxsw20:
vexxxboy:
Behodar:
Wheelbarrow01: The civil consent form is different to MDU/ROW consent, and is required for ALL Chorus installs. The civil form is signed by you (the end customer), sets out exactly what work will take place on your property, and gives permission for the installation to proceed.

Not to derail this thread too much, but that's very interesting - I already have UFB and have never seen that form in my life. I wasn't asked to sign anything (even after the install was done I asked whether there was anything I needed to sign, and was told no). Bizarre!

like you i have never seen this form and i never signed anything to do with my UFB install.

I signed to say they had completed the install, but nothing prior to that.

I know of occasions where they request a signature after install is complete, which I guess is better than nothing, but it should really be done before they start as it sets out specifically what work will be carried out on the site (ie drilling through walls, surface mount cabling etc) That is something that should really be agreed upon before they knock a hole in your wall, not afterward.....

The views expressed by me are not necessarily those of my employer Chorus NZ Ltd

lxsw20

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#1313333 28-May-2015 10:58

The most annoying part was they scheduled a time to do the pre-check and then never turned up. I called and was given a she'll be right mate story.

I took the initiative to knock the holes in the walls myself/run draw wires, so I ended up with a nice tidy install.

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