Signed up for UFB - fingers crossed for a smooth installation

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Signed up for UFB - fingers crossed for a smooth installation

w2krules

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#195863 9-May-2016 11:05

I'm a little nervous about doing this after some of the horror stories on GZ. We have a longish shared driveway (under 200m), but the neighbour wants UFB also, so this shouldn't be a problem.

There's a good coupon on GrabOne for BigPipe if you're thinking of connecting.

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BigPipeNZ

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#1548623 9-May-2016 11:48

excellent choice.

Having seen a few of these where consent issues go awry, the best piece of advice I can give you about consents is to NOT rely on the system to work properly.

The normal process involves chorus sending a letter to your neighbours. maybe they lose it, maybe it gets binned by mistake, maybe they fill in the form but chorus lose it somehow, or they fill it in wrong. Many different ways this can go wrong and you'll never know the truth. (sometimes Chorus lose the documents, but also sometimes people say they filled it in but actually didn't and then lie about it to their neighbours so as to not annoy them)

So instead, do this:

https://www.chorus.co.nz/contact-us/forms/online-consent

Go to the link above, take it round to your neighbours (on your ipad or whatever) and watch them fill it in in front of you and submit it (maybe take some beers and/or cookies as lubrication)

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michaelmurfy

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#1548674 9-May-2016 12:56

BigPipeNZ:
(maybe take some beers and/or cookies as lubrication)

*chuckle* another thing is don't get annoyed with your provider for no reason and decide to move. Seen people do this all too many times because they think their provider is the one holding them back - once you settle for your provider (in this case BigPipe) stick with it otherwise it is back at the end of the queue for you.

I always see on Facebook "I've waited 3mo for an UFB install, now I'm moving to xx because they said it shouldn't take that long". I then facepalm, and get off Facebook. Honestly, humans.

Also hope you used my link to sign up (if you were not already a customer!).

Edit: Bah, Grabone. Guess I'll have to pay an actual physical bill this month.

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DarkShadow

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#1548687 9-May-2016 13:19

Also hope you used my link to sign up (if you were not already a customer!).

Edit: Bah, Grabone. Guess I'll have to pay an actual physical bill this month.

You can stack the Grabone and refer-a-friend codes. ;)

shortcircuit

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#1548720 9-May-2016 14:51

w2krules:

I'm a little nervous about doing this after some of the horror stories on GZ. We have a longish shared driveway (under 200m), but the neighbour wants UFB also, so this shouldn't be a problem.

There's a good coupon on GrabOne for BigPipe if you're thinking of connecting.

I wrote an update to my 'UFB install saga' today just for you....

But seriously, most problems seem to come from Chorus and their associated companies (if your install is being done by them) and not the provider like Bigpipe or Spark.

For multi-dwelling installs it gets much harder because there is a separate company that handles the consents on behalf of Chorus, then a Chorus tech scopes the install, a 'design company' that draws little pictures of the cables/ducts, another Chorus tech to do the outside install, another company (god knows who) that organizes the tech's visits... and none of them appear to talk to eachother.

Best advice is just be patient, try to get contact details from those you deal with (sometimes easier said than done as Chorus are not focussd on dealing direct with the public). If you get stuck or get the runaround there are a few staff from Chorus on here who can help get things going or advise what stage the install is at.

w2krules

497 posts

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#1548865 9-May-2016 19:36

michaelmurfy:
BigPipeNZ:

(maybe take some beers and/or cookies as lubrication)

*chuckle* another thing is don't get annoyed with your provider for no reason and decide to move. Seen people do this all too many times because they think their provider is the one holding them back - once you settle for your provider (in this case BigPipe) stick with it otherwise it is back at the end of the queue for you.

I always see on Facebook "I've waited 3mo for an UFB install, now I'm moving to xx because they said it shouldn't take that long". I then facepalm, and get off Facebook. Honestly, humans.

Also hope you used my link to sign up (if you were not already a customer!).

Edit: Bah, Grabone. Guess I'll have to pay an actual physical bill this month.

Sorry mate, I missed that. The GrabOne deal is worth quite a bit though.

I was a geek before the word was invented!

w2krules

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#1548868 9-May-2016 19:41

shortcircuit:

w2krules:

I'm a little nervous about doing this after some of the horror stories on GZ. We have a longish shared driveway (under 200m), but the neighbour wants UFB also, so this shouldn't be a problem.

There's a good coupon on GrabOne for BigPipe if you're thinking of connecting.

I wrote an update to my 'UFB install saga' today just for you....

But seriously, most problems seem to come from Chorus and their associated companies (if your install is being done by them) and not the provider like Bigpipe or Spark.

For multi-dwelling installs it gets much harder because there is a separate company that handles the consents on behalf of Chorus, then a Chorus tech scopes the install, a 'design company' that draws little pictures of the cables/ducts, another Chorus tech to do the outside install, another company (god knows who) that organizes the tech's visits... and none of them appear to talk to eachother.

Best advice is just be patient, try to get contact details from those you deal with (sometimes easier said than done as Chorus are not focussd on dealing direct with the public). If you get stuck or get the runaround there are a few staff from Chorus on here who can help get things going or advise what stage the install is at.

Thanks. One of the reasons for going with BigPipe is they have staff active here. I was tempted by the $70 Voyager deal, but did not like having to sign up for 24 months as we may move within that time frame.

I assume that if the neighbour also signs up for UFB, then we both have to agree to each other's install?

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richms

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#1548877 9-May-2016 20:05

No if a neighbour signs up they have given consent for it.

Richard rich.ms

w2krules

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#1664093 5-Nov-2016 05:07

Well, it took 6 months but it's done now. The biggest problem was that no one from Chorus visited before drawing up their installation plan, which was totally impractical. A couple of contractors turned up unannounced one day to run the cable up our drive, but at least they realized it couldn't be done as per the plan.

It took a few weeks to sort that out, and I'm still not happy with how they've run the cable up the drive, but at least it's underground all of the way to the house. Cutting a slot with a big concrete cutter, then covering the cable with dirt doesn't seem like a permanent installation to me. And I'm still not sure why one team ran the cable up the drive, then a couple of Chorus people ran the cable to the house later.

The Chorus techs did a decent job of the actual installation inside. It would have been nice if the could have run the cable to the ONT inside the wall of the study, but that would have been quite difficult because of the house construction. At least it's all neat and tidy.

We had a 40 Mb/s VDSL connection previously, so as expected, performance doesn't seem much different . But HD video streaming starts almost instantly and never buffers - nice. Our oldish (3-4 years) Asus RT AC66 wireless router works well and can deliver 100 Mb/s speeds over the 5 GHz band.

A big plus is the 10x faster upload speed, so I'm going to start moving about 15 years' of photos into the cloud!

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Lias

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#1664146 5-Nov-2016 10:22

w2krules:

Cutting a slot with a big concrete cutter, then covering the cable with dirt doesn't seem like a permanent installation to me.

They are supposed to remediate like for like, so if they cut concrete to lay a trench they need to reconcrete it.

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w2krules

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#1664162 5-Nov-2016 11:09

Lias:

w2krules:

Cutting a slot with a big concrete cutter, then covering the cable with dirt doesn't seem like a permanent installation to me.

They are supposed to remediate like for like, so if they cut concrete to lay a trench they need to reconcrete it.

The Chorus guys did that when they ran the cable across the drive to the house, but not the contractors who brought it in from the road.

I was a geek before the word was invented!