I've been waiting 10 months for broadband and watching the Chorus info with interest (the webmigration files tell me April 2014, which is in line with what my ISP told me in June last year).

I've been paying over $300 a month for satellite internet, so you can imagine my glee to see 2 chorus vehicles outside the cabinet 18 days ago, they never send two vehicles for routine stuff. I stopped (of course) and spoke to one of the guys (who from his attire, seemed quite senior). He confirmed that new equipment was going into the existing cabinet and said they'd be back after testing from the exchange, to connect the lines (2 weeks, max, was what he said).

To be clear, I did ask him, considering we are 4th in the port-wait list, whether the upgrade would guarantee us a connection, he laughed and said the upgrade would be good for 50 more connections on the street. I didn't get the details of the architecture but he said it was VDSL capable (not that my ISP offers it and I am 2km from the cabinet, but price is my main problem right now, not speed).

So, 2 weeks later, I call my ISP to tell them that everything should be OK to switch over, they do a prequal and it comes back OK, they say they will place the order with Telecom and I plug in my modem and wait. I watch the DSL light blink, 1 day, 2 days, 3 days.... by the 4th I call them back and say "what's up?".

Here's the kicker... they confirm that I am now 1st in the queue, but for 10 months, right up to 4 weeks ago, I was 4th. So either
a) 3 people gave up waiting, or moved out, in the last month, after 10 months of no change; or
b) they connected 3 people and not me (meaning they forgot about me or only upgraded the cabinet by 3 BB lines).

My ISP apparently can't help any further, I just have to wait, how long though, surely Chorus come and connect up all 4 waiters when the cabinet comes on line? I think they have forgotten me, what can I do, no one seems to want to take responsibility. I am 100% sure that the job has been done, the guy at the cabinet asked me a lot of questions (how far from the cabinet etc) and was emphatic that I could start eating again soon (yeah I feed a family of 4 on less than I pay for the internet).

Is it possible that my line goes into a cabinet that has not been upgraded or that exchange capacity is an issue? There are cabinets on the street, right next to each other, an old beaten up looking smaller one that has the cabinet name on it (MTK/N) and a larger, newer cabinet that only has "P" on it, one point to note is that while both have been there since I've lived here,  about 2 months ago they installed a vent on the front of the newer/bigger one (so I figured the upgrade was on its way). The new equipment went into that one, I watched (they just looked like regular rack mounted routers).

If anyone has any ideas on who I could talk to, questions to ask, buttons to push or a friendly "it's ok they just have to ....... it'll take a few days", I would really appreciate it.

Cheers,

Here's the detail from port watiers report I requested from my ISP

Service Order: 2391311  
Broadband Provider: BayCity
Issue Date: 6.06.13 
Site: MTK/N
Location: MATAKANA
Type: Conklin
Waiter Position: 1 
Days Waiting: 305
Longest Waiter (days): 305
Comments:
Revised RFS: TBA