New Fibre installation - Openserver + Malmesbury

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octorus

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My father in-law lives in Malmesbury and a while ago Openserve dug up the sidewalks for trenched fibre in his area. He is with Vodacom as his ISP at the moment and he has reached the end of his contract and would like to move to a more affordable ISP. However, the connection to his house currently is from an old telephone pole in his backyard. There is no battery backup on this connection which means his fancy inverter system keeping his router on isn't keeping him connected. The cable also spans his entire backyard and there are some tree troubles looming. According to Vodacom the overhead installation also belongs to Openserve.

He wants to migrate from this overhead nonsense to a trenched installation coming from the road. I've been unable to get hold of anyone at Openserve to figure out how this would work. A sales person from WA assured me that the 'free installation' they offer covers the installation from the street to the house and they deal with Openserve directly. The sales person was eager to make the sale right then and there so I'm cautious of the advise. My fear is they'll mark the house as 'fibre ready' because of the overhead cable and only do an ISP handover and not the full road-to-house installation.

Has anyone been through a similar migration or have any advice?
 
If there is access from a pole in the yard, Openserve won't be switching to a trenched entry any time soon. Any new order will be installed from the same pole.

There is nothing wrong with an aerial install and these are just as reliable as their trenched counterparts. The fibre in the ground in front of the house is more likely a backhaul duct, and doesn't have any access build on it (ie small handles on front of every house for easy installation or gpon linked fibres). Cutting into a backhaul like that will likely only be possible with something like a ME install from openserve, which is significantly more expensive and reserved for FTTB.

The issue isn't that there's no backup power on the Poles; openserve use a gpon topology, which means that the FTTH services see being powered from the local exchange and no in-field power is required. The issue here is that power is being lost at the exchange (which will affect all services in the area- irrespective of whether they are aerial or trenched). We've seen this at a number of exchanges, and Openserve have assured us that they are actively upgrading/repairing affected exchanges- so this isn't likely to be a long term issue.
 
If the Openserve fibre install is Aerial they will NOT trench to lay the cable. It will be strung from the pole to the house. The only option for a trenched solution is if there is another Fibre network that is trenched and then getting an install from them.
 
Hi There, the trenched fibre is typically backhaul fibre as mentioned. And the fibre to the poles is for homes, Openserve is typically pretty good with backup power. Are you sure it's Openserve and not Vodacom?

I can pop you a test account if you like?
 
PBCool said:
Hi There, the trenched fibre is typically backhaul fibre as mentioned. And the fibre to the poles is for homes, Openserve is typically pretty good with backup power. Are you sure it's Openserve and not Vodacom?

I can pop you a test account if you like?
Click to expand...
I was under the impression that the overhead was Vodacom - but according to one of their agents it is Openserve. My mother stays in the same town down the road also with an overhead connection. Looking at her profile on WA its got Openserve Fibre listed as the service type. She also has an issue with no internet during load shedding so my assumption was that's a thing with overhead. I've always had trench connections for my own installations.
I appreciate the offer for a test account, however I'm in CPT and won't be able to make the changes to test any time soon.
 
octorus said:
My father in-law lives in Malmesbury and a while ago Openserve dug up the sidewalks for trenched fibre in his area. He is with Vodacom as his ISP at the moment and he has reached the end of his contract and would like to move to a more affordable ISP. However, the connection to his house currently is from an old telephone pole in his backyard. There is no battery backup on this connection which means his fancy inverter system keeping his router on isn't keeping him connected. The cable also spans his entire backyard and there are some tree troubles looming. According to Vodacom the overhead installation also belongs to Openserve.

He wants to migrate from this overhead nonsense to a trenched installation coming from the road. I've been unable to get hold of anyone at Openserve to figure out how this would work. A sales person from WA assured me that the 'free installation' they offer covers the installation from the street to the house and they deal with Openserve directly. The sales person was eager to make the sale right then and there so I'm cautious of the advise. My fear is they'll mark the house as 'fibre ready' because of the overhead cable and only do an ISP handover and not the full road-to-house installation.

Has anyone been through a similar migration or have any advice?
Click to expand...
My recent experience with Openserve is they don't have the tools or subcontractor for them has the tools to dig trenches, unless its loose sand and they can dig with bare hands, I had to hire private contractror and pay for it myself, free Fibre installation my backend. The other Herotel and Octotel however have teams with tools doing it, I saw it and spoke to them.
 
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