Hi,
I'm hoping someone who more regularly places Ethernet orders with BT
Openreach could quickly tell me if its me or them that is confused over
the issue of whether Excess Construction Charges should be applicable to
increase existing capacity.
We have recently been quoted thousands of pounds ECC for adding
additional circuits to an existing rack. I quibbled this but the
Openreach planners have justified this on the basis the existing tubing
to that rack is full so they are going to pull out some old disused
fibre from another floor of the same building and re-route tubing, and
they appear to be trying to charge us to pull out the old fibre as well
as running the new fibre. Their exact words were: "PLANNER COSTED FOR
1482M OF FIBRE DUE TO SURVEYOR ADVISING THAT TUBING ON SITE IS FULL &
ABANDONED FIBRE ON THE GROUND FLOOR WOULD NEED TO BE BLOWN OUT
(741M) & THEN A NEW BUNDLE BLOWN IN TO NEW 1ST FLOOR LOCATION" (which is
odd as I've pointed out them at least 3 times now this is not a 'new'
location, it is an existing rack with several live circuits in it already.)
However, it has long been my understanding that BT did not charge ECC
for increasing capacity when the existing fibre was full. (We don't
care how they do it: it was their decision to re-use the old tubing so
this should be irrelevant - all we are asking is for more fibre capacity
to the existing rack.)
I went looking on the Openreach portal for reference to the ECC
exemption for increasing capacity and couldn't find it on any of the
more recent documents about ECC. It is however mentioned in the ECC FAQ
which states that although there is no formal contractual exemption they
don't charge for increasing capacity.
Has the informal policy now changed and do we just have to lump these
ECC charges, or it this just a mistake by the planner?
Cheers,
--
Ben McKeegan
Netservers Limited
