ᐅ Telecommunications House Connection – Your Experiences. Is Magenta M Okay?

Nordlys schrieb:
But Stefan, you applied in January 2017 and still haven’t gotten the connection? Something must be wrong. They must have forgotten about you.

No, I just applied early because everyone said you should take care of it well in advance. And we expected to move in during the fall. However, the house was only assembled starting in November. The fiber optic connection was installed exactly today.

What Maria shared sounds quite believable. It’s really a model of thorough organization—this telecom company, haha—but I’m choosing to take it with humor. For some unexplained reason, our connection took from early September, when the fiber optic cable was installed in the house, until December 4th to be activated. I was lucky to get a friendly lady as my personal contact who provided me with a kind of internet box using mobile data, which I was allowed to keep. This box supplied us with gigabytes of data and even had a bit of personality at times. So they are making an effort—“we love to entertain you”—but when it comes to connections, their core business, they are clearly lagging behind. Karsten

They are all equally bad! You really don’t have a proper alternative. In our case, it was the Netz BW. We were also repeatedly stood up by the Netz BW subcontractor.

Hehe… here’s a copy & paste of my story:

- February 2016: Ordered house connection via customer hotline. Building plot is still a field.
- August 2016: Customer hotline wants to schedule installation of the empty conduit for September. House is not built yet.
- October 2016: Installation of the physical connection is scheduled via the customer hotline and the Giessen building district, as technical requirements are met. Telecom plans installation between November 2016 and February 2017.
- 09.05.2017: After intervention with the management of the telecom subcontractor due to multiple missed appointments, the fiber optic cable is blown into the empty conduit and the fiber optic termination point is installed. Completion notification is sent to the telecom promptly, as confirmed to me by phone from the Giessen building district. Information that the connection documentation now takes a maximum of 30 days.
- Around 03.06.2017: Due to the missing provision of service, I order the Magenta Quick Start package with LTE router and 30GB data volume via the customer hotline, with the assurance that additional data volume can be booked free of charge anytime until the connection is completed.
- 19.06.2017: After multiple inquiries, the customer hotline can book the desired product on the completed connection. Confirmation of a technician appointment by email. After several phone calls, the customer hotline can "exceptionally" provide 30GB data for Magenta Quick Start. Allegedly, no new data volumes may be distributed from now on.
- 21.06.2017: Appointment for service activation postponed by email to 21.07.2017.
- 23.06.2017: Phone contact with customer hotline and then sales to object to the postponement. Info: The new date also cannot be kept due to lack of technicians and errors in the documentation. Advice to escalate the case. Still no willingness from the telecom to provide more data volume.
- 25.07.2017: Final activation of the fiber optic connection; the new building is online. Three technicians from the local branch were onsite for training after several previously postponed appointments due to competence conflicts (fiber switching orders were performed during that time by a central nationwide team, which also provided local branches with experience).

The three most frustrating mistakes were actually that the customer hotline first booked us a copper connection order, even though the new development area is served by fiber optic. Then the subcontractor who installed the empty conduit (appointment 1) and then blew in the fiber (appointment 2) often no-showed us. Instead, we got calls directly from the technician: “We’re nearby / can be there in 1 hour.” Not great if the utility room is being tiled or I’m working in my office. The real highlight at the end was the faulty documentation and the dispute over who would activate the connection. I then “bribed” the technician to bring and train all his colleagues and to get coffee. His brand-new Bosch impact drill for setting the 6mm (1/4 inch) dowels wasn’t needed after all. In the wooden house, the screws hold just fine anyway…

It seems things can always get worse. Sad.

In hindsight, it’s something to laugh about, but when I was caught in the nightmare of the "Passierschein A38," it definitely didn’t feel that way. On the other hand, I work in the industry and know the ins and outs to some extent. Still, progress toward the final connection only really started when I contacted our business account representatives, who kindly also took care of our private connection.

Fortunately, due to our jobs, my wife and I have fairly generous mobile data plans, so during the two months from moving in until the connection was made, we were at least able to watch shows from streaming libraries (TV only through Entertain...).