How to ensure your network is delivered on time

There are few businesses today who can operate without an internet connection – and the vast majority of startups are operating with the internet and online marketing at the heart of their business models.It’s increasingly common to need a fixed internet circuit rather than broadband.  This gives you far greater speed and far greater reliability.  However, these Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) circuits, which are delivered using fibre optic cable right to your door, take much longer to deliver and their delivery frequently slips unexpectedly.

So, what happens when the company you’re trusting to connect you misses their target for getting you online? Does your startup stutter? Or are you knowledgeable enough to understand where you are in the process and put things back on track?

Missing your connection date can push back product launches, investment and a host of other important factors. We’ll explain how you can stay in control when you order these high speed DIA internet circuits.

What’s the process?

While suppliers vary slightly, this is a step-by-step of how an order will usually progress. Note that the you’ll go through a similar process whether you’re ordering high speed internet or a high speed Wide Area Network (WAN) circuit to connect your sites to each other.

1. You will give an overview of requirements to a supplier’s sales teamwho will discuss initial and on-going pricing before raising and order form.
2. You return this order form along with a technical requirement form – this is collected and process with your provider.
3. You’ll be issued a circuit ID that allows you to track the progress of your order and works.
4. A technical planner is given your order and will visit your proposed site where a survey will be done, assessing a route between the exchange and the customer location.

At this stage we’ll pause the list – because this is the point at which you’re most likely to run into delays.There are a number of scenarios that will give rise to a delay, often an unexpected delay.

Excess Construction charges: There may be additional work required, such as digging a trench, which creates additional charges known as ‘Excess Construction Charges’ (ECCs). ECCs will often be swallowed by your provider up to a certain point, but after that they’ll need to ask if you’re happy to proceed, which introduces a delay.

Wayleave: This is when your circuit installation or works surrounding it will encroach onto the land or property of another person. A legal agreement must be signed by the owner of the impacted property before work can continue.

Permission to dig: If it’s necessary to dig to install your line then permission needs to be sought. This is to ensure land owners are protected and other infrastructure is not impacted.

Traffic management: Whatever the nature of your installation work, there’s a chance that work could either directly involve, or spill over on to the surrounding road network. If this is the case, local authority permission must be sought.

After the works are complete, and after any of the delays introduced above, the process picks up again.

5. Your supplier will install the infrastructure and line connecting the exchange to your premises. This will involve physically getting the line and surrounding tubing to your communication/server room.
6. Network Terminating Equipment is fitted to the line, allowing for interface with your systems.
7. The supplier completes technical configuration and you’re connected to the wider network.

The process varies from supplier to supplier, country to country – but generally encompasses these significant points. This blog post offers detailed explanation of how a managed network provider collaborates with Openreach to deliver a network.

Why do delays occur?

As you can already see, there’s a potentially significant and largely unpredictable amount of work that could be incurred at the point of installation. Not only that, but the sheer size of the company you’re working with to have your circuit delivered makes it extremely unlikely you’ll be dealing with the same person or even department throughout the process.

Because your order will be passed from person to person, department to department – often in different locations or even countries, there’s a lot of scope for miscommunication or inputting error – errors cause confusion, confusion causes delays.

How to avoid those delays

• Plan for the worst: If you can account for the worst case scenario when you’re ordering your circuit then anything less offers you additional time to prepare for that office setup, launch or whatever else hinges around a network connection.

It’s suggested that you add at least 4 weeks onto your delivery time – and with some major suppliers missing their dates around 25% of the time, it’s much better to be safe than letting people down.

• Order early: With most suppliers you won’t be given an order of work or even installation reference numbers until your paperwork is signed and returned. Don’t be under the misconception that a supplier providing order forms means the ball is rolling.
• Chase your supplier: Errors and hold ups can occur for no fault of your own – whether that’s human input error with the supplier, a mistyped or misattributed address or name, a system glitch – the possibilities are endless – as is your timescale if things go astray.

The only way you can be certain your details are correct and that things are progressing as they should is if you’re in communication with the supplier. If you’ve not heard positive progress from them, chase them until you do.

• Challenge ECCs: The ECCs we’ve previously mentioned don’t always stand up to scrutiny – once again, errors can occur. Go over any proposal of work very carefully, make sure all the details are correct – and if they’re not, raise your concerns with your supplier.

It’s likely that you, your landlord and your surrounding businesses will know the location far better than any engineer brought in to cast their eyes over it – so don’t be afraid to challenge any aspect of works if it doesn’t seem exactly right. You could save yourself significant time.

• Pay quickly: If ECC work is required then paying for it to be done promptly is always a wise move. Often, a supplier will only offer a short window in which work can be paid for and commenced, should you delay (which can often be the case if you’re handling other important parts of the business) then work can be cancelled – leading to much greater delays.

Communicate

Given circuit installation is subject with so many variables – the final piece of advice is to always communicate possibilities to other business decision makers and interested parties as soon as possible. If delays occur, it’s better than you’ve got every minute on your side to plan how your business will adapt.