Outside Facilities Issue - New Build, Multiple Installation Cancellations

Ongoing various equipment shortages from PFP to fiber, to terminals since September 2021 when ATT announced would be 500,000 of the 3 million planned for that year.

Some areas are delayed 1 to 3 months, others may be longer. 
For existing neighborhoods being upgraded they either have ATT VDSL FTTN (speeds of 25 to 100 depending on copper loop) or ADSL2+ with speeds of 18 or less OR local cable. They can switch to fiber as time allows many waiting 1 to 2 years after service is available. 

New construction of apartment, condo complexes and subdivisions are more noticeable especially if the developers were not willing to pay cable per lot charge which several years ago (2015?) was $3000 per lot.j

Anyone else?  Yeah, tons of people have posted here about this.  That term, Outside Facilities, covers a lot of things.  Most are related to parts of the infrastructure being on backorder but it could be a bunch of other things.  The problem is that nobody you can talk to can give you a real answer so anything that they say about this date or that is based on incomplete info.

Here's a link that discusses more of the possible reasons.  You're lucky in that you could get an alternative ISP to jump on this.  So many people have zero options and are stuck with having to wait for something that might take as much as a year to fix.

Thank you both.  After digging around, I see the other threads you're referencing - thanks. I think it's totally understandable to deal with shortages and delays, I just wish ATT would message this better and provide even a super high-level estimate.  I went without internet for a while because I believed that it would actually be installed this week... now I don't know what to believe.  I know that I am fortunate that I was able to get another provider out here so quickly.

I have seen other posters discuss this, but haven't seen folks post about how long a resolution actually took.  I'll be sure to leave that info in the tread when it's resolved.   Really looking forward to fiber... whenever I can get it.

The lack of communications is the real tragedy in this case.  AT&T purposely walls off the various depts involved in this whole process (plus others like repairs and buried wire issues) so there's no communications even between those groups, let alone the "support" group or anyone the public can ever access.  It's like everyone is on a "need to know" basis and can only see their piece of the puzzle.

I completely agree.  It makes it impossible to plan around them and if you rely on the internet for work or a small business, it's really a killer.  Even something as vague as "installation can take up to three months due to equipment shortages" would have been better than "no eta, blame Engineering Dept that you aren't allowed to talk to and we can only chat with."  I think it only makes the call center folks' lives worse because going without the internet for any period of time is really challenging in 2023, let alone an indefinite period of time, so folks - myself included - are on edge when they're speaking with them.

The take away ...if need internet for WFH or virtual schooling treat as a business needing redundant service.

This could be local cable, cellular hotspot or even satellite internet. Most repairs are 3 to 5 days out and under  certain circumstances could be a week or more, think hurricane,  tornado,  fires, bombings, construction cutting fiber, etc.

Ehh, don't worry, that's why the call center people get the big bucks, err, big pennies.  😁

@my thoughts - that's where I'm at for now. @tonydi - as a former call center worker myself, I remember those days, haha!

I'm starting to wonder if my physical address is the issue.  I have had an issue where USPS isn't recognizing my address and is missing the last 4 digits of zipcode.  I just attempted to use the checker on the ATT website to see if my address could have any ATT service and the address isn't recognized, nor are the three houses next to me. 4 houses down in the same direction can get service.  On the other side, the built houses can get service and have recognized addresses.  The ones across the street also have recognized addresses and can get service.  Going to try to explain to the contact I have and am going to try to fix with USPS. 

It'd be great if there wasn't an outside issue and it's actually a numbering glitch.  Hopefully not wishful thinking....

@WiscoP We are seriously in the same exact situation as yours. We requested install in our new construction home end of November. They strung us along for the past two months saying its an outside facility issue, some call center reps saying it would be resolved in 24-48 hours with no resolution, the engineering manager saying he would figure it out (no resolution), a national account rep saying he will look into it (no resolution), AT&T rep from the store saying he will work on it and making us create a new account (no resolution), and the list goes on and on. This week they texted saying the issue was resolved and a tech would come out to do the install. Tech came and did the install but couldn't activate because we had two accounts or some other error. We get a call back and the area manager said it is an outside facilities issue and they are waiting on the parts. He said it will be another month. At this point it is just negligence on AT&T's part. Not to mention, everyone around us has At&t fiber and it is working. 

as a former call center worker myself, I remember those days, haha!

I'm sure those days were far different than what the people working in the off-shored AT&T (or whoever actually owns them) call centers experience.  Credible reports I've seen show a miserable workforce that are paid next to nothing, poorly trained and have almost impossible to meet performance metrics that determine if they can keep these lousy jobs.  The #1 priority is call completion which, if things are going poorly, you get lied to so as to get you off the phone, or promised a call back from a supervisor (another lie), or just flat disconnected so you become someone else's problem.