How can my sister get broadband?

sheep-ali

My sister lives in a rural area when there are very few options for broadband provision. She decided to go with Plusnet because although she has TalkTalk for her phone, they do not provide broadband in her area.
Everything seemed fine with Plusnet giving her a start date then nothing.
Contacted Plusnet who said there was a bit of a delay but they would look into the problem and gave another date........ Nothing.
Contacted Plusnet again who then said there was a problem with capacity but no further info.
We have now found out that she is on a DACs system so she called BT who operate the whole system but they said they could do nothing and she should call TalkTalk but the exchange and the lines are all down to Openreach.
She is sure that TalkTalk will not be interested because they know that she will be leaving them because they cannot give her broadband.
Any ideas/suggestions on what to do next ?
Thanks.

System

She is between a rock and a hard place. She is Talktalk's customer so BT will not do anything about the DACs on her line at her request. Talktalk can ot provide broadband so there is no reason for them to ask BT for its removal, they are providing the service they are being paid for.

The only real option is to move away from Talktalk to maybe Plusnet and they should be willing to get the DACs removed to allow them to provide broadband

brewerdave

Presumably the reason that she has DACS on the line is that there is a shortage of phone line capacity on the exchange/local cabinet -so no ISP will be able to remove DACS unless a spare non DACS line is available -I suspect that is why PN are struggling!

sheep-ali

!!!!!! wrote: »

She is between a rock and a hard place. She is Talktalk's customer so BT will not do anything about the DACs on her line at her request. Talktalk can ot provide broadband so there is no reason for them to ask BT for its removal, they are providing the service they are being paid for.

The only real option is to move away from Talktalk to maybe Plusnet and they should be willing to get the DACs removed to allow them to provide broadband

She was planning to move everything to Plusnet but they basically gave her no information and just said that there was a capacity issue and were delighted when she said that she wanted to cancel her order. I think they reckoned that it was going to be more bother than it was worth.

sheep-ali

brewerdave wrote: »

Presumably the reason that she has DACS on the line is that there is a shortage of phone line capacity on the exchange -so no ISP will be able to remove DACS unless a spare non DACS line is available -I suspect that is why PN are struggling!

All of this came to light when I was looking to see what was available to her after the problem with Plusnet. It was then that I found out about DACS - I had never heard of it before. We knew that every time she had a problem with her phone line , her neighbour was similarly affected but no explanation was ever given.

bryanb

sheep-ali wrote: »

She was planning to move everything to Plusnet but they basically gave her no information and just said that there was a capacity issue.

Sorry but they did give her the information - There was a capacity issue. Your own words.
Perhaps more accurate to say she did not understand the problem.

teddysmum

Last year, I wanted to take Tesco's broadband and phone, but due to capacity, they could only offer one service and this is within a largish city.


However, two weeks after I went elsewhere, both services were available; then not, so availability must depend on customers leaving. (One year on and both services are available, on going.)

sheep-ali

bryanb wrote: »

Sorry but they did give her the information - There was a capacity issue. Your own words.
Perhaps more accurate to say she did not understand the problem.

Fair enough comment but as a very non-techie person " a capacity issue " meant absolutely nothing to her, especially when none of the other villagers had ever had any problem getting internet access.

iniltous

DACS has nothing to do with exchange or broadband capacity, but is used when there is a local lineplant capacity problem, if you only want telephony with a DACS line there is no problem, but DACS and broadband cannot exist on the same line.
The Service provider, Talk Talk or Plusnet or whoever need to order broadband and it generates an enquiry to OR to see if the DACS can be removed, if it can be removed without costing the earth , then it will be, if the costs are prohibitive , in the order of thousands of ££'s then OR would advise the ordering CP that unless they contribute to the amount the DACS removal will cost , the order won't proceed, but to even get it looked at an order for broadband has to be made, if the OP's chosen provider won't start the ball rolling, by raising an order then pick another provider who will....there is no point calling BT (retail) unless they are who you want broadband with, you can't speak to Openreach directly as they deal with service providers not end users (consumers) and it's OR's DACS that's on the line not 'BT's'
Digital Access Carrier System (DACS) two PSTN telephony lines down one physical pair of wires

sheep-ali

iniltous wrote: »

DACS has nothing to do with exchange or broadband capacity, but is used when there is a local lineplant capacity problem, if you only want telephony with a DACS line there is no problem, but DACS and broadband cannot exist on the same line.
The Service provider, Talk Talk or Plusnet or whoever need to order broadband and it generates an enquiry to OR to see if the DACS can be removed, if it can be removed without costing the earth , then it will be, if the costs are prohibitive , in the order of thousands of ££'s then OR would advise the ordering CP that unless they contribute to the amount the DACS removal will cost , the order won't proceed, but to even get it looked at an order for broadband has to be made, if the OP's chosen provider won't start the ball rolling, by raising an order then pick another provider who will....there is no point calling BT (retail) unless they are who you want broadband with, you can't speak to Openreach directly as they deal with service providers not end users (consumers) and it's OR's DACS that's on the line not 'BT's'
Digital Access Carrier System (DACS) two PSTN telephony lines down one physical pair of wires

Thank you for that very clear explanation. She is going to see if BT will provide her with broadband and see how she progresses there. She really needs access as she is chair of her local Community Council and people want to contact her by email nowadays.

brewerdave

sheep-ali wrote: »

Thank you for that very clear explanation. She is going to see if BT will provide her with broadband and see how she progresses there. She really needs access as she is chair of her local Community Council and people want to contact her by email nowadays.

If its only email then there are still providers of dial up access using 0845 numbers ??