New House with no BT Cables

neilsteph

Hello,

I dont know if anyone has had anything similar to my problem, however any info off anyone would be great.

We have just purchased a brand new house, which does not have any BT cables to it. Therefore, we only have an option of either See The Light or Direct Save Telecom for our broadband and phone.

The problem is that i have currently 9 months left of my Sky Broadband contract, however because the new house has no BT cables, i cannot transfer the Sky Broadband to our new house.

I have contacted Sky and they have said that i would still need to pay a cancellation fee.

My argument to them was that they can't provide a service at the new house, therefore the contact should become null.

Anyone else come across this before?

Thanks

Neil

SeduLOUs

Not really Sky's fault that you chose to move to a house with no BT line though is it?

Why can't you get a BT line installed?

tanith

My brother bought a new house it took BT months to get round to installing lines into the new road..

neilsteph

Its the house builder who has an agreement with other providers and will not allow BT to install there cables.

Its quite a common thing with alot of new build houses now.

No, i agree its not their fault there is no BT cables, however, it still doesnt get round the fact that they are making me pay for a service they cannot provide.

mije1983

You have a contract with Sky for them to provide broadband to your current address. The reason they cannot provide a service to you is because you have chosen to breach the contract.

Usually a house move technically means a cancellation of the current contract and a new contract at the new address. Providers will waive any ETC due in return for you staying as a customer at your new address. Obviously where this is not possible (search for the numerous Virgin threads on the same subject), they will charge you an ETC.

SeduLOUs

neilsteph wrote: »

No, i agree its not their fault there is no BT cables, however, it still doesnt get round the fact that they are making me pay for a service they cannot provide.

They can't provide the service because your actions have prevented them from doing so.

Would you expect to be released from your Sky TV contract if your TV was broken?

I'd approach very gently and politely and try to get a goodwill gesture, but I don't believe that contractually they have to release you.

onomatopoeia99

BT have a universal service obligation placed on them by the Telecommunications Act. I don't see how they could refuse to install a line to your home on reciept of the appropriate payment.

That goes out of the window if you live in Kingston upon Hull.

macman

Direct Save Telcom is a BT reseller, therefore it seems logical to assume you already have a BT-based line installed. Sky should be able to take this over and offer you an LLU service, asuming they are LLU on your exchange.
If not, request a new line from Sky, which BT OR will provision-almost invariably using the existing line.

iniltous

There is a USO on BT but they cannot go onto private land, and until the local council adopt the roads and footpaths then BT have no right of access to them, so in other words the delevoper can lock BT out and do an exclusive deal with a provider of their choice, also when the council do adopt , OR may chose to use telegraph poles to provide service as retrospectively digging up the road and paths is more expensive than poles

Vampgirl

The good news is that you now have fully a future-proof FTTH internet service - the most up-to-date technology available.

We also live on a new development where SeeTheLight are the the only provider. Lots of people seem to think its the developers locking out other providers: its not. The fibres are owned by a company called Independent Fibre Networks - I guess the developers went with them because getting Openreach to do anything takes forever.

IFNL are open access - which means any provider can use their network subject to setting up a wholesale agreement and building an interconnect, but at the moment only Seethelight (IFNL's own retail arm) and Direct Save Telecom have done this. There is no exclusivity agreement - its just a commercial decision on behalf of the big players (its not worth their time/expense of connecting to IFNL). Eventually as FTTP/FTTH becomes more mainstream and/or IFNL connect more homes to their network the other suppliers should hopefully start to become available as they build interconnects - but it going to take time.

BT are highly unlikely to deploy a secondary network alongside what is already installed - it wouldn't be cost-effective. They can meet their USO by building an interconnect with IFNL. But even if/when they do this, you still wouldn't be able to use Sky: they currently only offer Sky Broadband (ADSL) or Sky Fibre (FTTC) and you can't run either of those products over a 100% fibre circuit. Sky don't have a FTTH product yet.

If you're interested in more detailed background reading there's minutes here: http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/.../Ofcom_New_Build... from an old Ofcom meeting in 2008 where IFNL (and other network operators) were explaining that one of the main problems they have is attracting other telcos to use them to provide retail services.

As an aside - did they not tell you about this before you got the house? We asked about internet provision when we reserved our house and were told that the only available ISP was See The Light - so when our Sky contract expired we made sure we didn't renew it.

zaax

Such is the level of complaints from customers in the same situation that Openreach has introduced a webform https://www.openreach.co.uk/newhomes for new-home owners if they are experiencing delays. Luckily for the company, almost all complaints have to be made through customers’ internet service providers, so they are not logged as complaints against Openreach by the regulator, Ofcom; instead the helpless ISPs have to take the hit in the official customer-complaints stats.