Line issues

Jay666t

Has anyone had issues where someone else has taken the line that should be for ypur property?

My sister in law has moved into my old property. Which is a maisonette. Below is a drs surgery.
When i was living there i had standard broadband which was part fibre.
Since i vacated there my sister in law moved in. For the past 4 weeks she has tried to get FTTP put in by 4 different providers. 

However the line assigned to the maisonette for FTTP has been installed in the drs surgery below and they have basically 'stolen' the line. And sadly she can not even get part fibre. We have been back and forth with both the providers and Openreach via their chat, both are saying there is nothing that they can do other than registering the maisonette as a new address. 
The openreach engineer has also confirmed that the surgery shouldnt have 2 lines as they are using and that one of these lines should be fore the maisonette. And sadly there no more free space on the pole to add another line. We suspect the second line may have been gained with the surgery supplying false information. 
Does anyone have any suggestions in what to do and how we can get the line back? 

Eldi_Dos

Jay666t said:

Has anyone had issues where someone else has taken the line that should be for ypur property?


 We suspect the second line may have been gained with the surgery supplying false information. 
Does anyone have any suggestions in what to do and how we can get the line back? 

1; Lines are not reserved for a property but allocated as a new subscriber takes up service.

2;How do you suspect that ?

3; Is the property registered as the same address as Dr's Surgery ?  If so register as a new address as has be recommended.

Jay666t

Eldi_Dos said:

Jay666t said:

Has anyone had issues where someone else has taken the line that should be for ypur property?


 We suspect the second line may have been gained with the surgery supplying false information. 
Does anyone have any suggestions in what to do and how we can get the line back? 

1; Lines are not reserved for a property but allocated as a new subscriber takes up service.

2;How do you suspect that ?

3; Is the property registered as the same address as Dr's Surgery ?  If so register as a new address as has be recommended.

Thanks for that. 
Understandable on point one.
We were told by the openreach engineer that the serial number on the grey FTTP box on the outside matches the one registered for the residential property above and not the surgery.

No they are 2 seperate addresses just same building number different letter at the end 

Jay666t

Eldi_Dos said:

Jay666t said:

Has anyone had issues where someone else has taken the line that should be for ypur property?


 We suspect the second line may have been gained with the surgery supplying false information. 
Does anyone have any suggestions in what to do and how we can get the line back? 

1; Lines are not reserved for a property but allocated as a new subscriber takes up service.

2;How do you suspect that ?

3; Is the property registered as the same address as Dr's Surgery ?  If so register as a new address as has be recommended.

Also for point 3 the openreach engineetlr stated if a new line was to be put in there is no space on the pole

iniltous

Generally speaking , when an area is surveyed for FTTP (this is Openreach policy, presumably the network in question is Openreach ) , the demand ( the size of the network to be provided ) is calculated on a ‘one service per dwelling’  basis….if addresses are correctly registered (so no unofficial letting of rooms above shops for example )  , but a proper ‘flat’ with its own utilities, council tax etc will get its own space in the network provided it is a valid address registered with the Royal Mail .

You can check here , 
https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL/AddressHome

There should be a separate entry for both the flat and the surgery, post the entire result for both addresses .

You can have a situation where someone uses the wrong address when they order and it causes issues , so if for example , if there was No1 Coronation St , and a separate entry for Flat 1 , No.1 Coronation St and the flat occupant was sloppy and picked the wrong entry (or the ISP made the mistake) it  wouldn’t stop the installation , the customer simply says to the installer ‘ put the ‘line’ in the flat’ , the installer wouldn’t care the address was slightly off , but it would make it difficult for the genuine occupant of No.1 Coronation St . to order service themselves in the future as the records would look like they already had service.

In your case , if you think the surgery needed more than one service and deliberately ordered using the flats address to get around the ISP saying you already have service there,  is not much that can be done about that , no one can simply take their service away , TBH there is a way to get multiple service into one single address , it’s a multi port ONT which can ‘run’ upto 4 services out of one connection .

Post the information asked for , as at the moment it’s just speculation 

Vitor

It sounds like a database error rather than deliberate “line theft”. The FTTP port meant for the maisonette has probably been wrongly tagged to the surgery below. That’s why every provider is blocked from ordering.

Ask one ISP (preferably BT) to raise an ORDI (Openreach Data Integrity) request with Openreach to correct the address and reclaim the maisonette’s port. Mention the engineer’s note that the surgery has two lines and one should belong upstairs.

The “no room on the pole” isn’t your problem, if Openreach can’t reassign the existing port, they must schedule extra capacity. Don’t agree to “register a new address”; that creates long-term postal and billing issues.

Eldi_Dos

Jay666t said:

Eldi_Dos said:

Jay666t said:

Has anyone had issues where someone else has taken the line that should be for ypur property?


 We suspect the second line may have been gained with the surgery supplying false information. 
Does anyone have any suggestions in what to do and how we can get the line back? 

1; Lines are not reserved for a property but allocated as a new subscriber takes up service.

2;How do you suspect that ?

3; Is the property registered as the same address as Dr's Surgery ?  If so register as a new address as has be recommended.

Also for point 3 the openreach engineetlr stated if a new line was to be put in there is no space on the pole

It is a long while since I have had any dealings with this but Fibre cables came in multiples of either 4 or 8 fibres per tube.So if there is only a 4 fibre coming from the pole to property it could already be used up with two circuits in service. If that is the case it should just be a case of running another cable (dropwire) from pole to your flat.

If they are saying there is no spare fibres from pole back the way I find that hard to believe so early in the run out of FTTP,and would say that is a case of bad planning by the planning office, how you would resolve that I do not know.

Jay666t

This the the details for the maisonette above:

and here is the drs

The drs already had FTTP installed last year when i was a resident at the flat.


So now they have 2 grey boxes on the outside, another issue that has arisen is since that they had this 2nd one installed, the general standard copper line has been disconnected from the flat as well which means my sister in law cant even gat part fibre either to the property. I moved out and 8 weeks later, she moved in, so in that space of 2 months this has all happened. When she places an order with the ISP the drs kick off because its kicked their provider off, then they put their provider back on, and the ISP cancels the order. 

So yeah at present she is stuck in limbo and currently using mobile data to do her work as well as the kids home work and any streaming for the TV. 

Its getting frustrating as ive been in contact with the communications ombudsman and also ofcom regarding this, both have said to take it to court

iniltous

So it confirms ‘officially’ the maisonette already has service even when in reality it doesn’t ( indicated by the line on the checker showing - ONT exists with active service ) the same as the Doctors Surgery.

FWIW 2 grey CSP boxes on the outside is to be expected, to give the surgery some credit it’s possible it was the ISP they used for the second service that messed up  , because they didn’t know how to arrange a multiport ONT so both the existing and new service could coexist, they deliberately used the wrong address for the order (because it’s so similar) as it’s an easier process , and assumed the installer wouldn’t care that the address on the job said  ‘maisonette’ when the customer contact said put it in the surgery and not the maisonette.

Once FTTP is available then not being able to order copper FTTC products is also to be expected.

Something unusual is the max speed available is only 330Mb , indicating this was a very early FTTP rollout as it’s older ECI kit , thats why  the wrong maximum speed is shown , but that’s not really a current problem for the OP’s relative unless they want faster than 330Mb , they obviously want service of any speed .

As far as how to proceed , unfortunately there are no easy options, TBH, I’d be suspicious that whoever said there were no spare ‘ports’ at the pole was correct , take up in mature FTTP areas is on average 50-60% , so you would need to be unlucky if every  port was now used , that would mean every address  that could be served with FTTP from the pole , is now on FTTP from Openreach , no one still on copper pairs , no one on Virgin Media or any other network , no one using just a mobile , it’s possible just not likely.

If the local network is full ( and there is a note saying an order for a new ONT will be put in the ‘waiters list’ , that’s people waiting for a port to open up ) , I’d try ordering a second ‘new’ line into the maisonette ( knowing there is no first line ) even if it can’t be fulfilled , Openreach may get informed that the FTTP network needs extra capacity in that area , obviously your relative needs to say it’s a second new line because the system thinks a first line is already there and you don’t want to interfere with the surgery again even though their 2nd service has the maisonette’s address .

The choice of ISP for your relative is important , cheaper  ISP’s are clueless order takers with no real technical knowledge , they generally don’t do anything that needs understanding, tenacity or intelligence, thats why they already tried to takeover a working service at the surgery, try a good ISP that will understand the issue , but good ISP’s tend to also be the expensive ISP’s .

A final option , fill in this formwize 

https://www.openreach.com/forms/fibre-broadband-availability---customer-form

There is a section basically saying neighbours can get FTTP but I can’t , this also gets Openreach to investigate the network however as stated , no one can simply take away the surgery’s extra ‘line’ and give it to your relative even if the surgery are the cause of the problem 

Jay666t

Thanks for the information.
Well there has been a development from the sister in laws side of things she sent an email to the surgery manager
In a nutshell the reply recieved was 
Due to the demand of service we required a second line and used the maisonette as the previous tennat (myself) was still using the old telephone line for their broadband.

So now what? Anyone got any suggestions? 'Cos they are admitting liability there. 

iniltous

A convoluted solution that requires the surgery to ‘drive’ the change , it will also cost them ££’s , that is they approach their ISP , assuming both lines are supplied by the same ISP , they ‘cease’ their second service , this free’s up your SIL address for her to order service herself….a problem will be because the maisonette address is shown as served , she would have to order it accepting that no visit will be arranged , as it’s assumed the ONT exists and just needs a router connecting to it  , she then reports it faulty after the switch on date  , ( your SIL asking the surgery to unplug the ONT from that line so it shows faulty when tested )  ….when the tech turns up to repair the line , she explains  the issue , the tech diverts the line from the surgery into your SIL maisonette, possibly asking the surgery to let the tech remove the unplugged ONT and fit it in the maisonette that gets your SIL  working with the address correct matching the ONT serial number etc .

Not your problem , but the surgery then  orders  a second line again ,this time  using their own address , and the order if their ISP knows what they are doing includes a engineer visit to convert the first line ONT into a multi port ONT , the first (existing) service  is put on port 1 of the new multiport ONT  and the new service put on port 2 ( so they don’t need two separate lines from the pole )  , their  existing single fibre line handles both services via the multiport ONT ……this obviously requires the surgery to do the majority of the work but also needs your SIL to understand that they will not have a straight forward installation either