Broadband Outages - can a previous provider sabotage your connection?

Samjay2

I wonder if someone who works in the Broadband industry can tell me if my suspicions of a practice whereby a provider that you have left can intermittently switch on their link to your line so as to disrupt the link to your current provider is justified.

Now, I left a well-known Broadband provider a year ago. I was out of contract and had been paying an increased monthly fee due to this, but the terms meant I could leave when I was ready without penalty. When I did decide to leave they tried to say I could not, but after weeks of back and forth and me sending them a copy of their terms they agreed I could.

I took a partial fibre Broadband contract with new providers(so still have the BT copper wire to my property) as a number of providers said they did not provide full fibre to that address – although I pointed out that others in my building and next door had full fibre from the company I contacted. The partial fibre, although it went live, if took about another 4 weeks before I had a broadband signal, and I suspected it was because the previous provider had spitefully left their connection on so it would disrupt the new connection. Eventually I got Broadband, but it has gone down intermittently dozens of times over the last year, sometimes 20 times in a day. Open-Reach and my providers have been out to fix it at least 6 times, both outside and inside my property, it has worked for a few days, then the intermittent outages start again. Then on 1st April 2026, April fool’s day, exactly a year after I left the previous contract, it went down completely and has not been operational since.

Once again, are pervious partial-fibre broadband providers able to disrupt the signals of new providers.

Thank you.

MattMattMattUK

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6662565/broadband-outages-can-a-previous-provider-sabotage-your-connection

No, they are not able to interfere with your connection.

Keep_pedalling

The answer is no.

iniltous

No , in short what you suspect is nonsense, if the new provider is using the same network (so for example moving from BT to Sky on Openreach ) , the act of connecting you to Sky disconnects you from BT , and if you are moving networks, so for example leaving Sky on Openreach and joining Vodafone on City Fibre , there is no way the old network can interfere with the new network.

oldernonethewiser

You need to keep at your current provider to sort out whatever the fault is, it has nothing to do with your old provider.

QrizB

Once again, are pervious partial-fibre broadband providers able to disrupt the signals of new providers.

No, they are not.

oldernonethewiser

"Once again, are pervious partial-fibre broadband providers able to disrupt the signals of new providers."

I am sure instructions for tinfoil hats are available online.