This topic

Broadband Twilight Zone :-(

Mark48 — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 19:45:12 GMT

I'm living a nightmare.

Lets start with a story. Was with SKY, for the sake of this story on their 70M offering. Price rises and a not very good retention deal we decide to move to NOW 70M offering, a week later the NOW order is cancelled by Openreach. Cant really get anything from Now, so order through TALKTALK 70M offering. Again a week later order gets cancelled by Openreach. Manage to speak with TALKTALK and re-order over the phone. Gets installed today and it's the 11M ADSL as we can't get 70M at this address. Spolier alert, we've had 70M since we moved in 5 years ago!

So tonight i've been on various websites so I can cancel TALKTALK only to find they are all only offereing the 11M slower speeds 😞 I've been playing around and varoious other addresses on our small close can get 70m so it looks like some database somewhere has changed or got corrupted. Is this an Openreach issue?

Currently on the phone to BT just so i can cry with someone on the phone and not feel so alone.

Edit: Forgot to add this

Re: Broadband Twilight Zone :-(

licquorice — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 19:49:42 GMT

No, it is because your cabinet is full. As soon as you tried to move your port would have become free and somebody else has grabbed it.

The checker will show 'waiting list'

Edit: Just seen your edited post, it does indeed show waiting list.

Re: Broadband Twilight Zone :-(

NigelB72 — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 19:48:56 GMT

It sounds like you've been TalkTalk'd and they've put you on their standard ADSL offering whereas Sky had you on FTTC.. This sounds like a miss selling issue that you'll need to take up with TalkTalk

Re: Broadband Twilight Zone :-(

licquorice — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 19:50:26 GMT

Err no, there are no ports available.

Re: Broadband Twilight Zone :-(

chrisjp — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 20:15:33 GMT

When people decide to change their broadband supplier (which in a supposedly free market they are fully entitled to do) either they should be warned that they might lose their cabinet port and have to revert to ADSL, or their previous broadband supplier should be required to make the cabinet port available to the new supplier, rather than immediately re-allocating it to someone else.
Why isn't OFCOM insisting on this? Without this provision a free market doesn't really exist.

Re: Broadband Twilight Zone :-(

Mark48 — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 20:19:40 GMT

So, BT have managed to order the 30M option for the property, and say they may be able to up to 70M once this is installed and up and running...

@NigelB72 We have just gone though the talktalk order confirmation email and it does state 11M, but we thought we were ordering 70M as that's was what the web order was and the whole point of the phone call. So probably still sneaky, but we could have checked beforehand.

@licquorice I suppose there is some logic in that, but you would hope that would be explained at time of the new order being cancelled 😞

Cheers.

Re: Broadband Twilight Zone :-(

Keith_Beddoe — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 20:20:52 GMT

@Mark48

Moving to Now caused would have caused a cease and loss of your port in the cabinet which has been given to someone else, so now you are stuck on ADSL.

As this is a BT Retail Customer Forum, and you are not a customer, you will have to choose a provider, accept ADSL, and post on their user forum.

You may have a long wait before a port becomes available.

Re: Broadband Twilight Zone :-(

licquorice — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 20:25:13 GMT

@chrisjp why should an existing customer wishing to change provider have preference over somebody else?

Re: Broadband Twilight Zone :-(

chrisjp — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 22:43:26 GMT

Because he's an existing customer with a currently working service, I would have thought.
It's not much of a free market if the penalty for changing broadband provider can be losing fast broadband and being forced back to ADSL.
The point of separating Openreach from BT was, I thought, to stimulate competion between ISPs. But this definitely is a disincentive.

Re: Broadband Twilight Zone :-(

licquorice — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 08:29:10 GMT

But the guy without a service because there are no spare ports also has an equal expectation of being able to obtain a service. I don't follow the logic that somebody with a service has a greater right to take a spare port than somebody without a service.

Re: Broadband Twilight Zone :-(

iniltous — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 10:31:06 GMT

As stated , if a FTTC cab is full and has waiting customers, why should existing customers hold onto their port as they swap around ISPs , benefiting from Ofcoms rules regarding competition, when the punter without access ( because the cab is full ) , is denied the benefits of competition .

This is a situation where you will always have someone disadvantaged , the ISP swapping customer complains that they lost their port when moving ISP , or the punter that cannot get onto FTTC because those already on FTTC never release their ports.

Either way , no doubt Ofcom were consulted by Openreach , which option do you expect us use , presumably the one in place is the one Ofcom selected.

As far as adding extra capacity, it’s a dead end technology, OR cannot be forced to add capacity unless they feel it’s in their commercial interests, spending potentially thousands ££’s to add capacity for potentially one extra customer when their focus is on FTTP is something OR could rightly refuse to do .