Open Reach's site says that I can order gigabit but no ISPs they suggest allow me to order it

[Qualia]

So for about a year now people at house numbers 1 to 20 on LA14 *** have been able to order gigabit broadband but the option isn't available for the rest of the street. Throughout this time Open Reach's own availability checker suggested that fibre was available at my address but none of the ISPs they recommended allowed me to order it. I contacted Open Reach to ask where the confusion was. If it was that gigabit wasn't available at my premises or if there was some kind of clerical error in communicating its availability. In response they told me that it was not available and put me on a waiting list to be informed when it was. During this time the Open Reach's site told me that it was unavailable. Two weeks ago I received an email from Open Reach informing me that it was available. And I'm back in the situation that I was previously of having Open Reach's availability tracker tell me I can order gigabit but not being able to place an order for it from the ISPs they list.

I would typically be patient about such matters. But I'm concerned that Open Reach thinks that they don't have to provide fibre to my premises because on their systems it already exists. Is there any way to escalate this issue to people who might have an idea of what is going on? My current ISP's contract expires soon so if gigabit were available over this temperamental mesh network then it would be a huge plus and would return to BT.

Thanks you for any advice about how to proceed ❤️

[mod edit: removed personal details from the community]

[iniltous · Accepted solution]

Looking at the checker for the postcode (and a little spying on street view) , the network is at capacity and new orders would need to wait until additional network is provided ( used No.17 as an example for this check, it  already has a working FTTP line but shows the network status if they wanted a second connection )

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL/AddressFeatureProduct

The telegraph pole that No17 uses has many dropwires but not every address on the crescent is served by this pole , some served from different poles at the rear for example , so this network deficit could be at the pole tops (basically insufficient CBT ports were provided initially even though it’s normally provided on a one per tenancy basis ) or at the splitter node has no room for more CBT’s at any pole  off the splitter ), it’s quite a messy area in that respect , some addresses served from the front , some from the rear , some from a pole on an adjacent road , the capacity set on how the copper network was delivered , some addresses conceivably could get service from a couple of poles but are designed from only one (the one the copper cable came from ) .

This does explain why the two things can be true though  , the ‘street’ does have  FTTP available, ever address can see a pole with FTTP CBT on it , but ISP can’t currently order any new provisions until the capacity has been increased by Openreach because there isn’t a spare CBT port on the pole that services your particular address .

[Qualia]

So Open Reach will be aware of this and it is something they will action eventually, it's just a question of year+ long planning schedules? Or is this the kind of thing that can sit in limbo where Open Reach would need to be funded by ISPs to improve connectivity but there is no guarantee ISPs would be as certain of the importance of providing me with gigabit as I am myself? 🤣

[shakey1981]

may have to wait till the database gets updated if openreach is telling you its ready

try checking your address here

[Qualia]

Yeah. That's the site that has been saying that I can order gigabit for a year or so now, while ISPs like BT's own trackers said that I cannot. So I contacted Open Reach's support desk through that site in early August which they concluded it was not. After which that site briefly said gigabit was unavailable and I could only order FTTC. Then on the 8th of September I received an email from Open Reach saying that Gigabit was now available at my premises and the situation is back to how it had been for a year or so prior.

Is it typical for ISPs to take this long to be aware of Open Reach's progress if they have improved availability to my premises? How much longer would be appropriate to wait to know that this is unlikely the case? Weeks? Months?

[iniltous]

The ISP checkers you can see there is a waiting list situation (as you were already told) .
As far as how long before Openreach will add extra capacity as your individual address can’t order even though the postcode in general shows availability (because FTTP is available there just are not any soare connections) is impossible to answer …..OR may have a group that looks at these things , or they may concentrate of areas with no service and consider ‘waiting list’ situations low priority, no one on here can advise you on that

FYI , ISP don’t fund FTTP rollout or capacity increases, that’s Openreach , it’s clearly in OR interest to add capacity if it’s needed , but how much or a priority it is can’t be known , you may be the only customer that’s ‘waiting’ and hence a poor allocation of resources.

Post the entire return from the link I provided for your  individual address , obscuring the personal info you don’t want seen 

[Qualia]

Ah, I didn't see that option to use an address based lookup at the top. I just saw all the engineering info searches. Thanks. I'll bookmark that site.