Disconnecting a Service

[ohforgawdsake2]

Ok a while ago we had another exchange line added to our house whilst working for a company.  The wiring for this new phone+ broadband line was sent over unused wires in the existing cables from the telephone pole.  At the same time our residential broadband speed dropped from 60Mb to 50Mb.

We stopped working for that company and they sopped the contract that paid for the phone+broadband.  However, the line still has a dial tone on it and according to the line checker still has a number allocated to it.  Our broadband speed has still dropped.  

How can we get Openreach to make the second line dead?

[Keith_Beddoe]

@ohforgawdsake2 

I doubt very much that the drop in speed is due to that "stopped" line. Its more likely that more customers have been added to the cabinet, causing an increase in crosstalk.

Stopped lines are not normally disconnected unless the cable pair is needed for another customer.

You could ring BT, and quote the number of the unwanted line, and they should be able to tell you whether its still showing as active.

[iniltous]

Its quite normal for lines that are no longer required to keep a ( soft ) dialtone, provided as stopped line , although unlikely in your case , the principle being that should the line be required again, it can be easily returned to service , broadband is different, the chances are the broadband service that was on that  ‘line’ is no longer there , it potentially is still physically connected but not ‘live’ or ‘powered’ so should be having no impact at all on your remaining line and broadband at all.

Post your existing service router statistics, it’s possible that there is a defect on your line , unrelated to the previous second line .

You cannot ‘request’ a stopped line be made into a ceased line ( removing the soft dialtone ) but it could happen organically, if part of the stopped line were needed for other provision or repair purposes then the soft dialtone would simply, disappear, but I doubt that in itself would improve your broadband performance 

[ohforgawdsake2]

Hi what's a 'soft dial tone' ?
Where do i get my router stats from?

[imjolly]

If you use the sh2 then go to hub manager then advanced settings then technical log information- not the logs

[iniltous]

Typically if someone moves out of a property having  informed  their provider the date service is to end, on that day the Telco performs a stop/renumber  ( rather than ceasing the service ) this changes the number on the ‘line’ and replaces regular dialtone with a  ‘soft’  dialtone , that only allows certain types of calls  , to the emergency services , customer services etc,  it would not allow calls to any chargeable numbers ( any call attempted to these would return number unobtainable or an announcement ) , the idea , as well as indicating  that the line is still connected to the exchange for any new occupant  , allows a quick ‘start’ of the line , so if the new occupant should require service over the ‘line’, it’s quick to arrange and there shouldn’t  be an ‘installation’ fee associated with this type of order.

Should a new occupant order a new service on the stopped line , a start /renumber  order would return the line to regular dialtone ,without needing a visit from OR to the property,  the renumber portion of the order possibly giving the new occupant the phone number they had at their previous address.