In reply to a post by yarwell:

were you fully unbundled before ? Sky or TT take people on without MACs at all,

Because the procedure when taking a line from WLR/SMPF to LLU MPF is different. Quite a few (BTW) ISPs get in a tangle over that and charge the leaving customer a cease fee, as they see an ADSL cease for it, even though (normally) Openreach do not charge the losing ISP.

... so if BT were able to start an order without one I wonder if they need one anyway.

That's quite common. PlusNet and several of the resellers do it. It enables punters to get ISP and cashback offers that are expiring, but the order is not placed on Openreach by the ISP until the MAC is produced.

I ordered infinity 1, BT also installed a fibre phone there which I didn't know about.
BT does not need a MAC number if this is installed, because you are on a different phone system, and cant have adsl as there is no wire connection if you are put on
FTTP.

Sounds like you are on FTTP, rather than the more common FTTC

So presume your phone is plugged into Tel1 socket on the openreach modem

Is a MAC required for FTTC / WLR takeover of an LLU line ? There are diagrams of all these processes but I can't find the relevant one. It's not required for SLU returning to BT but that's more of an oddity.

.... found the spreadsheet. No MAC required.

OTA2 doc states "Do not advise the customer to acquire a MAC to migrate
service when they have an MPF - based service � No MAC
required for any migrations to/from MPF"

Is a MAC required for FTTC / WLR takeover of an LLU line ?

MPF no. SMPF yes. The case in point appears to be MPF.

(I know you get this right later in the post, but someone without knowledge could get confused).

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

It may be possible if they invoke a lost/missing tag procedure, i.e. how to cope with a broadband provider that is not following by the rules and trying to hang onto a line against the rules.

From what has been said, sounds more like a call centre where people are aware their jobs have a limited lifetime, so maybe don't care anymore.

Does the price of the acquisition of O2 Broadband by Sky depend on the actual number of users/subscribers? If it does, the higher the number the more O2 will get in the transaction.

I had exactly the same problem when I moved from O2 to BT in March. BT's online system would not accept the MAC. I spent the whole of the following morning on the phone backwards and forwards between O2 and BT! BT's Indian call centre is a nightmare, and the occasional conversation with their UK one wasn't much better. The MAC non-acceptance is a BT problem, which they obviously haven't sorted since I had the problem 3 months ago.

RobertoS is exactly right. There was nothing wrong with the O2 MAC. It was issued by BT Openreach anyway, nothing to do with O2. O2's handling process is automatic, nobody transcribes it manually. Whilst valid (30 days), the Openreach system will not issue another.

Eventually BT's UK call centre sorted the order, but not before they had given me an 'engineer install' date which was nothing of the sort. It came and went and nothing happened. But their Indian call centre told me it was showing as having been installed! Even more wasted hours on the phone to BT. Eventually BT's UK call centres sorted it, but not before I had threatened to cancel the order, and this time the engineer installed it on the agreed day,

In reply to a post by johnb2008:

RobertoS is exactly right. There was nothing wrong with the O2 MAC. It was issued by BT Openreach anyway, nothing to do with O2. O2's handling process is automatic, nobody transcribes it manually. Whilst valid (30 days), the Openreach system will not issue another.

But a member of staff from an ISP has told us he sees invalid MACs supplied by O2 customers wanting to leave O2 every single day.

I wonder if it is a pre-existing Sky system issuing the O2 MACs now, not an O2 one.

They must have had one, to use for their own non-LLU customers. If they are using that, and haven't modified it for O2 customers, then that could be the problem!

LLU MACs (as in O2/BE and Sky SMPF) are a different format from BTW MACs.

Sky's system obviously works for their own customers, but if they have ported over the O2 Broadband and Home Phone customers as if they were non-LLU instead of their actual SMPF LLU, maybe it could issue such customers with invalid MACs.

Then of course there are some O2 WLR/BTW customers.

That does assume a corresponding flaw in the Openreach system, as it should be that which decides the type of MAC to issue.

We need to be finding out exactly what O2 products the ones with incorrect MACs have, and the same for MACs that work.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 30-Jul-13 00:38:16)

Interested in this thread...
I'm an O2 LLU broadband customer (been with BE ever since they enabled my exchange and then moved over to O2 for discount), but have always kept the phone service with BT retail. Will be moving over to BT Infinity as soon as Openreach decide to turn my cabinet on, so fingers crossed O2 generate the correct MAC for my SMPF line when the time comes!