Possible FTTP install, but BT have wrong postcode

Hi

Does anyone know the best person/department within BT to get a post code issue sorted. The business I work for has a postcode that nearly every mapping software/website puts in a housing estate about 2.1 miles away rather than the business park we are in. The postcode is question is PL254FD. The postcode to the buildings closest to us about 30 to 50 metres away, can order FTTP with no problems at all. From my office's front door i can see the road side bt manhole cover where the fibre chamber is (about 15 metres away). I've tried ringing BT to try to explain but keep getting told my postcode must be wrong.

Thanks

Andrew

UK's post code is operated by Royal mail, I believe - it is them you need to get on to get it right.

Nick

I would be emailing the CEO of BT group explaining the situation, others have had to do this in the past to get the issues in BT's database corrected.

You can get the email address from here

Or you could simply try placing an order using your immediate neighbours postcode.

Have you tried your telephone number in the BT Wholesale checker

If you have an active phone line then its checking if that number can order FTTP.

If the number check is not coming up sensibly, then I'd suggest the super fast cornwall team, who being local may have better knowledge about oddities with retain areas

There is a parallel postcode database I believe.
I suspect most of these problems occurred when British Telecom came out of the GPO.
I would use the ADSL Postcode checker with your neighbours postcode, you'll find the buildings listed against that postcode (you should hopefully find the one you need).
Then use that postcode against the order.
Otherwise, if you check the BT bill, it might even have the "technically" incorrect postcode on it.
It's basically a case of, if the postcode doesn't match the one on the BT system it won't accept it.
It has nothing to do with Royal Mail as I understand it.
cheers,
flipdee

I've tried a few different telephone numbers of businesses which appear to be on the same estate, one on cabinet 4 (sure it was 4 but can't remember the number I tried now) can get FTTP, and then there is one (SG) on cabinet 43 which can't, and another (NFU) on cabinet 43 which can get FTTP.

Certainly some database inconsistencies there.

Edited by R0NSKI (Mon 17-Feb-14 20:19:25)

There is always a possibility of diverse cable routing.
I have seen some occasions where the first premises connected in a town gets an exchange only line and everything around it is connected to a cabinet (although we are talking significant years between connections.)

Edited by deleted (Mon 17-Feb-14 20:23:27)

Evening Andrew

You have got the correct Postcode, judging by the Royal Mail Postcode to Address Finder-

http://www.royalmail.com/postcode-finder

B R E National Solar Centre, Unit 1, St. Austell Business Park Carclaze, ST. AUSTELL, PL25 4FD
Crest Accountants LLP, Unit 11, St. Austell Business Park Carclaze, ST. AUSTELL, PL25 4FD
Ethical Power Ltd, St. Austell Business Park Carclaze, ST. AUSTELL, PL25 4FD
Nuco Mailing Ltd, St. Austell Business Park Carclaze, ST. AUSTELL, PL25 4FD
S G Accountancy, Unit 12, St. Austell Business Park Carclaze, ST. AUSTELL, PL25 4FD
St. Austell Printing Co, St. Austell Business Park Carclaze, ST. AUSTELL, PL25 4FD

------------------------------

It appears that the mapping companies have it wrong, showing a group of houses immediately to the WEST of that small Industrial Estate.

If you Click on the RM Addresses above in that Finder, it comes up with-

"The map of the postcode you have searched for is currently not available."

Suggesting that the Industrial Estate is relatively recent - 5 years old or thereabouts.

------------------------------

Most of the mis-labelled houses face on to the passing main road, Trenowah Road, with a dead-end lane going in behind from their eastern edge (with the Industrial Estate) to a few other houses.

At present, I have not found a name for that lane.

The west-most of those houses appears to be-

Google Earth Streetview

2 Trenowah Road
ST. AUSTELL
PL25 3EB

And its Map appears automatically on the Royal Mail Postcode site, but the Pin is just across that Trenowah Road, probably about the middle of the Royal Mail Delivery Walk defined by that Postcode.

=========================

The above should give you the means of sorting out the confusion.

You should also confirm the Postcode at any of the Premises on that Estate already on Fibre; and try to obtain other information such as the PCP/Street Cabinet Number that his existing Phone Line comes through.

Also take photos of those cabinets and screen captures from the above Web Sites.

Do you have a neighbours postcode?
http://imgur.com/u0iwKx1
That's all BT have for that postcode.

Quite a popular town for "business parks".

Edited by deleted (Mon 17-Feb-14 21:53:09)

Can I clarify, are you in the Business Park or the Enterprise Park?
Can I ask, what is the company/unit called? feel free to PM if you don't want it public knowledge.

No, Andew s the person you should contact.

I am some 500 miles north of the location/

Agreed ...

BT can do a manual change to their database and it will stay for a while. Royal Mail issue a PostCode update file on a monthly basis which may not change any manual updates however on a regular basis a full sanity check will be run or a PostCode reload and that tends to overwrite manual changes.

When I am up in Scotland I live at 1 Xxxxxxxx Lane South and in the village there is also Xxxxxxxx Lane North - the Post Office insists on calling both of them Xxxxxxxx Lane - confusing as there are then two No 1s and they share a post code. The road signs have North and South on them, Google Maps Streetview shows the signs. The address gets changed on BT and other systems, then a few months later the South disappears, so round the loop again and it is with a large number of companies.

Get Royal Mail to sort it out - or you will have problems with many others too.

All of the information below is from Public Domain sources - just in case anyone is wondering.

Acknowledging you are using the downstream version on BT, here are the Source Version contents on the Royal Mail Postcode Finder-

Search by Street Name to Postcode

* Alan Davis Automatics, Sage House Wheal Northey, ST. AUSTELL, PL25 3EF
* Bay Mailing Ltd, 6 Wheal Northey, ST. AUSTELL, PL25 3EF
* Boxes Clever Ltd, Holmbush Business Centre Wheal Northey, ST. AUSTELL, PL25 3EF
* Dougfield Plumbing Supplies, 2 Wheal Northey, ST. AUSTELL, PL25 3EF
* European Lifestyles South West, Holmbush Business Centre Wheal Northey, ST. AUSTELL, PL25 3EF
* Frost Builders Ltd, Holmbush Business Centre Wheal Northey, ST. AUSTELL, PL25 3EF
* Mike Best Auto Components, 5 Wheal Northey, ST. AUSTELL, PL25 3EF
* North Hill Homecare, Holmbush Business Centre Wheal Northey, ST. AUSTELL, PL25 3EF
* Phoenix Corporate Gifts Ltd, 6 Wheal Northey, ST. AUSTELL, PL25 3EF
* Wheal Northey Surgery, 1 Wheal Northey, ST. AUSTELL, PL25 3EF


Search by Postcode to Address

* Alan Davis Automatics, Sage House Wheal Northey, ST. AUSTELL, PL25 3EF
* Bay Mailing Ltd, 6 Wheal Northey, ST. AUSTELL, PL25 3EF
* Boxes Clever Ltd, Holmbush Business Centre Wheal Northey, ST. AUSTELL, PL25 3EF
* Dougfield Plumbing Supplies, 2 Wheal Northey, ST. AUSTELL, PL25 3EF
* European Lifestyles South West, Holmbush Business Centre Wheal Northey, ST. AUSTELL, PL25 3EF
* Frost Builders Ltd, Holmbush Business Centre Wheal Northey, ST. AUSTELL, PL25 3EF
* Mike Best Auto Components, 5 Wheal Northey, ST. AUSTELL, PL25 3EF
* North Hill Homecare, Holmbush Business Centre Wheal Northey, ST. AUSTELL, PL25 3EF
* Phoenix Corporate Gifts Ltd, 6 Wheal Northey, ST. AUSTELL, PL25 3EF
* Wheal Northey Surgery, 1 Wheal Northey, ST. AUSTELL, PL25 3EF


I searched both ways, looking for consistency, within the Royal Mail facilities; and as can be seen, it is present.


------------------------------------------

I have also extracted Phone Numbers, if available, for the Businesses above, from 192.com.

Then used the Line Checker on-

http://windows.mouselike.org/be/?DoAction=BrasChecker

Where Phone Numbers are available, the Distances to the St Austell Exchange, WWSAUS, are consistent with one another, allowing that the Wheal Northey Estate's main North-South axis is about 350 Yards, the Exchange Distances ranging from-

2292 Yards, People 2000 Ltd, 1 Wheal Northey
to
2650 Yards, Mid Cornwall Hub Par Ltd, 2 Wheal Northey
(Does seem strange, with regard to their Street Numbers!)

and those in the Holmbush Business Centre within Wheal Northey are all 2650 Yards.

One falls outside of this consistency in that it is one of the special "out of Geographic Area"?? Numbers, going direct to the company's Head Office in Redruth.

I have not found any PCP Cabinet Numbers; but the consistency and total quantity suggest that there is only one such cabinet.

From Samknows-

https://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/WWSAUS

BT Wholesale information
ADSL status:
Enabled as of 31/03/2002
ADSL Max status:
Enabled as of 05/01/2006
SDSL status:
Enabled as of 21/08/2005
21CN WBC status:
Enabled
FTTC status:
Available in some areas

One Whealey North line appears to have ADSL, 5.55 Mbps Download and 0.83 Mbps Upload.

Dougfield Plumbing - Number 2
People 2000 - Number 1

I'm still a little confused as to which business/address you are interested in?

Take a look at the first posting in the series, by Andrew/Andew.

He is the person concerned and affected.

I am trying to help him, as I have some experience of trouble-shooting in the electronics and telecommunications fields; and also on some occasions, Postcode problems.

Incidentally, I have just found that there are at least two PCP Cabinets for that Estate/Postcode-

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/btwchecker.htm

Cabinets 25 and 33.

That's odd, when I put numbers in for businesses on the estate last night I came up with PCP 4 and PCP 43, I'm at work at the moment on my tablet so can't be bothered to recheck.

I may be missing the point entirely, but if you have a working BT phone line, won't this eliminate any postcode issues?

From that they can determine the PCP cab, and the fibre length to be run.....right?

Cheers,

AP

The mystery deepens!

I have just gone through the list of Phone Numbers as appeared on 192.co.uk, with some of those confirmed by other sources.

11 including FAX and 2nd lines came up with Cab 25

1 Primary line came up blank; but I found another number on the Web for the same company, came up Cab 25.

Only 1 came up for Cab 33; and my impression is that company has moved to Par, so it may be the Par line on Cab 33, also on WWSATS

------------------------------------------

Cab 25 (and Cab 33) came up each time with FTTC, so I wonder if Andrew's problem is that he has asked for FTTP, as in his heading.

Specifically the two lines-

FTTC Range A (Clean)................Available

FTTC Range B (Impacted)...........Available

------------------------------------------

It may be he is in the same, ironic position as I will be shortly when the local FTTC is completed.

The FTTC Cabinet is 25 Yards by theoretical, typical geographic, routing from my NTE. (Ie not as crow flies.)

The existing PCP is 55 yards further away, across the local road.

BUT the actual copper routing from the PCP is almost 200 yards from the PCP to my NTE.

So in effect, the FTTC Copper Extension will give a total copper routing on FTTC of about 255 yards, to cover 25 yards!

Just a suggestion, the last company I worked for moved into a shiny new building and publicised the postcode as being "abc". A simple check using the Post Offices "what is my postcode?" checker showed that it was really "xyz". Some bright spark in admin had decided that, to accompany the PO Box nbr in the address, they'd use the post code of the local post office. Honest. I had more than one baffled, would be visitor telling me that their sat nav had taken them to a shabby looking post office and where am I? After a bit of nagging common sense prevailed. Sound like you might have something similar?

John

In reply to a post by JHo1:

Some bright spark in admin had decided that, to accompany the PO Box nbr in the address, they'd use the post code of the local post office.

The bright spark in admin was actually correct.

The postcode of the PO Box is allocated by Royal Mail and is the postcode where the box is held. My local delivery office has something like a dozen postcodes one of which is it's own and the rest are for the PO Boxes held there.

Hi

I'm actually in the st austell business park which is the PL254FD postcode. The st austell enterprise park is right next to the business park, postcode for there is PL254EJ. I'll get some photos on friday when i'm back at work (got a few days off). What makes thing complicated is that BT's line check says nothing for the either postcode, but if you check the phone numbers of the companies in the enterprise park, fttp is available and most have it.

Regards

Andrew

You can't go by postcode only, it gives inaccurate results and doesn't mention fibre products. You need the address checker or number checker for most accurate results.

Correct as far as the postal address goes but not very helpful to anyone trying to travel there and putting the postcode into a satnav.

John

Postcodes can cover a fairly large area and therefore use a centroid. Most satnavs use address based coordinates and so should be more accurate - and probably have their own versions of postcode databases to draw these locations from.