Possible fibre checker problem

Hi all, first post here so bare with me if I do something wrong.

Basically my issue is BT are telling me I'm not able to get fibre. If I put my phone number into any of the checkers it tells me its not available even though my parents who live across the road have it, and my neighbour to the left has it. On my side of the street they are terraced houses all built in 1937. I don't know my neighbours phone number but if I put my parents number in the checker it tells me fibre is available. The thing is if I put just my address in the openreach where and when page it tells me fibre is available and taking orders. But when I put my number in its not available. It appears that my house is connected directly the the exchange. Is it possible that this is a mistake on the database, because I find it hard to believe that mine and my neighbours house would be connected differently, even though they're connected to the same telegraph pole outside the front of my house. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

In reply to a post by dantalton:

Hi all, first post here so bare with me if I do something wrong.

Basically my issue is BT are telling me I'm not able to get fibre. If I put my phone number into any of the checkers it tells me its not available even though my parents who live across the road have it, and my neighbour to the left has it. On my side of the street they are terraced houses all built in 1937. I don't know my neighbours phone number but if I put my parents number in the checker it tells me fibre is available. The thing is if I put just my address in the openreach where and when page it tells me fibre is available and taking orders. But when I put my number in its not available. It appears that my house is connected directly the the exchange. Is it possible that this is a mistake on the database, because I find it hard to believe that mine and my neighbours house would be connected differently, even though they're connected to the same telegraph pole outside the front of my house. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

I note that you've posted on the BT community forums too and you were advised to take this up with the respective ISP you wish to take service from, if they want your business it's up to them to contact Openreach/Wholesale to find out why. They should be able to get an answer as to whether it's a records problem or down to line length.

Ultimately, there is a boundary where either one cabinet starts and another ends or where lines go from being EO lines to lines connected to a cab. Sometimes, that's 100s of metres apart, sometimes you might find next door neighbours with one served by a cab and one by EO line.

Indeed it has been known for next door neighbours to be served from different exchanges and I recall at least once I have known a customer have two lines in one property, served from 2 different exchanges. While these scenarios may seem hard to believe, the nature of the Openreach network mean they do occur.

As you mentioned in the post on the other forum, you're on the same cabinet. Your line could be 2-300m longer than that of your parents which may mean that you're too far away to achieve a connection on VDSL (the technology FTTC uses) .

What does the checker say for your house and that of your parent when using teh number?

The very first line which reads: Telephone Number 01nnnnnnnnn on Exchange EEEEEEEEEEEEEE is served by Cabinet 7

Cut and paste this for both properties.


Yes, there is a possibility you have a direct exchange line and your parents do not. Yes, there is a possibility that there is a database error. You will also need to find out a few more phone numbers on both sides of the street and try those.

Thanks for the responses, this is the first I've posted about my problem so you must have me confused with somebody else. I've recently renewed my contract with BT who I intended to stay with, as at the time the person on the phone told me 1 system was telling him fibre is available to me, and another was saying the opposite. He was going to call me back but hasn't. (this was around 4 weeks ago). I've called BT back numerous times but they just don't seem to want to even look into it.

The results you requested are:

Mine
Exchange name: Billingborough
Exchange status: Fibre enabled

Technology: Pending - EO Line

My parents across the road
Exchange name: Billingborough
Exchange status: Fibre enabled

Cabinet number: 2

Technology: FTTC

Its understandable for my parents to be connected differently as its a much newer house. Its my neighbours that concerns me as the house are in a terrace and built at the same time. I can physically see mine and theirs phone line going to the same telegraph pole which only goes off in 1 direction, heading towards the nearest cabinet on the next road. I will have to see if they'll give me their phone number or at least run the test for me tonight after work.

Thats the reason it won't let you order, it believes your line is served by an EO (exchange only, no cabinet) line.

You are going to need to try and get several numbers in the terrace and see what it says.

If you try the ADDRESS checker variant and only input the postcode it will return a list of addresses. Select the houses in the terrace from that list and see what is reported for each one. Not perfect but will give an insight.

Yes that's what I thought. My question is, is it possible for 2 terraced house to be connected differently, one being straight to the exchange and the other to the cabinet, making me very unlucky. Or is it more likely a mistake on the database. Obviously I don't know every ones phone number on my road, but I have put all the addresses into the where and when open reach page and they all come back with accepting orders and connected to cabinet 2 (the same as my parents which is confirmed using their phone number).

Thanks I'll gather as many as I can without risking looking weird and put them through. Ill start with my neighbour as I know they currently have fibre.

Apologies, your initial post is almost identical to a post on the BT forums from yesterday, I put 2 and 2 together and came out with 5

As I mentioned in my above post it is possible you and your neighbour are served differently, although it's equally as possible there's a records issue. I believe the only way to get this resolved is via physical engineer inspection. I think someone posted something similar recently where they had an engineer visit due to a line fault and he fixed something a the cabinet and confirmed to the customer they were 100% served by a cabinet despite the checker showing them as EO. I'm not sure on what the outcome of that was or how you'd go about getting an engineer visit to confirm without paying for the visit.

I to came across that post while researching yesterday and thinking about it, it is quite similar I've contacted open reach through the form on their website but I fear I may be waiting a while for a response. I shall try calling BT again, but its very hard to get them to do anything about it. The last time I called they told me I needed to get off the phone quickly because another advisor was going to call me back in 2 minutes. Never happened.

I suspect for something like this you'll not get very far using the standard sales channels. You may need to escalate this, possibly outside of the standard sales realm.

If you could identify that both of your neighbours were served by the cabinet, this would give you quite a strong case to have it confirmed whether your line is indeed EO or if it's a records issue.

What sort of speeds were your neighbours line showing? Was there much variation or were they all similar? And you can confirm that only your house was showing as EO.

If that is the case, then it might be an error, however, it could still be true. Yes, adjacent properties can have different cabinets and EO lines.

I will have ask both neighbours either side for the numbers. That should give me enough to be able to determine if they're both connected to cabinet 2 rather than the exchange and what sort of line speed they can get right?

It is entirely possible for one house in a group of 20 to be an EO line, they will be some historical reason for this.

The main hope is that it send pending, which means a change is in the pipeline.

Update: Managed to find my neighbours phone number (to the right) and it says
accepting orders, connected to cabinet 2.

Downstream High 65.8mbps Low 45.3mbps
I will update with my other neighbours results.

I thought there is always a chance that it might be true that I am EO, I'm just really hoping its a mistake.

Use this checker, as you haven't mentioned it, just the Where and When one.

This is the one MHC referred to a bit ago.

First see what it says, including the line above the estimates table where it may or may not give a cabinet number. Then try the same with the address option of the same checker. What the line above the table says is important re cabinet number in both cases.

As MHC said, with the address checker, if you just enter the postcode and submit, it will give you a dropdown list of the addresses in that postcode, and makes it easy to check them all quite quickly.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Use this checker, as you haven't mentioned it, just the Where and When one.

This is the one MHC referred to a bit ago.

First see what it says, including the line above the estimates table where it may or may not give a cabinet number. Then try the same with the address option of the same checker. What the line above the table says is important re cabinet number in both cases.

As MHC said, with the address checker, if you just enter the postcode and submit, it will give you a dropdown list of the addresses in that postcode, and makes it easy to check them all quite quickly.

Ok, so I've used that checker to check every single house on my road using the address checker and they're are all served by cabinet 2(including mine oddly enough)

I've got 5 phone numbers in total from the street and checked all those.

Mine: on Billingborough exchange

My neighbour to the right: cabinet 2

Parents directly opposite: cabinet 2

House about 5 doors down to the right: cabinet 2

My place of work next door to previous house: cabinet 2.

Basically they all say cabinet 2 except mine. And the downstream speeds are all 65is high 45ish low.

Were they all on Billingborough, or just yours?

Do you have a neighbour on the left, or are you the end terrace/street?

Yes sorry they're all on the Billingborough exchange served by cabinet 2. There is 3 more houses to the left before the street ends. I'll hopefully have my neighbour to the lefts phone number tonight to do the checks but they are the ones who I know already have fibre.

If you can email [email protected] with your full address and telephone number (is it a Sky or TalkTalk service?) then can take a look and will pester Openreach directly if this looks like an error.

The checkers are not infallible and faults more often occur where old EO lines have been moved to cabinets.

I have emailed you. Thanks

Ok so I've got next door (to the left) to use the same checker as posted earlier. It turns out the served by cabinet 1 (still Billingborough exchange) despite when I checked earlier using just the address it said cabinet 2.

Using the phone number in the one I gave, you mean? What estimates did it give for FTTC?

Yeah In the checker you linked to. 28mbps high and 19mbps low, actual speed test results average around 30mpbs according to my neighbour. They are with plusnet.

Edited by deleted (Wed 20-Jan-16 20:11:52)

In reply to a post by dantalton:

Ok, so I've used that checker to check every single house on my road using the address checker and they're are all served by cabinet 2(including mine oddly enough)

So you've definitely got some kind of records problem - because the data for the property and the phone number don't match up.

I ordered FTTC about 15 months ago, as part of a house move. The line required a survey ... and the surveyor put the wrong cabinet number in. It took 4 months for my ISP to get Openreach to update the records, and get the FTTC order completed successfully.

It needed an ISP willing to put a lot of effort in; a named contact at the ISP so I didn't have to explain the complication again and again; escalation through BTW into Openreach; An openreach engineer assigned a task for a "pair prove" that identified all the connection points in the DP, cabinet and MDF; and a specific team in Leeds to update the equipment database (likely called ROSE).

It also took a procession of Openreach engineers who were tasked with other things (like making a connection in the wrong cabinet) who couldn't do a thing. The pair prove was also done twice - so one occasion didn't trigger an update. Every engineer - from the very first one - could tell the wire went to a different cabinet, and reported this back. But getting the records changed was nigh on impossible!

You need someone very friendly and capable at your ISP - preferably via UK staff, and preferably not first-line phone support staff. Some of the people manning BT's own forum will be in a position to help...
https://community.bt.com/t5/BT-Infinity-Speed-Connec...

Otherwise, you could try asking the Indian support staff to let you talk to someone in the UK, or call one of the numbers that gets you direct to UK staff.

Of course, once someone has checked your records ... and corrected them ... you might still be EO. If that is the case, you could try asking for a copper re-arrangement. That might be expensive, and is best left until you turn out to need to consider it.

Failing all that ... beaming point-to-point wireless across to your parents might be necessary!

The checker has been prodded after a prod of the right people in BT Group and matches for address and telephone number with FTTC availability.

Excellent!

How hard is it for you to get someone to check?

It seems like there *ought* to be some route for ISPs to query this kind of database integrity issue in the same way as you manage to do it.

Thank you so much for your help. I've rang BT and they confirm I can now get fibre. I'm just currently in an argument with them about the price as they're now refusing to give me the January offer which was on when I renewed my contract, even though they told me I would be allowed it when they'd sorted the problem out. but never the less I want to thank all who contributed advice for getting me this far. I doubt I would have got anywhere with BT.

Its a couple of emails for me, and in theory should be the same for providers as the same relationships are possible.

In this case its talking to people when I get out to the rare PR event, providers have their own closed events where contacts can be made in addition to their usual escalation paths.

In reply to a post by dantalton:

My parents across the road

Technology: FTTC

Just set up a WiFi link with them and use theirs.
Two old satellite dishes and two WiFi dongles and set them up to face each other.

Sorry to revive this thread but my problem is back and I was after advice. Initially after the problem was resolved and my number came back with fttc available on the BT wholesale check I called BT to let them know and they agreed and offered to upgrade me. We have been having an argument over the price since then as I was promised infinity at the offer price it was at when this whole thing started. They've finally called me back today saying the same thing they did at the start, no fibre available at my address. I've been back onto the Adsl checker and a check with my line has come back with no fttc available. So I'm back to square one and was hoping somebody here might have an explanation or advice for me. As BT couldn't even give me a reason why it's not available.

Probably best to email me again and can look at checkers and do the prodding once again, suspect a manual change was put in place, but has been overridden by an automatic update of data.

On the broadband offers, some of their deals are only available to online orders, so would need to know details of the offer and might try prodding that side of things too, i.e. need to be very clear about what the deal you want is such that order goes through as soon as checker is good.

In theory those in the backroom at BT Retail (and other providers) should be able to do this sort of prodding, but getting to those people is the difficult part.

I've emailed you. Thanks for your help again.