Waiting for fibre for 2 months

Hi all,
I'm in the process of moving to a new flat, I ordered talk talk fibre broadband (63-75mb) and was given the green light, i.e property can handle it, good estimated speeds etc.
4 days before the day they are meant to activate it, they advised I cant have fibre broadband and my order is being rejected due to " no DSLAM ports" . They advised me to find another company.

I went through the same process with Sky and they are now saying the same thing, except it keeps getting pushed back. 2 months later, still no update.

We cant get virgin in my area so this appears to be the only option. Open reach check online appears to FTTC and says there is no problem. I live in a block of flats, neighbours dont have any problem. Please can anyone advise? Should i quit and go with another open reach company?

We are working from home, so internet is a must, Hotspoting of my phone is unreliable.

If you put your details in here does it says "waiters list" or something similar?

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

Edited by gary333 (Fri 28-Aug-20 18:06:25)

Thank you Gary for your reply.

It says the following, some are items are available:


Featured Products Downstream Line Rate(Mbps) Upstream Line Rate (Mbps) Downstream Handback
Threshold(Mbps) WBC FTTC Availability Date WBC SOGEA Availability Date
High Low High Low
VDSL Range A (Clean) 80 77 20 19 71.7 Available Available
VDSL Range B (Impacted) 80 74.1 20 19 67 Available Available
Featured Products Downstream Line Rate(Mbps) Upstream Line Rate (Mbps) Downstream Range (Mbps) Availability Date FTTP Install Process
FTTP on Demand 330 30 -- Available --
ADSL Products Downstream Line Rate (Mbps) Upstream Line Rate (Mbps) Downstream Range(Mbps) Availability Date
WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 17 -- 10 to 19.5 Available
WBC ADSL2+ Annex M Up to 17 Up to 1.5 10 to 19.5 Available
ADSL Max Up to 7.5 -- 6.5 to 8 Available
WBC Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available
Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available
Other Offerings Availability Date
VDSL Multicast Available
ADSL Multicast Available
FTTP is not available.

For all ADSL and WBC Fibre to the Cabinet (VDSL or G.fast) services, the stable line rate will be determined during the first 10 days of service usage.

Actual speeds experienced by end users and quoted by CPs will be lower due to a number of factors within and external to BT's network, Communication Providers' networks and within customer premises.

The Stop Sale date for IPstream is from 31 Jan 2013. The Formal Retirement date for IPstream is from 30 Jun 2014.

In order to be eligible for handback, downstream speed should be less than Downstream Handback Threshold values.

If you decide to place an order for a WBC fibre product, an appointment may be required for an engineer to visit the end user's premises to supply the service

Thank you for your interest

You've probably caught it at a time when there are spare ports, get your order in now

My order is already in, i placed it with sky 2 months ago and it’s still outstanding.
The check was the same then as well.

What specially am I looking for in that BT availability link? Is it FTTP? Because right at the bottom it says it not available

When you are talking about "fibre" I presume you mean "fibre to the cabinet / VSDL"

The bit of interest is

VDSL ... Available Available

which means you should be able to place an order for FTTC.

Are you *sure* your Sky order is still open? Talk to them about it. Or cancel it and order from somewhere else.

Thanks for your reply, you’re correct, I mean fibre to cabinet.

Yes it’s still open, I spoke to them today. They said the issue is open reach, they contacted them and they said they will provide an update on the 1st September. This is the third tome they have done this.

I’ve already cancelled with one provider and gone with another (talk talk and then sky). I really don’t want to risk it by doing it again and then ending up further back in the queue.

Is there a safe way to try another provider without cancelling sky? Every isp (except virgin media) day fibre is available, but as a couple weeks after they signing up, they postpone and give me the capacity issue chat.

Probably an issue in openreach availability data showing available ports but they are either non existent or there is an issue with them. Which cabinet is it?

I’m not sure which cabinet it is to be honest, sorry. They said it is a green one lol?
How can I find out?

It should be at the top of the page where you got the above fttc availability from

It’ll says something like “exchange adwick cabinet 3”

Oh sorry! It says:

Exchange ST ALBANS is served by Cabinet 77

Thanks

It would say "waiting list" instead of "available" if BT Wholesale thought the cabinet was full.

So shall I ditch sky and go with bt?

Are you searching by phone number? Normally this is the best approach, but to check for waiting list try searching by address instead.

When my cabinet became full, search by phone number showed "available" but search by address showed "wait list". However that might be because VDSL was already active on my line.

In reply to a post by jayutd123:

So shall I ditch sky and go with bt?

Is BT letting you order it? If so then definitely worth placing a order with BT and see what happens - but be prepared for the possibility that the order may eventually fail with BT as well.

There is a problem with remaining ports in the cabinet which needs to be resolved. Cancelling and re-ordering wont make any difference

or there is a problem with cablelink from your chosen ISP - iy you pay all your money to an ISP and dont play your line rental seperately you are LLU's that means you are unbundled at the exchnager and on sperate rack on exchange - you need a link from your rack to the BT wholesale rack to enable the FTTC to work (that called cablelink and has a certain amount of capacity (if there is none or not enough or your provider needs to buy some more it will show as you can order ftttc (but you wont be able to fulfill it as the issue is not at the cab , its in the exchange between the BTW rack and your service provider unbundled kit) if you pay your line rental to BT still then the above is not relevant

As the OP says on the 1st post the order is delayed due to no available ports . There is a problem in the DSLAM cabinet

if they advised you to find another company that not because there are no spare ports in cab - ports are on a first come first serviced basis - and had there been no ports it woudl not allow you to order in the first place

it because there is an issue ordering from talktalk which will be to do with cablelink

In reply to a post by Fastman3:

if you pay your line rental to BT still then the above is not relevant

I'm sure what you posted is not accurate. It does not matter if you are "full" or "partial LLU" anymore, even BT Retail for voice is seen as "LLU" by Openreach, now they are separate.

However if you paid voice to BT Retail and data to Sky (no longer offered) then Sky would STILL need a GEA cablelink between the Openreach FTTC termination, and the Sky rack. This is not affected by whom you pay voice to.

Simple,it was incorrect advise. Nothing to do with cable link. They tried 2 different LLU suppliers as well. The problem is with the expansion of the DSLAM cabinet.

In reply to a post by Fastman3:

or there is a problem with cablelink from your chosen ISP - iy you pay all your money to an ISP and dont play your line rental seperately you are LLU's that means you are unbundled at the exchnager and on sperate rack on exchange - you need a link from your rack to the BT wholesale rack to enable the FTTC to work (that called cablelink and has a certain amount of capacity (if there is none or not enough or your provider needs to buy some more it will show as you can order ftttc (but you wont be able to fulfill it as the issue is not at the cab , its in the exchange between the BTW rack and your service provider unbundled kit) if you pay your line rental to BT still then the above is not relevant

That is almost all complete bunkum!

1) There is no such thing as LLU on FTTC. There is VULA, an Ofcom specification, and GEA used by all Openreach-based FTTC and FTTP providers is Openreach's product that implements VULA.

2) LLU (Local Loop Unbundling) is "unbundling" of the copper local loop to allow providers other than BT Wholesale to rent from Openreach the copper link to the user. This is not the same thing as the bundling of the phone and broadband services by the CP (Communications Provider). You are confused. A bundle of line rental and broadband from the same LLU supplier still uses the unbundled local loop.

3) The FTTC and FTTP broadband fibre services do indeed terminate on a distribution system at the fibre headend exchange, which is frequently not the same exchange as the PSTN phone service whether or not that phone service is the same CP as the ISP. That termination equipment belongs to Openreach, not BT Wholesale. BT Wholesale have to buy cablelink provision from Openreach in exactly the same way as Sky, TalkTalk, Vodafone, Zen and perhaps a few others these days.

4) The payment or not of line rental to BT (Retail/Consumer or Business) is completely irrelevant.

5) The one place you are nearly right, but in fact wrong in what you say, is that the ISP needs to buy sufficient cablelink capacity at each GEA headend exchange. If they don't, their customers will experience periods of congestion. This is nothing at all to do with the availability of ports at the FTTC cabinet or the provision of a connection to the customer. Congestion can of course occur at other pinch-points within any ISPs backhaul.

I'm unable to search by tel number as I haven't been given one yet - it is a new broadband order. I have tried both talk talk and sky, I'm reluctant to try another as it may put me back to the end of the queue, unless someone can advise the benefits of trying another ISP?

All ISP's that use open reach say broadband is available at my property, but the issue starts when they try to activate it after i have signed up.

I rang sky again today who were in contact with open reach who advised there is still a capacity issue (either not enough space on the exchange or not enough room underground where the cables go through)

Order is on the "waiters" list with Openreach and has been escalated.

ASDL or any other version of broadband will need to go through the exchange, so they can not provide an alternative as it will be the same issue.

So basically still the same rubbish they told me last month.

I appreciate everyone comments so far. I'm really not sure what to do with this. Does anyone have any other suggestions or questions I should ask Sky?

Using this checker, select the Address option. That should work. Also, if you enter just the postcode in that option it will give you a drop-down list of all addresses in that postcode, so you can see what others can get.

Note that the cabinet number just above the table will not necessarily be the same for all.

Regarding FTTC (VDSL in the table), the DSLAM is in the FTTC cabinet near to the phone cabinet. Not in the exchange.

(I assume you just replied to the latest post. My reply about bunkum was of course to Fastman).

Finally - you can rely on anything witchunt posts.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 01-Sep-20 12:01:18)

Hi, thanks for your reply.

VDSL/FTTC is still showing available using the checker. I'll keep checking over the next few days.

Featured Products Downstream Line Rate(Mbps) Upstream Line Rate (Mbps) Downstream Handback
Threshold(Mbps) WBC FTTC Availability Date WBC SOGEA Availability Date
High Low High Low
VDSL Range A (Clean) 80 77 20 19 71.7 Available Available
VDSL Range B (Impacted) 80 74.1 20 19 67 Available Available
Featured Products Downstream Line Rate(Mbps) Upstream Line Rate (Mbps) Downstream Range (Mbps) Availability Date FTTP Install Process
FTTP on Demand 330 30 -- Available --
ADSL Products Downstream Line Rate (Mbps) Upstream Line Rate (Mbps) Downstream Range(Mbps) Availability Date
WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 17 -- 10 to 19.5 Available
WBC ADSL2+ Annex M Up to 17 Up to 1.5 10 to 19.5 Available
ADSL Max Up to 7.5 -- 6.5 to 8 Available
WBC Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available
Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available
Other Offerings Availability Date
VDSL Multicast Available
ADSL Multicast Available

Like I said there is an issue in the DSLAM, possibly due to an expansion which isn't working. Waiting for openreach to get someone out to look into it. Nothing to do with the exchange so ADSL should be available but unless desperate probably worth waiting a bit.

Thank you Witch, you've been very helpful.
It was actually Talk Talk who advised there was an issue with DSLAM, SKY haven't provided much info on what the issue is.

I spoke to them again today, its been delayed for another two weeks.

Sky said, Open reach can not process my order "because there is no where to make me go active. This order will sit on the waiting list until room in the cabinet becomes available for a fibre port."

VOIP (voice over internet protocol) service is what they are trying to provide. Because I haven't been allocated a port, they cant give me a landline number.

Does this additional info help or is it basically the same as what you said previously?

Many Thanks for your help!

Edited by deleted (Fri 04-Sep-20 11:15:36)

Basically it's still at the same position, you are being given review dates until openreach can get it looked at. It will slowly work it's way up the work stack until the job is allocated , hopefully some progress next week.

I'm not sure it's the DSLAM at all if they say they can't provide ADSL either, wonder if it's not the broadband that's a problem but rather a lack of spare pairs into the building the op is in preventing them installing a line.

Sky may have a problem with ADSL availability but that would be a separate issue.

Received my latest update today, wait another 15 days for the next update.

It's getting ridicules now. I don't understand how new people move into my block of flats and already have broadband up and running.

The current broadband order was with Sky under my name. If my other half creates another orders with someone like BT, would that cancel my original order with Sky?

Is it possible to have two orders, one on each of our name to see if one provider is quicker then the other?

Hi guys,

I just had a call from sky, they said the next update will be 1st October.

I’m really pulling my hair now it over this. There’s no meaning full updates, I might have to move out of this flat in 4 months if the issue is not resolved but will be a big penalty to exit the contract. Is there anyone I can speak to find out more info?

Sky said adsl is not available either. I really need broadband to work from home, nut hot spot is not hold up and proving to be very expensive.

Thanks ther people on my block of flats have moved in the past couple weeks and already have broadband.

I cant see an outstanding issue so suspect sky are not following this up now. Maybe now is the time to cancel and try an alternative provider

As witchunt says cancel Sky and try another ISP, what have you got to loose.

I’ve already tried talk talk in the past and then sky. If I try another would it out to the back of the waiting list?

Many thanks?

In reply to a post by jayutd123:

I’ve already tried talk talk in the past and then sky. If I try another would it out to the back of the waiting list?

Many thanks?

Go back and read from the starting all of witchunt's posts within this thread.

Here are some of the posts:

“There is a problem with remaining ports in the cabinet which needs to be resolved. Cancelling and re-ordering wont make any difference”

“Simple,it was incorrect advise. Nothing to do with cable link. They tried 2 different LLU suppliers as well. The problem is with the expansion”

“I cant see an outstanding issue so suspect sky are not following this up now. Maybe now is the time to cancel and try an alternative provider”

So originally witch said re-ordering under a different company wouldn’t make a difference as the issue is with expansion and now witch says try an alternative - I’m confused...

Does witchhunt work for open reach? Is anyone able to see there database to tell if circumstances changed?

Sorry if I Don’t sound thankful, I’m just really frustrated and don’t want to make things worse. Thank you all for taking time to reply to my issues, it’s very kind of you.

The last post from witchunt said 'I cant see an outstanding issue' which has changed from a previous post when witchunt said 'there is an issue in the DSLAM'

So looks like issue may been resolved, but witchunt may want to clarify if youre not reading it the same as me.

Someone has been to the cab in the meantime. Interesting that sky cannot provide ADSL either!

Thanks for your help Witch. I contacted Openreach who said there is no issues, but sky are still dragging it along. Openreach actually said they have no active orders for my address.

I will give BT a try now, thank you for your help.

Hi all,

BT just got back to us today to say there is no space available, they still have a capacity issue.

I'm really confused now, Open reach say there isn't a problem, but Talk Talk, Sky and BT are saying there is...

Still confused how everyone else in our block of flats have access. I also spoke to a random Openreach engineer on the street yesterday, he said if that issue exists, they should place us on an exchange further out, but when I asked BT this, they said it is not possible.

Any help please?

I'm getting 1.6mbps - stop whining.

In reply to a post by kenbowker:

I'm getting 1.6mbps - stop whining.

Unbelievable, I can't believe someone who only registered on the forum on Monday would use their very first post to say this, lets hope you're not here just to whinge yourself.

Hi Witch,

I was wondering if you have any idea what is going on here? BT are advising that we should cancel our order :|

Many Thanks

There must be a data screw up within Openreach. Can only suggest you take it direct to a higher level in openreach or do as BT suggest and cancel until such time as they fix it.

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by kenbowker:

I'm getting 1.6mbps - stop whining.

Unbelievable, I can't believe someone who only registered on the forum on Monday would use their very first post to say this, lets hope you're not here just to whinge yourself.

Just wait till Ken stumbles across the threads where folks are questioning why they can’t get the full 900 Mbps from their FTTP connection...he may self combust in a fit of jealous rage.

Post deleted by RobertoS

To be fair, 1.6mbps is a lot better then 0.

I'm really struggling to find a solutions here. Just been on the phone to BT again today, they said they are waiting for Openreach to increase capacity, there is no date to when this will be completed.

I've tried to contact Openreach, they are in denial and blaming all the service providers...

As witchunt suggested, you need to go higher in Openreach. Frequently in BT Group companies the CEO's office and High Level Complaints team is reached by emailing the CEO.

Here's the link to a page showing Openreach CEO Clive Selley' email address. It's worth reading the link in there that recommends how to compose the email. They won't want a book .

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 29-Sep-20 13:29:02)

Thanks Robertos.

I did email CEO of sky a few weeks back and didn't receive a response, even after a chaser.

I'll give BT a try now. Wish me luck