moving to new house next week. has 2 lines. which 1 to use ?

Hi. Curious one.
The house we're moving into on 23rd October has two phone lines.
One is their business line, and they will be 'taking the number with them', and that line doesn't have broadband on it. This means I can't place an order in-advance for broadband on that line without a number. That line has better stats on the Openreach checker, but they have no actual service on the line to verify those stats against though.

The second line, their non-business line, for which they won't be "taking the number with them", happens to be the one that they currently have broadband on. The stats look worse for that, and if I am reading the "observed speeds" correctly, they switched from 9.3mbps VDSL back to 6.4mbps ADSL in January this year probably due to it being massively below the hand-back rate.

What to do ? I'm tempted to request a new line install or install on whatever is left of the business line after they have taken the number with them. I will be going with Plusnet probably. That would mean no order in advance, and tethering for two weeks. Ouchy data-burn.

Here are the stats:
https://internetsomething.com/newhouse/lineWithBroad... (that line actually has broadband, and they aren't taking the phone number with them, so I could place an order with Plusnet now, which would go live in approx 2 weeks usually).

https://internetsomething.com/newhouse/lineWithoutBr... (the business line.. I can't do anything with the phone number, they're taking the number. there is no active broadband on that line though.)

Both sockets physically go into the house.
The only other thing I'm not sure about is the 'Bridge Tap: U' (does U mean Unknown ?)

I will of course strip out all internal wiring and make good as much as I can, on my (customer) side. I am an IT pro (who isn't ) and have an idea what I'm doing.

Also, I've been waiting over a month for an FFTPoD quote from Cerberus. Last time I chased (~20 days in), they said it should have come around about then, and would probably be in the next batch. Well that was maybe 3 weeks ago, I can't remember.

I have been really hoping that the reason for no FTTPoD quote coming back is because it's rural, and is close to some towns that are on the fibre priority programme, i.e. an announcement is coming.. but the openreach checker just says it's not part of the current fibre priority program.

Thanks,
Carl

Edited by deleted (Wed 14-Oct-20 11:04:43)

As you will be ordering a new service by address only there's no way to choose in the order which line you wish to use.
They are just estimates anyway and can be inaccurate.

Looking at the 1st estimates you posted.
It contains a line "max observed downstream speed".
Despite the 30Mb estimate (17Mb minimum) they only actually sync at 9Mb.
A lazy switch back to ADSL rather than getting the issue fixed.


If an engineer attends the property to enable FTTC you could ask them to use 1 line over the other, but you won't know which is better as the engineer will be highly unlikely to run back and forward to the cabinet to test both for you.

A couple of my neighbors FTTC estimates are above mine but my line syncs a good bit higher than all of them.
Don't take too much notice of the estimates. Both those lines will probably run within the same cable and will probably perform very similar.

It looks like their in home wiring is causing issues resulting in a low sync which could also be bringing down the estimates for the live line. They are only estimates.

Edit: an FTTPoD quote would be returned with a rejection if your property is in a current rollout plan.
Sometimes due to poor record keeping of the local ducting and routing an FTTPoD desktop quote will come back at unable to quote.
If that's the case you need to drop £250 on a survey to get costs.

Have your tried an address check instead of a number check?

Edited by j0hn83 (Wed 14-Oct-20 11:29:07)

Yeah address checker is all I had been using up until finding out their phone numbers yesterday. Shows the same stuff pretty much.
Postcode is CW6 0TE. Mara Cottage.

I would assume that there's no real performance difference between the two lines and the low sync rate is down to internal wiring or a fault that is impacting both pairs of the current line.

Don't worry too much about which pair gets used to install your service on - if the sync is low then troubleshoot that, and with only one line in use it will be possible to swap to the other pair if necessary anyway.

Yeah. OK. Sounds right. Although swapping to the other pair would require cooperation of a visiting Openreach engineer after I raise complaints/faults etc.

But I agree you are both probably correct it being internal wiring quality. It's an old house, early 1800s I think.

My only other concern now is signing up to too long of a contract with PlusNet, should FTTPoD come at a reasonable price (ha!).

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

As you will be ordering a new service by address only there's no way to choose in the order which line you wish to use.

Well, there kind of is. I can supply the number of the line that they are not 'taking with them', and then I know for sure the service is going on that line. This is the line with the poor VDSL service that has been downgraded back to ADSL.

What I can't do is choose the 'other line'..

That only works if you are keeping that number.
Unless you want their number and they are happy to give it to you that isn't really an option.

They are both likely to perform very similar though, i wouldn't worry about it too much

Edited by j0hn83 (Wed 14-Oct-20 12:20:42)

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

That only works if you are keeping that number.
Unless you want their number and they are happy to give it to you that isn't really an option.

They are both likely to perform very similar though, i wouldn't worry about it too much

As explained above, they are not taking that number. I don't care what the number is, so it will be that number. I could place an order with PlusNet now with that number.

In reply to a post by jpm:

I would assume that there's no real performance difference between the two lines

I agree: I would treat those two speed estimates as identical. The estimates are updated when a line has (or has had) service on it.

I've seen this on my own line. The previous property owner didn't have VDSL; BT wholesale checker estimated 6-8M upstream. I took VDSL service, got only 5M upstream; soon afterwards the estimate then dropped to 5-7M. I've also seen the estimates reduce further when there was a fault on the line for a few weeks.

About five years on, speeds are lower, presumably due to crosstalk. Currently my upstream sync speed is 3.3M, and checker range is 3.4-5.1M (clean) 2.9-5.1M (impacted). Downstream sync has also dropped from 30-35M to ~24M.

Happily I have a business FTTPoD though

Your service provider should be able to see both lines at your address. They would also be able to see if there is a cease order open on any of the lines i.e. when the current occupiers asks for their number to be moved. Your provider can issue a Working Line Takeover order and order broadband. The date it goes live will be governed by the cease order.