It's allocated in near real time to prevent order conflicts.

I'm in the same position, new build and 'waiting list'. Surely there's no need to order a phone line at this stage, especially as I'm never going to use it (ADSL too slow to bother with). I was thinking I could look up the DSL Checker and if a slot becomes available order a phone line and fibre connection at that point.

What could possibly go wrong?!

Thanks.

So if I order my telephone activation (£50 to activate it!!) at the same time as ordering FTTC, a port will be immediately allocated to me regardless of me not actually having an active line at that point?

My understanding from talking with my 'Service Provider' was you get a place on the 'waiting list' once you order fibre on a live phone line. No active POTS line, no place in queue.

The queue, by the way, is as long as a piece of string...

Usually with new builds you need to have an active phone line (possibly ADSL) before fibre shows up in the DSL checker.

Where did you get that idea? i.e. example time

I think this 'Waiting list' is a bit of a unicorn....no ISP seems to use it so it's a bit pointless.

FTTC has shown as available just using the address checker before (pre house purchase) and also via Plusnet's checker, so it seems I can order with no active line....if only somebody would cancel their fibre now so I can!

When I moved into my new build only ADSL was showing as available. After the phone and ADSL was set up and working, in 3 or 4 days the DSL checker started showing fibre was available.

Coming to think of it maybe only an active phone line is needed because the two show houses had monitored alarms so had active phone lines and fibre was showing for them months before they started building my house.

Edited by simon194 (Wed 21-Feb-18 14:17:23)

And where people are searching by address this should not be the case if the VDSL2 is available, have fixed a few cases where this does happen for people though.

In reply to a post by Woolwich:

My understanding from talking with my 'Service Provider' was you get a place on the 'waiting list' once you order fibre on a live phone line. No active POTS line, no place in queue.

The queue, by the way, is as long as a piece of string...

That's incorrect. Can I ask which ISP told you that?

I don't know of any ISP's who use the waiting list now.
The waiting list has also never been an automated process.
They don't automatically take x number of orders after a cabinet is full and put them on the waiting list (as you would expect a waiting list to work).
It was mainly used to put customers on the list if they had lost their port due to an error in the ordering/migration process, which was much more frequent in the early days of FTTC. There will be cases where users have persuaded their ISP to request a place on the list, but it has never been widely used.

I've only known of Plusnet and BT to use it, and Plusnet now no longer use it under any circumstances. BT likely have the same stance now unless there are exceptional circumstances (like losing your current port due to an ISP/OR screw up).