New Build Council Rented

New query, quite new to posting in Forums so thought I would ask here first. I am currently a Sky FTTC Customer and currently only able to utilise the "up to 36 MBps" package at our address.

The new build we move to in the New Year has phone socket already installed. The new street seems to have two serving green cabinets, and has already seen plenty of visits from Openreach traffic.

My brother in law moved into one of the first available upstairs flats at tail end of November, and placed an order for Phone line only on 25/11/2015. Told by BT that he would have engineer visit on 16/12/2015 between 8am and 1pm, but that has not happened.

Bt stating that it is being dealt with by "the line plant team" or "line-planting team" something like that anyway. They should have a further update on 24/12/2015. However, this means 21days plus 8 since placing order and no visit by Openreach.

The burning question we have is, how long do Openreach have/take to install a working phone line in a new property that seems to have cable running from it to cabinet in street? I assume the delay is in getting the cabinet connected to the exchange, but are there guaranteed standards they work to? A timescale for the maximum amount of time would be good.

I just hope that by the time we move in end of January those cabinets are wired and accepting orders for phone and broadband. Thankfully, we wont have to pay the £65 being charged by BT as we are with Sky, and they have already confirmed they will cover the cost of this for us.

I saw an article stating that as of April 2016 OFCOM have ruled OR have a maximum number of days to get a new phone line installed, but currently there seems to be no timescales. Asking the Forums now for any shared experiences of ordering phone line on new builds.

Thanks in advance

Almost no guarantees for new build areas as depends on so many variables e.g. as many new builds are still on private roads Openreach has to ask for permission to do work, i.e. the usual Ofcom code powers don't apply. Hence why getting a council to adopt a road makes a big difference for many things.

Does anyone else have a working telephone line yet there? i.e. are the two cabinets up and running for voice services?

Another issue may be location in the UK, as the flooding damage may mean some staff are working in the North West on repairs as a priority rather than new builds.

Ofcom have set target percentages for lines to be completed within N days (N is fixed, but I can't remember the number off the top of my head). The percentages are in the region of 70%-80%.

If you are one of the lines that fall outside the N days, then you are classified as part of the percentage who didn't get done. But there is no mandate for when you *should* get done.

Ofcom noted that there is a lack of incentive on BT to complete the work, once you have gone past the Nth day, so tasked Openreach to provide figures for how many properties remained unconnected after N+1 days, N+2, ... N+30 days etc.

However, there is no target deadline for when Openreach should finish any of these connections.