How to migrate from Utility Warehouse in new home?

My parents are moving home in about a month.

The existing owners of the new home use utility warehouse for their broadband. It is a very slow area in general which is disappointing. The address is no. 3; BN207TW. I would love fast fibre.

How can I go about getting the fastest connection without a break in internet where I lose connectivity for a period?

And who should we go for? I am planning on getting Sky Q so is Sky worth it?

Thanks!

Most people moving out will terminate their connection. Get your parents to make sure they do, as they almost certainly can't take it over anyway. If it is still connected it won't work as you won't know the username and password, and would be fraud anyway. Getting it terminated so your parents can start from scratch can take a while.

Regarding speeds, the FTTC estimates for that address are:-
VDSL Range A (Clean) 5.8 3.3 1.2 0.8 -- Available --
VDSL Range B (Impacted) 5.8 2.3 1.2 0.5 -- Available

Usable but not brilliant, though a lot of people with similar estimates get a lot more. Some of course get well down inside the range.

You'll have to ask Sky if they would supply on those estimates - better still just enter the details into their web site here and now and see what it offers! Sky FTTC has a good reputation.

The existing owners are not relevant what-so-ever and nor is their provider.

The way it works, your parents need to setup a new service in their name. Openreach will provision the service on behalf on the ISP, this means the date it goes live will be pretty much the same regardless of the provider.

Openreach usually need around 2 weeks lead time. IE if I order a new service today at my address with Sky, BT or TalkTalk, it would not go live until the 30th. I just checked for my address - that said I am London based so the lead times may be longer than your area. The go live date would be the same across all ISPs and is based on openreach availability. Even sticking to the same ISP as the existing owners would make no difference, as their service would be terminated, and yours activated separately.

In summary, there almost certainly will be some downtime. It is just the nature of it when you move property and it generally cannot be avoided, just minimised (ie ordering before you move in).

Usually the easiest method is to ring your existing provider and inform them you are moving home. IE if you already have Sky, ring Sky and they will transfer the current service to the new property (assuming the same service is available at the new place). They will provide you a activation date when you place the order (usually a couple of weeks in future).

EDIT: The process is simple. You just ring a provider you want to take services with and place an order. Utility warehouse is nothing to do with you, and as such, you should not contact them.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Sun 14-Aug-16 00:07:04)

On a different subject to the other responses it is almost guaranteed there will be some time with no Internet. If some days/weeks without is going to be an issue then worth looking at seeing if you can be a 3G/4G MiFi device and a payG data SIM. If you can get reasonable mobile data coverage then this can provide a decent solution to tide you over (as long as you keep an eye on downloads - especially disable automatic updates on devices as these can eat download allowances).

Alternatively you might have tethering on your mobile contract which could do the job.

Sky have told me that the copper estimates are up to 11Mbits and fibre is up to 6Mbits.

Does that make any sense? I understand the exchange may be closer than the cabinet but surely I wouldn't get slower from fibre than adsl?

It seems odd:-

VDSL Range A (Clean) 5.8 3.3 1.2 0.8 -- Available --
VDSL Range B (Impacted) 5.8 2.3 1.2 0.5 -- Available --

WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 2.5 -- 1 to 4 Available --
WBC ADSL 2+ Annex M Up to 2.5 Up to 0.5 1 to 4 Available --

I'm not aware of them being able to get data any different from what this one gives. It is Rochester Close isn't it?

Yes 3 Rochester Close.

I went for the unlimited fibre but why would BT give them different figures?

Then again I believe if you look at 4 & 5 in the same road they show around 20mbits on fibre.

No 4 doesn't, but 5 does, as you say. 6 drops down again.

Very odd.

Re why would BT give different figures from Sky, that was what I was querying in the first place. The point being that the FTTC estimates as far as we know come from Openreach and are just picked up by the others.

I did wonder earlier if Sky had a couple of customers there, one on ADSLx and one on FTTC. So they had actuals to go on. That is a possibility, if BT Wholesale just pick up the actuals but Sky look at their own customer base as well. If you see what I'm getting at.

Have you asked the current occupiers? Or number 5?

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 16-Aug-16 00:08:38)

In reply to a post by Spinstorm:

Does that make any sense? I understand the exchange may be closer than the cabinet but surely I wouldn't get slower from fibre than adsl?

Unfortunately, it can happen for some people.

VDSL2 (as used by FTTC) can give a much higher top speed, but it degrades down to zero at a much shorter range.

For *most* people, they are within a decent range of the FTTC cabinet (less than 1km) while being quite a range from the exchange (more then 2-3km), which makes FTTC beneficial for almost everyone.

In your case, a fibre estimate of 6Mbps puts you perhaps 2km from the cabinet - perhaps in the worst 2-3 percent of the country in terms of FTTC line length (ie D-side only).

In reply to a post by Spinstorm:

Then again I believe if you look at 4 & 5 in the same road they show around 20mbits on fibre.

It is also possible for the estimates to be wrong (either for you, or for no. 5). Sometimes, the best you can do is try it.

In reply to a post by Spinstorm:

Yes 3 Rochester Close.

I went for the unlimited fibre but why would BT give them different figures?

Then again I believe if you look at 4 & 5 in the same road they show around 20mbits on fibre.

It makes no sense, they all get the data from the same place, so speed estimates should be relatively similar across all providers.

It is also very weird that the neighbours are showing different speeds, as it appears to be same cabinet.

EDIT: Removed incorrect cooling off advice

Edited by ukhardy07 (Tue 16-Aug-16 13:26:50)