How do i find out who the line provider is in rented house?

My son is moving in to a rented house, house has a master socket in it.

Landlord can't provide any information and says phone is tenants responsibility.

So need to arrange broadband for the property.

How do we establish what state the line is ie disconnected, active, broadband enabled etc?

How do we find out phone number, if it still has one?

Any suggestions on the best, most cost effective way forward?

Dial 17070

When last tenant leaves they should tell their telephone company, and a cease will be done (i.e. so they don't have to pay anymore) and then its just like ordering a connection as if it was a new line, other than easier to activate as the physical line will be present.

Which provider the line was with before should not restrict your choice to order now.

In my view you are requiring too much info. All you need to do is ring the provider of choice.

E.g. say I want Sky, I ring Sky, or go online, and I place an order. You will not know the telephone number so they will ask you for the post code and address and match it up.

At this stage Sky or whoever will let you know whether a new line needs to be installed or not and will provide an activation date. Often providers will install for less than 25 quid.

A router will be posted prior to the go live date and your son just needs to connect it.

The same process applies if I want talktalk, BT, PlusNet etc.

The existing service is irrelevant to you, that is the previous tenants responsibility, their number also does not belong to you. So just provide address.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Fri 23-Sep-16 17:54:21)

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Dial 17070

From that land line in the property.
eg plug a phone in the phone socket then if there is a dial tone dial above.

If he is a student there may be some student broadband deals about.

Edited by APTMAN (Fri 23-Sep-16 18:42:14)

Sounds like it should be straightforward enough. For some reason thought you needed the telephone number to order the broadband, perhaps we did years ago!

I also wondered what would happen if the previous tenants had just left without telling the provider, as they appear to have done with the energy providers.

I'd hope that if someone else placed an order on my existing line it wouldn't complete if i had an active service under a different name from the one trying to place the new order.

Using the old tenants telephone number would actually be fraudulent, as you have to agree you are the account holder of that number to use it, which you would not be. So yep - they just use the address.

What would happen if the previous tenants did not notify the provider... Nothing really. It would have no bearing on the new provider for your son, who would either install a new line or take over the existing one (issuing a new landline number in the process).

If someone placed an order on your existing line, this is what would happen.
The new persons order would be accepted and they would be provided an install date.

Immediately your current provider would send you emails and letters, informing you they have been notified your service is being taken over. You will be given 10 days to contest it and say this is not valid, the current provider can stop the new persons order. The letter and emails will inform you of a day after which they cannot stop the new persons order.

The new person must also pass the ISPs credit check, that is they cannot give fake details and pass & the new account normally has to be linked to a bank account... If they were fraudulent they would be fully traceable. So the likelihood of this happening is almost zero.

So yes, anybody can place an order, but that user must pass the new ISPs credit checks, and you must ignore all communication from your current ISP for it to go through.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Sat 24-Sep-16 00:36:17)

hi, what did you do in the end, just order a new line + BB from supplier xxx?

Yes just put in an order.

They said it needed a 'new line put in'.

There was clearly a line to the house, and a master socket. plugging a phone in got a beeping noise, dialling 17070 made no difference just a beep. So there is clearly a line to an exchange of some sort.

I'm wondering if it was previously LLU perhaps and by new line they mean change back to bt equipment.

Engineer booked to visit on wednesday next week to install fibre to cabinet.

good luck.