Broadband for rooms in care homes - confused

Hello all,

My mother is in a care home and when she moved in I had Zen setup broadband to her room. Her room appeared in the list that you get when you put a postcode into an ISP so the order could be placed.
Fast forward to now and she needs to move to a different room in the care home however the new room isn't in the drop down list so Zen have asked Openreach what to do and they have said the room needs to have a UPRN. The building itself has a UPRN and each room that has previously been connected also has the UPRN plus a NAD number, one for each enabled room

On the BT broadband availability checker (https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL/...) I get the following for the postcode NG15 8AE. As you can see the UPRN 10002893027 appears for multiple properties (Rooms in Sherwood House) . From what I read the number that follows the letter A (e.g. A14899356146) is the NAD reference which is the unique Openreach network identified.

What I don't understand is how to order broadband for her room which isn't listed. Can anyone help?

Many thanks

Nigel

Ring them and explain that line/NTE needs shifting to the new room number.
Unless the care home is enormous, it is most likely that all rooms will be served off of the same DP, so a reasonably easy job for someone.

Hi Zarjaz

Is the 'them' you refer to Zen or Openreach?

Zen … they are who you have chosen to order from .

If we're talking about a copper service then staff at the home should be able to do the move pretty easily, but otherwise Zen need to order an internal shift. You won't get a UPRN for each room as it's not a unique property.

Once the shift has happened the new location will appear on the BT checker, that's why you will sometimes see references to rack numbers or comms rooms in that list, because a business premise will have multiple locations where a service needs to be presented.

The rooms are effectively peoples homes so should each have their own UPRN, just as a block of flats would have. Certainly this is the case with a care home I know of, when it was built cabling was put in place with an Openreach branded master socket in each room. Do the rooms missing from the availability checker have sockets fitted in this case?

Just to add to the confusion in this case there appear to be two distinct premises called Sherwood House in NG15 8AE: one has UPRN 10002893027 with four distinct additional UPRNs, 10002893028 - 10002893031, within it for addresses 1 through 4; the other has the single UPRN 100031369778 for all of the addresses (Room 1, 4-6, 9-13, 15).

It could be this care home is operating more as a hotel than flats so there is only one UPRN, the missing rooms may never have had a service so do not have a gold NAD key, hence not appearing.

It is perfectly possible to have multiple lines at different locations within premises identified by a single UPRN, I suspect it is going to need an ISP rep who understands complex installs to resolve - a new line to a location within a UPRN may only be possible for a business rather than residential service depending on how flexible the ISP is, an NTE shift would work but leave the existing room without possibility of future service.

Is your mum moving from assisted living (where there is a bedroom, lounge, bathroom and small kitchen) to a traditional OAP care home room? I know normally each assisted living unit has a separate address within the care home that allows the occupier to order things like broadband as your mum is currently doing but once moving to a traditional OAP or nursing room you don't have that option.

She's been in the care home for a while now and it is just a room rather than assisted living, carers coming in and out all the time.

The room she was in had a listing on the dropdown that ISPs use so that was an easy order. Not all rooms in the property have a listing, I was told that each room had arranged it's own connection in the past ( and this probably explains the rather diverse naming of the connections)

I'm going to try the Zen technical department to see if they can help

https://developer.bt.com/api-product-catalog/address...

Not really a consumer page but gives an indication of how addresses need to be matched before an order can be raised , I’d suggest your relatives address is silver or bronze rather than a gold address , and although there isn’t really much you can do as an individual , a reputable ISP ( Zen in your case ) should be able get these type of address issues resolved so an order can be raised , if they can’t or won’t , try a better ISP .

Edited by Iniltous (Thu 19-Jun-25 14:44:53)

In reply to a post by nigelrspencer:

The building itself has a UPRN and each room that has previously been connected also has the UPRN plus a NAD number, one for each enabled room

You're saying that each room that has previously been connected has the *same* UPRN plus a NAD number?

In that case, I think what you want is an internal line shift. Zen should be able to organize this. Speak to a human rather than trying to place this through a web form.

This is a chargeable service from Openreach, which Zen would likely pass on to you; or they might swallow it but ask you to sign a new 18-24 month contract.