In reply to a post by BoyGroucho:

Can I get BT/Openreach to check if I can get BT Fibre to my house without having to enter a contract or pay a large amount of installation costs?

Now we've cracked the "checker" problem, we need to define a little more closely what you mean by "BT Fibre" .

If you mean BT Infinity, there is no way AIUI you will get that without some sort of minimum term contract. There are of course many other providers of "BT Fibre", in fact most if not all ISPs. A few of which do shorter minimum terms, and Pulse8 even have a "no contract" offering. (Monthly in other words). But the initial cost is higher of course.

Look out for the current deals on all the biggies. Even some of the smaller ISPs such as Aquiss and Uno are competitive these days.

It looks like it is probably just problem in the checker database in which case MrS has already offered a route to resolve that.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

If you mean BT Infinity, there is no way AIUI you will get that without some sort of minimum term contract.

As I read the OP, I took the question to be whether he could check without entering a contract, not whether he could subsequently order without the contract.

I could be wrong on that reading, though.

I think it may be a confusion with FTTPoD as well - the OP probably has fibre but the database is wrong.

A couple of years ago, we moved into a property in a similar situation, where previous occupiers had obviously used VM.

When we ordered via Plusnet, they had to enter our address as a "Bronze" or "Silver" address match, meaning that it was in the Post Office address file, but not in BT's records (that would be a "Gold" match). The order was then labelled "subject to survey" which was done within a couple of days.

Openreach have rules for ISPs to follow to attempt to keep their address database clean, which is where these "Bronze, Silver, Gold" definitions come from. Don't be surprised if your order (at an ISP) ends up needing confirmation from Openreach before being fully accepted.

A whole new layer of potential confusion

I had called BT before my first post here and spoke to a guy there about getting BT Infinity, noting that my postcode showed but my actual address didn't.
He basically said that I would have to pay to have a line installed and take out a contract for 12 months.
He seemed confident that it would be ok but If it turned out that I couldn't get BT infinity (or be connected at all) I could cancel the contract but would still have to pay for the installation charge.
So I'm trying to gauge the risk of going ahead while not totally sure of the outcome.
It seems to me that the response to my UPRN input suggests that it should be ok...or am I mistaken?

You'll be fine IMO.

The checkers tend to be on the conservative side anyway, so I would expect you to hit towards the top end of the ranges.

The only risk I see here is if the UPRN doesn't actually represent your address and I'm not in any position to judge that risk.

The installation charge is for a working BT line. Does this have any value to you in the very unlikely case you can't get Infinity? Would you consider ADSL as an alaternative?

In reply to a post by jaydub:

The only risk I see here is if the UPRN doesn't actually represent your address and I'm not in any position to judge that risk.

This is partly why I repeated my suggestion the OP uses the Address option. It will almost certainly give the same result, but with a lifetime of finding computer systems frequently do not necessarily work that way ....

I would trust the Address to confirm availability. If the estimates differ between the two it would be a question of checking nearby addresses for correlation.

If you can get the ability to fully cancel in writing that would be fine.

Providers are the ones who should be pushing through these fixes, and no reason why they need you to commit to ordering first though, beyond getting your custom once its fixed