How long for activation?!

My father has decided to join the 21st century and finally ordered his first broadband service through John Lewis. He placed the order on 22nd October and the router arrived today. He plugged it in and the green light for Internet on the router wasn't lit so he phoned and asked what was up. He was told that the service won't be activated until 12th November. That's 3 weeks from the date of order, is that typical now for a new installation (rather than a migration) or is this just another Covid issue?

Edited by sjr (Fri 30-Oct-20 21:38:47)

It's entirely dependent on the local staffing levels. It's certainly not out of the ordinary and imo quick taking into account there's an ongoing pandemic.

Migrations are a minimum of 10 working days because of OFCOM rules but a migration is done remotely at the cabinet so local workloads tend not to delay them.

Is this a landline being upgraded to a FTTC service or is it a whole new line activation?
Any fibre service being ordered for the 1st time will require work at the cabinet and a new line might also require a home visit.

It is just a new ADSL service he's having, never had any sort of broadband on his line before. He only wants it for iPlayer and the likes and the cost as low as possible so ADSL with a 12Mb estimate for where he is will be fine for his needs. Phone line is currently with BT.

Edited by sjr (Sat 31-Oct-20 08:18:04)

I stand to be corrected, I don't think there is any cost saving in going for ADSL now as compared to FTTC.

There's about a £4 or £5 difference so not a lot in it but as I said he wanted to keep the cost as low as possible.

Well it turns out he didn't get his service activated yesterday as originally promised. he had a letter from BT saying that somebody was trying to take over his phone line and to get in touch with them. He phoned BT and confirmed that he did want John Lewis Broadband to take over the line but in order to do that BT ceased the line so that JL could immediately grab the number. This meant that he was without a phone line for 24 hours (from yesterday until this morning). He has now been promised activation on.Wednesday 18th.

Surely something has gone very wrong here? There's no way a simple switch to a standard ADSL product from one BT company to another (Plusnet via JL) should need a cease and re-provide and 24 hours downtime, is there?

Was that a "sorry you are leaving" letter from BT retail? If so by calling them that may have fouled up the line rental migration and ADSL activation...

I can't say for sure but the way he described it was as if BT weren't going to release the line unless he confirmed that was what he wanted. He's never had broadband before and has had the same number with BT for almost 50 years so maybe the BT systems flagged up the move as unusual and possibly fraudulent?

All I know is that dealing with BT retail can be a nightmare!

Ain't that the truth! Well, fingers crossed he *finally* gets connected on Wednesday. If not I think he'll be telling them where they can shove their broadband.