Zen Business - no SOGEA support?

Tried placing an order for another Zen Business fibre connection (FTTC). Order was rejected as 'no copper service available' and a message that it was a 'stop sell' exchange..

Provisioning couldn't help so put me through to sales, who dug deeper and discovered that only SOGEA services are available and Zen can't provide any business services on those. Tried to sell me residential, but the poorer SLA meant that was no good.

The Zen business checker still offers me FTTC services, but it doesn't check for SOGEA when querying the Openreach database - if it did, it wouldn't offer them...

Are you on the Mildenhall exchange?
WLR/PSTN isn't available on that particular exchange as it's the exchange Openreach are trialling the removal of WLR/PSTN.

Some providers aren't ready for all the upcoming changes particularly on some of the trial exchanges.

Nope, it's the Sudbury exchange.
It's just that Zen can't supply SOGEA business services yet and their ordering system doesn't cope with it either.

Ended up going with BT Business - got their service with Halo (the 4g backup) for less than Zen anyway.

j0hn83

There are now a lot of exchanges where you cannot order copper services, somewhere around 120 last time I looked. You can only order FTTP on these unless the premises cannot get FTTP for some reason. Therefore these are now SOGEA orders only as you cannot get PSTN on them at all.

But AIUI you can still order FTTC on SOGEA exchanges. With VOIP one way or another.

Yup just FTTC morphs into SOGEA in the 'single-order broadband ' world - you just canny call it FTTC any more as that implies there is two services: WLR + broadband.

Everyone with a copper line, technically gets broadband post Dec 2025 whether they want it or not. 😂

In reply to a post by kitcat:

j0hn83

There are now a lot of exchanges where you cannot order copper services, somewhere around 120 last time I looked. You can only order FTTP on these unless the premises cannot get FTTP for some reason.

I know. I don't see how that is relevant?
That only prevents copper services being ordered where FTTP exists.

Therefore these are now SOGEA orders only as you cannot get PSTN on them at all.

I don't think that's right.
I'm pretty sure you can still order WLR on an FTTP priority exchange if you have no FTTP.
If you do have FTTP on 1 of those exchanges then you can't order SOGEA, only FTTP.

The only exchange I'm aware of where you can order SOGEA but WLR isn't available is Mildenhall, which is why I asked the OP if that was their exchange.

This Talktalk image sums up the FTTP Priority process well
https://www.talktalkbusiness.co.uk/globalassets/fttp...

Edit: sudbury isn't on either list anyway. Zen seen to have their wires crossed.

Edited by j0hn83 (Tue 01-Feb-22 05:07:38)

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

In reply to a post by kitcat:

You can only order FTTP on these unless the premises cannot get FTTP for some reason.

If you do have FTTP on 1 of those exchanges then you can't order SOGEA, only FTTP.

Here's an interesting edge case: what happens on an FTTP priority exchange when there is a 1-port ONT with active service, but there is no capacity at the CBT and the customer wants a second circuit. Can they order FTTC/G.fast or must they get the 1-port replaced with a 4-port?

I suspect the latter, and can't really think of any way to practically achieve that in areas where the option of swapping to 4-port isn't yet active.

Either 4-port Nokia (when it becomes finally available) or the customer is told to wait until either splitter / CBT capacity is increased.

No way they’re going to install a copper based circuit in an FTTP Priority exchange area *with* a property capable indeed already connected to FTTP.

Edit: this would be an extremely unlikely edge case - multiple FTTP connections (which are very rare anyway) and no ports/capacity in the FTTP network…

Edited by Pheasant (Tue 01-Feb-22 09:49:26)

Hi, feel free to PM me the details and I'll look into it for you.

As someone else has mentioned Mildenhall is the sole "SOGEA only" exchange. The other "stop sell" exchanges are FTTP priority exchanges. And the "stop sell" only applies at addresses with access to FTTP.

it's not an FTTP priority exchange. The Openreach checker says WLR is available and FTTP is not.

The order was rejected twice by Openreach because they will not supply copper voice connections - your provisioning team tried twice, then passed me over to sales. They could provide a residential service, but not business, because you can't support digital voice services on a business account yet.
The poorer SLA on residential meant that isn't an option, so we've gone with an SOGEA service from BT Business instead.

I'll PM you the details as I think it shows a flaw in your ordering process that you don't handle the lack of copper voice option.

Understood, but there are no FTTP services available at this exchange.

That's true, but Zen can't supply digital voice services on business a business order, only residential.

j)hn83

The OP said the exchange has a stop sell on it. So if he can get FTTP he cannot order a new FTTC line. However I cannot find Sudbury in the list so his info may be inaccurate. Sudbury is in the FTTP exchange rollout list and I wonder if this has caused confusion in the ISP front office! ( 21/22 to 2026)

Reading my post and yours we agree that on FTTP priority exchange you cannot order WLR IF you can get FTTP.

If PSTN has been withdrawn from sale you can only order Copper voice from an LLU supplier. ( if they are willing to provide it)

I believe the stop sell puts exchanges in this position and anyone able to get FTTP can no longer order WLR even if they have FTTC at present, ( all orders will only be fulfilled by FTTP without PSTN / Baseband voice)

BTRetail are mudding the waters as they often do not provide new PSTN lines if the get a new BB line even if the exchange is not a stop sell.( They Provide BT Voice ( VOIP) service instead )

In reply to a post by rscott:

That's true, but Zen can't supply digital voice services on business a business order, only residential.

OK for that matter TTB don’t either….but anyway back to the OP question / dilemma, is this related to Zen apparently not being able to deliver a business connection over a SOGEA connection…

If so that sounds a very odd decision, given that SOGEA and SOGFAST will be the long term solutions for copper based broadband from a cab.

Really strange as DSL Checker says the following for Sudbury exchange

The exchange is not in a current fibre priority programme

WLR is currently available at the exchange

Correct - but Openreach won't provide copper voice service and Zen won't provide digital voice services to business users.

Zen provisioning told me it had a stop sell on it. I pointed out that Sudbury isn't on any stop sell lists, the BT Wholesale checker says WLR is available and FTTP isn't.

Zen sales checked and found that it was actually a stop sell on copper voice services, not on copper based broadband. Then informed that they can't offer any business broadband at all to that location.

In reply to a post by rscott:

Correct - but Openreach won't provide copper voice service and Zen won't provide digital voice services to business users.

There is clearly a mistake by Openreach so why not reach out to ajays with the details so he can take it up with Openreach (appreciate you have ordered via BT but why give BT your business because of an Openreach error).

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by rscott:

Correct - but Openreach won't provide copper voice service and Zen won't provide digital voice services to business users.

There is clearly a mistake by Openreach so why not reach out to ajays with the details so he can take it up with Openreach (appreciate you have ordered via BT but why give BT your business because of an Openreach error).

It's not an Openreach error, it's a limitation on Zen's part - they could supply me with residential broadband services, but not business, because at the moment, Zen don't support business broadband on SOGEA connections. Zen's provisioning process orders a traditional voice line for business, with FTTC broadband.

BT Retail's service is £8 a month less and comes with Halo at the moment, so made sense anyway.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

In reply to a post by rscott:

That's true, but Zen can't supply digital voice services on business a business order, only residential.

OK for that matter TTB don’t either….but anyway back to the OP question / dilemma, is this related to Zen apparently not being able to deliver a business connection over a SOGEA connection…

If so that sounds a very odd decision, given that SOGEA and SOGFAST will be the long term solutions for copper based broadband from a cab.

They told me it's a limitation of one of their systems at the moment, so is hopefully only temporary.

In reply to a post by rscott:

It's not an Openreach error,

I personally disagree with you as you should be able to have FTTC not SOGEA but Openreach won't let you because of an error on their part.

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by rscott:

It's not an Openreach error,

I personally disagree with you as you should be able to have FTTC not SOGEA but Openreach won't let you because of an error on their part.

ajays has confirmed it's a Zen problem, not Openreach. Zen could have placed an WLR order, but there was some confusion in their provisioning team, so they didn't.

In reply to a post by rscott:

ajays has confirmed it's a Zen problem, not Openreach. Zen could have placed an WLR order, but there was some confusion in their provisioning team, so they didn't.

Sorry my bad.

In reply to a post by rscott:

Correct - but Openreach won't provide copper voice service and Zen won't provide digital voice services to business users.

Is it just the lack of digital voice that stopped you? If so that's nuts as once you have a broadband connection you could use VoIP from any number of suppliers (and port your existing landline number(s) to them).

In reply to a post by jelv:

In reply to a post by rscott:

Correct - but Openreach won't provide copper voice service and Zen won't provide digital voice services to business users.

Is it just the lack of digital voice that stopped you? If so that's nuts as once you have a broadband connection you could use VoIP from any number of suppliers (and port your existing landline number(s) to them).

Zen refused to provide any business broadband service at all, so using a VOIP service wasn't possible.

The reason given by provisioning was that Openreach said the property wasn't copper served. It was only sales who spotted it was SOGEA.
The Zen contact on here has confirmed they could have ordered a WLR service, but neither team realised that.