Openreach - messed up records?

spicypixel · 21 May 2018 at 20:33

Bit perplexed by this but here we go...

I was casually looking to see what openreach products the checker says I can order on a new flat I've recently started renting.

Getting the keys to the lower ground floor flat next month so got some time to work this out prior to it being an issue.

Anyone else had a situation where flats above adjacent have it and ones don't? I checked other flats along the road and they all come back being able to order ultrafast 300mbps, so guess I'm perplexed why a singular property is excluded.

Any ideas?

spicypixel · 22 May 2018 at 11:15

Okay so I had a long phone call with BT sales, his first impression (as meddling-monk suggested) was it was going to a different cab so it would be a longer line, but we confirmed all the flats go cabinet 47, the one outside the flat.

Next up he assumed there's an openreach record keeping error but they can't log an openreach support ticket unless I'm their customer, and he was hesitant to suggest becoming an infinity 2 customer just on the off chance gfast might be available.

He was also surprised that the line speed readings for the flats were so different too. Those ones get the full 80/20 estimate and the lower ground flat gets a 55/15 estimate despite going to the same cabinet outside the flat.

Not something sales can deal with, technical can't touch it till I have an active BT line, and openreach probably won't reply to my email I sent asking about it.

It's a shame not more ISPs have taken up the gfast trial because I'm basically stuck between hedging my bets with talktalk or BT, and the former is basically the worst option and the latter is slightly less worse.

Think I'll ask AAISP though...

spicypixel · 22 May 2018 at 13:09

Okay, so to add to this, I tried with VM...
Exactly the same story, flat above? Can order 350mbit, my flat below? "Not in a VM area".

I'm starting to wonder if the UPRN is horribly misaligned with geographical location.

spicypixel · 22 May 2018 at 13:15

Can't tell, is there an easy way to find out? Just wondering if I just get a basic phone line/broadband package engaged I'll somehow be able to convince the ISP to get openreach out to have a butchers at the situation.

Edit: Getting somewhere but it's bad news.

If you look up the apartments by address the both say cabinet 47, if you look up via UPRN it says the slower (mine) is cabinet 60.

Seems the address and UPRN aren't correlated correctly.

Guess now I have to wonder if openreach can be convinced, if it's possible, to change the wiring if it is indeed connected to a cabinet much further away.

It could have been wired in prior to 47 even existing I guess.

spicypixel · 22 May 2018 at 14:08

I'm thinking just taking the existing talktalk FTTC contract over (out of contract but it doesn't renew the contract to move it seemingly) to tie up the existing line, then put in an order for a new line as you say, see what they say.

Edit: This is going to test my patience. (Currently on VM300 Mbps)

spicypixel · 22 May 2018 at 20:27

Exciting update time (disclaimer: not exciting)

Talktalk refuse to migrate the line, they can't provision FTTC due to lack of capacity, but more interestingly, can't actually provision ADSL2 either. So they offered to cancel the contract penalty free which is nice of them.

Since the line max speed estimate is 55, opted for BT infinity 1 with the 52mbit package it should be a good match while I then try to prod BT into issuing a second line, but therein lies the rub.

BT sales guy on the phone said he can't issue two lines to a property if one is gfast, it's one line per property.

So I'm going to have to try and provision a second line @ 80/20 and HOPE it's wired up to the gfast cabinet next to me, then ditch the first infinity 1 contract somehow (probably a costly issue) and roll with a gfast upgrade on line 2.

He did mention something about "in house migration" so I don't necessarily need to have two BT lines, but it was very up in the air and nothing concrete - especially since BT won't install a second line for free without existing lines being utilised. If the penalty is sufficiently high I guess I'll just operate 55mbps FTTC1 as guest wifi or something.

God what a faff, I just want a copper cable sorted for a cab literally metres from me, ducts are already presumably dug if the other 5 flats have lines.

In terms of the cabinet being full, I asked if he could start the order process for the flat above and it went through to the next stage where usually it'd prevent a sales team member from getting that far if there's no linecard slots left. So that's promising at least.

If I was full of money I'd just get AAISP to sort it out, fairly sure they can sort out anything re: openreach.

spicypixel · 22 May 2018 at 22:35

Turnover is high, 6 month rental contracts, would rather not involve others if possible but good idea.

And yeah surprised this isn't more common where the original line being retained isn't up to snuff with additional lines added for flat conversions.

spicypixel · 22 May 2018 at 23:40

Ah that's not surprising but utterly demoralising, I'm actually not sure if my line is on the right cabinet or not or if they're using out of date records, if I search with address it says cab47, if I search with UPRN it's cab60, won't know till phone goes live I guess to get a final look.

https://i.imgur.com/Jc4MToi.png - Address lookup
https://i.imgur.com/h28DKbd.png - UPRN lookup

Same stats, different cabinet. (least for VDSL2, the ADSL2 scores align with the fact cab47 is much closer than cab 60)
Something somewhere is wrong!

spicypixel · 23 May 2018 at 18:00

It'll be hard to know till the line goes live on the 14th June, guess now I've ordered infinity 1 in the meantime I'm now a customer and can at least possibly hope to get through to openreach by proxy soon... We'll see.

I'm fairly confident that openreach would do the least possible work if I did order a second line and try and just run it over the existing copper to cab 60.

spicypixel · 23 May 2018 at 20:53

Yeah that is plan B longer term, looking to sit put for 3 years here since it's a lovely area.

Ideally I'd just have a VM 300/30 and gfast 330/50 package and mess about with https://www.openmptcprouter.com/ until it works.

I'll potentially ask them as a speculative customer to confirm or deny it's available though. Given the VM cab is outside on the otherside of the carpark driveway...

spicypixel · 24 May 2018 at 09:34

Ah man firstborn that's depressing, I think this will end up on the backburner if the infinity 1 syncs around the 52mbps.
It's all well and good having openreach behind the ISPs from a customer perspective but if the ISPs play silly buggers the engineers aren't going to be able to fix it.

Big letdown all round, thankfully not stuck with ADSL2 but every time there's a bandwidth issue knowing upstairs has g.fast active will cause a solitary tear to form.

spicypixel · 24 May 2018 at 14:30

Yeah this isn't going to go well. Thanks openreach. Guess knowing about g.fast deployments is outside the scope of their remit eh.

Confusingly they're claiming it's on the cabinet outside the flat with gfast (47) not 60 which I believe it to be.

spicypixel · 24 May 2018 at 16:07

Landlord didn't want the stuff dugup so wasn't an option sadly. Plus I've already signed up to an infinity 1 contract in the meantime while openreach cause me a headache.

spicypixel · 30 May 2018 at 15:56

You got that sorted right? Please say you did ha.

spicypixel · 5 Jun 2018 at 15:45

Good news! The BT order for infinity 1 must have triggered a line test and update of the records!

I don't know how to contain myself.

spicypixel · 5 Jun 2018 at 21:53

pepp77 said:
I have Ordi access - no clue how to use it though as only got it the other week after being given new responsibilities - I am historically a PBX engineer, but am starting to manage the provisioning team.

You're super brave for being open about that

I'll be stoic until I can actually get an order placed, knowing my luck once the infinity 1 line is active and synced it'll all go away again.

Do wonder why it was listed wrong, maybe the previous tenant only used ADSL2+ instead of VDSL? Maybe the last time the line was used cab60 was the one it was connected to when it was a house - possible the previous tenants used a VM line (which I think I've found stuffed behind a table - despite VM claiming no line).

@pepp77 do you know if the HomeHub X is out yet or Huawei MT992 being provisioned still? I'd much prefer the latter.