Morning All,

Hopefully someone can point me in the right direction with a problem which is driving me mad. I have just moved into a new house and I am trying to get ADSL installed through Zen.

I applied online to Zen, they ran the line test which stated there was an issue with the line meaning either than there is a fault or a previous occupant at the property has had ADSL on the line from a different provider which makes sense as I found a couple of micro filters in a cupboard when we moved in.

They state that they can't say exactly what it is as under data protection rules BT will not disclose the information about my line, which makes sense I suppose. Called BT last night and initially got through to someone who couldn't understand English too well, certainly didn't have a clue what ADSL is, and had a rather odd conversation consisting of lots of long pauses. Got nowhere there so called back and spoke to someone else who explained that apparently what Zen are saying is 'tripe' and they should be able to give them that information no problem.

Phoned Zen back and relayed this information, nope sorry sir BT really won't give us any personal information relating to your property or line. Called back BT (this involves a 25 minute wait each time by the way) and spoke to someone who says ah it's another department who deals with that, they can tell you. So I take the number and call the 'other department' this morning.

Guess what? Oh its OFCOM who need to tell you that, you'll need to ring them.

Now before I go chasing round the houses all day has anyone gone through a similar procedure or know exactly who it is I would need to contact?

Any help would be appreciated as I'm gonna have no hair left by the end of the day


David

 

Just a thought... Apply to a different broadband provider and see if you get any pattern of response.

Cheers

Tom

 

Fact: BT stop all services on a line when the billing information changes This can be frustrating because if you tell them they have spelt your name wrong then your Broadband gets cancelled!

So, if the previous occupant has cancelled their line rental and you have started a new line rental contract with BT then the old broadband should have been removed.

Question: Do you have the same phone number as the previous occupant or did you ask for a different one? or even your old one to be transfered if moved locally....

We recently moved from rented to a house we purchased on the same exchange and Tiscali were a disgrace in getting the broadband transferred over. After about four weeks, the service finally resumed and we are back to normal...

The suggestion to try placing your order with another provider is a good idea, just to see if they come back with the same issue but tell you more info!

 

I had a very similar problem with another provider so i placed the order with BT Broadband let them sort all the problems then canceled the day before they were due to enable and went with pipex

 

I was in a similar situation when I moved house in August, and in the end it took me almost a month before my ADSL was up and running. During this time BT’s customer service proved to be (by far) the most unhelpful and frustrating of any company I have ever dealt with…so you have my sympathies. Anyway, this is what I gleaned from the research I did at the time:

Before your ISP can successfully place an order with BT Wholesale (I think its called Openreach now) your line needs to be marked as “ADSL clear”. If the previous occupant had ADSL your line can only be cleared by BT processing a “cease” order on the line. When the occupant cancelled their ADSL at your current property (assuming they did), then that should have caused their ISP to send the “cease” to BT. Once BT have the cease order they seem to take at least 14 days to process it and clear the line. If your ISP tries to place an order for provision of ADSL before the cease has gone through, then it will be rejected by the BT system.

So my first phone call would be to the previous occupants of your house to find out which ISP they were with and if/when they cancelled it. Armed with this information you should be able to work out roughly when your line will be cleared. It is also ammunition for you if BT or your ISP come back later and say your line won’t support ADSL.

You should also be able to get your ISP (and especially one with Zen’s reputation) to spell out exactly what the problem is. If they place an order with BT Openreach for provision of ADSL and BT reject it, BT should at least provide some reason why (“Awaiting cease to complete” was the message I got etc.)

If you end up getting no joy at all, then check out www.samknows.com for alternative Local Loop Unbundled providers in your area.

Good luck.

Gary.