Moved into a new build home a few weeks ago (local builder, individual plot).
Trying to get online as both my wife and I are working full time from home for obvious reasons. Plus also it’s the baseball season so I need to stream that for hours every single night.

Anyway, getting absolutely nowhere trying to get broadband connected. We have a working BT phone line that has been newly installed. Our ISP (SSE) is telling us we need an open reach engineer to come round and switch it on at the cabinet so they can place the broadband order.

We have had two open reach engineers come round who have both told us it’s switched on already and the ISP just needs to place the broadband order.
So we are stuck in a loop between open reach and SSE both blaming the other.
I tried opening an account with BT instead but they just auto-cancelled my order twice without explanation and are useless when I ring up.

I’ve tried contacting open reach but there’s no way of chasing them other than by email.

So I’m out of ideas and can’t see how I can solve it. Anyone know enough about the way it works to tell me what’s going on or suggest a way of fixing this that I haven’t thought of? I’m using a 4g Vodafone gigacube as a stop gap, but it’s not a long term solution.

It’s been a few years since I dealt with dsl provisions but Records issues are a classic openreach issue

The problem is getting openreach to fix them. And it’s something that should be driven by the ISP rather than you. As they are openreachs customer.

The extra complexity comes from the fact that unless SSE have LLU/PoP the exchange there will be BTwholesale in the middle between SSE and openreach making it even harder

The BT orders may have been cancelled if there is already an SSE order open (but stuck) on the line

If you want to use Some one other than SSE you will need to make sure that their order is cancelled

Do you have to use SSE?

If not have a look at Zen or Andrews and Arnold

Both are uk based and have very good teams who know how to persuade openreach and BTW to fix things.

I put a 4g mast in my loft…..

4g modem jobs belting. No landline just a payg sim

Do you have to use SSE?

This. They aren’t “our service provider” if they aren’t providing a service now, are they.

“Dear SSE. We have a working phone line. Connect our DSL or cancel the contract. Love and kisses, Curt.”

itlab

Provisioning? Based where, Adhara? I worked at the BOU in Walsall for a couple of years when we got the first million onto ADSL. Quite a large party that was – free bar at the Wolves ground (and similar across the country).

Has OP tried connecting a modem and seeing if it has a xDSL signal at all, does it try and sync?

Interesting – I’d assumed if I engaged a new isp they would cancel the service with the old one for me (which tbf is what BT say on their website they will do). I’ll try cancelling SSE myself. That will be great fun because phoning their call centre always fills me with joy. Ill then place an order with zen and see how I get on. Cheers all

@duncancallum – what sort of speeds are you getting with a 4g mast set up and what does it cost?

I tried opening an account with BT instead but they just auto-cancelled my order twice without explanation and are useless when I ring up.

Bullet dodged

As above, SSE are not providing the contracted service, it’s not your job to arrange connection and faff around with Openreach, it’s theirs. Bin them off.

If you still want fibre, might be worth paying a little more to get Zen to set it up in a competent way, then switch at some point down the line once you have a working connection.

OpenReach do not deal with the public… unless you happen to have on who lives down the road..

Get SSE to sort now, or move on to someone else.

Another vote for Zen. (I used to work in their provisioning team, way back when, and am a customer now).

They’re more expensive but if you can afford that, you’ll really appreciate the fact that you can phone up and speak to someone with a sexy Rochdale accent who actually knows what they’re doing

Ill then place an order with zen and see how I get on

Good move, Zen aren’t the cheapest but IME they’re excellent dealing with customer service issues and won’t just pass the buck (although ultimately if it’s Openreach being muppets there’s probably not a whole lot they can do).

Another vote for Zen. Immediate apology the only time I had to contact support when a network card had died at their end and cut us off.

I was going to suggest A&A as being excellent at chasing problems like this. Not cheap, absolutely worth it.

Another vote for Zen. Their tech support is actually useful:

‘Have you tried turning it on and off’
‘Listen, I have a good understanding of computers, networks etc so can we assume I’ve tried everything sensible to try hence why I am now speaking to you’

At this point the likes of Sky et al would be insisting you still need to go through all the initial steps (I think simply because their computer systems guide them through fault diagnosis and they can’t skip steps) whereas Zen are happy to start looking at what could actually be wrong. Drives me mad having to spend 20 minutes going through stuff I have already tried just because.

That said I have only had to use them twice and once it turned out to be my fault and even then they still sent me out a new router just in case. Other than that I have had nothing but a rock steady and fast connection. Well worth the price IMO.

In a past life I was with Zen before moving to Sky. I was actually sorry to leave. The only reason I jumped ship was cost, I could get comparable DSL plus Sky TV for like an extra £2/month.

Another happy zen customer here, on the handful of times I’ve had an issue it’s been dealt with quickly and competently

There are many other good reasons to be spending with Zen

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/06/zen-internet-aims-to-be-first-net-zero-uk-broadband-isp-by-2028.html

They are also a certified B Corp https://bcorporation.uk/

They treat their staff and customers very well

IDNet is very good too.

Good customer service.

You need to supply your own modem though.

The first to be given B Corp.