Moved house and Phone Line Issues

[Poolie]

Hi All,

Have recently moved house and the phone line was activated on Monday morning by BT. Normal calls are fine. Had Sky Broadband at previous address without any issues.

SKy called me last night to get the broadband activated again on the line. When they did the test based on the number they got the following message:

"Based on the number you have provided we are unable to provide you with Sky Broadband as it appears your phoneline may have a service that is incompatible with Sky Broadband. You can still benefit from inclusive UK* landline calls with Sky Talk.

Your phone line is compatible with Sky Broadband, but it appears your local exchange does not support broadband speeds, so you may experience low speeds." - Directly from Sky.com

When they checked with the postcode and house number on sky.com, the test comes back staying:

"Estimated Access Line Speed: 11.2Mbps - 18.0Mbps. Great news
You're in a Sky Broadband network area, so you can choose from Sky Broadband Everyday Lite or Unlimited. You can also benefit from inclusive evening and weekend UK# landline calls with Sky Talk.


Please note: The specific activation date may change should we receive notification from the existing customer that they may still be in the property on the date you proposed to take the line over. We'll write to you should this occur. " - Directly from Sky.com

Sky checked another backend system and it says I am allowed Sky Broadband. I know neighbours have Sky routers as I can see their WiFi networks with the SKYXXXX username. I am therefore at a loss as to why mine cannot be completed.

Sky are escalating with their backend team and this may involve BT Openreach. Problem is resolution time could be a week or 2.

Anybody any ideas? I know that the phone line used to have to be installed and active for 5 days before the broadband could be ordered. Is this still the same or has this rule changed? Sky were trying last night to put the order through only 36 hours after the line was activated. I really want my broadband back especially with Sky as it works better than any other provider when VPNing into work.

If I need to get in touch with BT Openreach I will happily contact BT's CEO as have had to do this in the past.

[Poolie]

Exchange information from SamKnows:

SamKnows - Broadband Availability - Merton Park (LSMEPK) Exchange

Wonder if the exchange is full, but Sky back office are now looking into it. I hope they get this sorted soon. Should expect a response within a week.

Also, Sky have offered me one of the new WiFi N Band routers as a free upgrade for once this is resolved since my netgear is about 10 years old.

[Isitme]

It is possible the exchange is full, but if it is a new line with a new number it may be that the line is not yet in the required data base. Apparently this can take about 10 days to be fully accepted. If you have taken over an existing number it is possible a broadband 'tag' has been left on the line, which will block broadband until it is removed.

[Scubbie]

It sounds like an Admin error. It will clear in due course.

The new Sagem 2504N is proving to be a good router thus far. There are a few issues with personalised port forwarding, but I trust these will be resolved in due course.

If you have a lot of WiFi routers near to where you live now, then a good WiFi router is essential if this is how you normally connect.

The router works at up to 144Mb/s on a single channel. Some WiFi n enabled computers will only connect at around 72Mb/s as they need channel pairing to connect at a higher speed.

However, as the router is WiFi n, it does have a stronger signal than your old router.

[Poolie]

Sky called again last night and confirmed the back office team have not even started to look at the case even though it has been over a week. The service from the back office team is shocking, yes they may be busy but to not even let customer services know the delays.

The lady I spoke to last night said the average response time was about 11 days at the moment. Good to see Sky know how to resolve an issue. This is for Sky back office to start looking at the issue not to even fix it.

BT Openreach have confirmed there are no services or tags on the line which would be causing issues so BT and Sky have a sync problem somewhere. If I know another service provider was going to work as well as Sky Broadband does for my work VPN and other websites and programs my wife likes to use I would not have a problem.

[Poolie]

Back office have looked at it and said they need BT to investigate. 5 working day response time.

The Database SKy use which is giving the incompatibility is owned and managed by BT. Question is how long BT will take. Hopefully the speed and exchange issues are resolved once the line is ok.

[Poolie]

Quick update on this issue:

BT appear to have either fixed their issue or Sky have resolved theirs as the incompatibility message vanished today. No message about slow line speed or anything else. Nice green box saying speed of 5 - 11.4Mbps (will happily take 11Mbps if the line supports it).

Lady at Sky I have been dealing with has put the order through and I requested a router upgrade which she has done free of charge for the hassle. I asked if it will be one of the N-Band ones and she doesn't know. If I am not happy with it, I can call her back and ask her for a specific one and she will arrange. My little white Netgear will be the backup router in case of problems.

[Isitme]

I still think it was a database issue, but it is good to see your problem is finally being resolved, let's hope you get the top speed.

[Scubbie]

Good news all round.

Hopefully you will be sent one of the new Sagem 2504N routers. I doubt that this will be the case though as most who have posted up saying that they are getting a free router in the past few months have only received a WiFi g router.

Whilst there are still a few who have the Netgear DG834GT, these routers are starting to fail, so a replacement router is still a good thing to have.

[Poolie]

I still think it was a database issue, but it is good to see your problem is finally being resolved, let's hope you get the top speed.

I suspect it was a database issue but as usual Sky can't say who's issue it was but amazingly it is now fixed.