Openreach line swaps

[deskmonkey]

Hi folks,

Does anyone have a link to any documentation regarding whether an Openreach engineer can/can't swap a connected twisted pair without the knowledge of either the user or provider?

Reason I'm asking is that I am 99% sure my line has been swapped and given to someone else in the village. My stats are now replicating what I was receiving when on the other cable that came into the village. My router stats also give me the time of the drop out and re-sync - coincidentaly the time an engineer was at the cab!

Before then I had no issues with my line for either ADSL or voice.

Any info would be appreciated before they arrive on Wednesday.

Btw I also know the address that had a HomeHub installed on the same morning, the owner of which mentioned that the engineer at first couldn't get it to connect (sync). Far too much of a coincidence I think.

[IWasNotTheEnemy]

Legally, it can't happen. If a service is already on a line it can't be removed to provide service to someone else. Severely underhand tactics if it is the case

[deskmonkey]

I thought so, is there a way apart from my evidence and hearsay to prove it though? My line was swapped on 21st November. Will they have documentation prior to this to show what line I was on before hand?

[Scubbie]

It is more likely that either of the following has happened:

• someone has knocked your connection
• some essential maintenance has been carried out

[deskmonkey]

Thanks Scubbie, but the situation and stats don't support this.

Prior to 9:15 am on the 21st I was on 1.44mb, my speed was fairly constant and always between 1.33 and 1.48.

There are two cables that come into the village, I was originally on the newer one which only provided speeds of between 0.1 and 0.2 (128k and 288k). I managed to change over to the older cable into the village following an SFI healthcheck, which as being thicker copper helped lessen the loss we experienced - this was in March this year.

Since then I have had no loss of service, no drop outs, noise - nowt. When I was on that other cable I had a speed of 288k - which surprise, surprise is the speed I am now receiving, no matter whether I resync or not.

I know the cable architecture coming into the village - I have been placed on the other cable, its not just an issue of a dodgy twisted pair.

The household at the other end of the village that had a homehub installed (the same time my speeds dropped) are now in receipt of a speed of 0.9mb (I've seen their stats) - which taking into account the further distance etc from the cab makes it obvious the line has been swapped - and it doesn't take a genious to work out whose line it was!

Not happy....

[IWasNotTheEnemy]

Without solid proof you have no evidence other than your theory that you have been changed. Sky would have to query it with BT to see if what you think has happened has, well, happened

If you have an SFI coming out then they might be able to shed some light onto the situation but otherwise you'd need to go through the proper channels

[User05]

Have seen this happen on a voice fault (noise on the line) before. Customer and his neighbour kept reporting the fault one after the other and Openreach would switch pairs, leaving one neighbour on the dodgy pair and then obviously calling their provider to report the fault.

Apart from the obvious drop in sync speed and such, are you facing any voice issues now?

[deskmonkey]

Thanks, Sky are waiting to see what the engineer comes up with on Wednesday before they move it on upwards. We both have a shed load of notes on it following the SFI earlier this year. I'm hoping that there will be records of which cable I was on because of that SFI, if it doesn't correspond to what I have now now then I've got them and they can flippin' well change it back.

There are big rumours flying around the village that an engineer has been doing this for a while as they obviously don't want the confrontation of facing a customer and saying "sorry, but you can't get broadband"

We have a huge campaign going on at the moment, which includes 82% of the residents (362 of them), the MP, Councillors and the LA. I'm on the committee, during this we had to hand over 106 letters of complaint regarding the quality of our phone lines to senior managers of BT and the MP. Over twenty of those letters actually described the situation I now find myself in - I admit too, I didn't believe them when I read them at first. Unfortunately I do now.

[deskmonkey]

Have seen this happen on a voice fault (noise on the line) before. Customer and his neighbour kept reporting the fault one after the other and Openreach would switch pairs, leaving one neighbour on the dodgy pair and then obviously calling their provider to report the fault.

Apart from the obvious drop in sync speed and such, are you facing any voice issues now?

Nope, no voice issues at all. Only problem I have is the sync speed, which makes it obvious to me as I'd expect voice problems to appear if it was actually a line error causing the speed drop.

My blood is starting to boil now, going to have to make sure I remain calm and collected when they arrive on Wed. See what they say before I let rip.