BT Wholesale Investigating One Touch Switch Problems with UK ISPs UPDATE2
BT Wholesale, which supplies a number of UK ISPs with broadband services, has confirmed to ISPreview that they’re investigating an issue with consumer switching between providers via the One Touch Switching (OTS) process that appears to have been introduced on Monday and is disrupting some ISP switches and internet connections.
According to one of the ISPs that reported it to ISPreview earlier in the week: “Basically any order going in, regardless of any dates that are selected for the transfer, are ignored, and they become ceased records within hours as they are basically expecting it to complete the next day. We have said to them, if a customer wants next day, great, lovely improvement, but if a customer wants to move in 30 days, they need to honour that.”
Naturally, some consumers like to elect a future switching date in order to work around contract end-dates and other real-life challenges, although Ofcom’s OTS rules generally require ISPs to try and switch consumers within 1 working day (“if technically possible“). This may help to explain BTW’s change, but their approach is causing problems. “We have a load of inbound transfers where now the old connection is ceased, but the new dates have all not been honoured, so customers are not connected with either provider,” said the ISP.
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At the time of writing, we don’t know how many consumers and ISPs are being impacted by this problem, but one of the affected customers (David) told ISPreview today: “I now no longer have an internet connection. The BTW fix has effectively ceased my FTTP service.” The problems have also been picked up by Thinkbroadband.
A BT spokesperson told ISPreview:
“We are aware of an issue with One Touch Switching and are looking into this as an urgent priority.”
The hope is that a solution can be found to this sooner, rather than later, as consumers affected by it seem to have been left in limbo. But we’ve currently only seen a very tiny number of reports.
UPDATE 15th Nov 2024 @ 4:55pm
BTW has just informed ISPreview that “the issue has now been resolved“.
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UPDATE 16th Nov 2024 @ 10:27am
Feedback from those impacted suggests that BTW only fixed the issue for new orders/switches, but they’re in the process of trying to resolve the issue for existing customers who have now been left disconnected.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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BT in run by clueless idiots shocker
Yeah, I could have told you that. I just wonder how these clueless idiots get to have so much money and get these jobs.
Only have to look over the pond.
Without knowing the specifics of what went wrong here it’s probably sensible for us to wind our collective necks in. The people who actually run the companies aren’t involved in day to day IT changes they work on higher level strategy. Google ‘delegation’.
Anyone who’s never made a mistake at work is either very new to it or has a job with no responsibility, complexity or challenge. For all we know the root cause of the problem was nothing to do with the company itself but supply chain.
Well, gee. Who didn’t see this and about a thousand other problems coming with OTS?
I’ll get the popcorn.
It seems Adrian Kennard was right.
Interesting. My OTS switch that I sublitted on day 1 of the system going live, resulted in me having two services simuntaneously because the old provider is waiting for a confirmation from the new one that the new service is active. And now you’re saying they changed it so much that the old services cease a few hours after the order being placed, no confirmation needed?
I have had no broadband since Tuesday. I haven’t initiated a migration but a cease has been placed on my line. My line is still deemed to be active so the ISP cannot do anything until BTW resolves this problem which became apparent only after a router re-boot. I am told that a migration attempt is unlikely to be successful. The annoying thing is that BTW is more silent than our submarine service. OfCom doesn’t regulate wholesale so the end user is stuck in limbo.
Who told you Ofcom doesn’t regulate Wholesale?
Mind you, I’m expecting Ofcom just want this to quietly disappear. This was always going to encounter significant problems with poor testing and rushing it through to save their own face.
Lack of accountability at their door from day 1 on thus, IMHO. But it might be wrong.
..” so the ISP cannot do anything “.., should be can’t be arsed to, they could send you a mibile with a large data account that you could tether to, assuming you have decent coverage.
@not so sure.
Its amazing that OfCon never seem to be accountable for their diktat or resolving the issues they create for their grandiose claims of action, would be good to see their ‘initiatives’ risk register and their owners.. .
The truth is out there but we make sure is burried soemwhere?
Where’s Ofcon’s complaints about Ofcon details, who is their regulator, that fines them for thier failings (that consumers do not end up paying for) ?
Am I alone with such thoughts.
I also have no Broadband since Tuesday, I’ve asked why BTW haven’t made Openreach do a revert but my ISP won’t ask. I’m looking at Three as I’m in a strong signal area and 5g price has plummeted.
I deal with my ISP, who deal with BTW who deal with Openreach. What a mess, the statement in the article clearly shows BT have not understood the problem.
My service went off mid-morning today (Friday). I wasn’t migrating, but this was probably due to a router reconnection that required reauthentication which failed. My ISP says the issue started on Monday but wasn’t apparent to me until this reconnect. ISP says nothing they can do about it and needs BT Wholesale to fix it but they aren’t communicating the updates they promised.
If BTW is resolving anything then they are taking their time. Clearly, the mess that they created isn’t proving that easy to fix: then again it is the weekend! BB connection down now for 5 days and counting …….