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Can anyone help me with Sky/Openreach?

RichardF

Casual Member
I'm desperate for suggestions on how to get out of the awful mess that Sky & Openreach have put me in.
I moved house 5 weeks ago into a 4 yr old property who's previous owners had fibre broadband service until the day they moved out. I had requested a home move service from Sky (TV and ISP). TV installed in two days, BB date given for 10 days. After multiple delays and messages from Sky saying "Openreach do not have the equipment" and some investigating on my part it turned out that the address of the property was different to the one on Openreach's database. (The previous owners had their service under the old address hence why it worked for them.)
As such, my current address was only a Silver key. My case was passed to the Sky order recovery team, who said they neded to get it upgraded to a gold key address. After two weeks of waiting and constantly chasing them they eventually said Openreach had confirmed they have manually updated it to a gold key and it would update on the database in 24 hours. However, 5 days later it is still not showing as a gold key, and Sky's answer is that we have to keep waiting, as they have nothing else they can do.
I'm now into week 6 with no broadband and a weak 3G phone signal which is making my job as a key worker for the NHS working from home a nightmare, not to mention my kids homework being impossible to do online.
Does anyone know how I can get out of this mess. The person at Sky said if I go to BT they will have exactly the same problem as they have no other ways to get Openreach to update it that Sky don't have.
It's a complete nightmare, and I don't know where to turn. Any advice that any of the very knowledgeable folks on here could offer would be much appreciated.
 
Some pointers can be got from this thread, long read but same issue, OR/Sky database issues but more complex than yours.

 
Hi, I'm from the other thread that got sorted today.

The Sky database is definitely not live, you might be waiting for the information to propagate through. It may well be that the Openreach system has updated but Sky may not have sync'd the database since then.

Have you mentioned you are a Key Worker and working in the NHS? It doesn't harm to mention that. Have you spoke to the order recovery team? They are not contactable by phone call, but they can do callbacks.

When they talk about equipment, have they defined what the equipment is?
 
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Thanks for the replies guys. By way of update, a few days after my original post Sky contacted me to say good news, my address had been upgraded on Openreach's system to a gold key, so they could place the order. They did this and got a go live date of Wed 23rd Sept. All sorted me thinks......NO !!
I got a text from Sky today once again advising there was a delay, when I called their order recovery team all they could tell me was Openreach don't have the equipment to complete your order and will send another update on Thursday. It's like friggin' groundhog day, i've gone back six weeks!!!!
Sky say they cannot do anything until they get an update from Opereach on Thursday.
It's now almost 7 weeks since I moved into my property, that has an active working phone line with fibre broadband to the cabinet across the road, yet i'm still not connected.
What a complete farce. I don't know who to be most pi$$ed off with, Sky or Openreach. And i've no idea when i'll get broadband, I seem to be all out of escalation routes. Any ideas...? Or does anyone know someone at Openreach who can do something to help?
 
Can you not pick another large provider instead? You can always exercise your 14 day cancellation right and switch away once it’s installed.

Vodafone and BT offer this
 
Thanks, my address is fine on the Royal Mail database, and Sky have confirmed its the same on theirs.
The problem if I cancel with Sky and place a new order with another e.g. BT is i'll go back to another 2 week minimum wait for go live, and in all likelihood will get the same delay message from Openreach a few days prior. They just keep saying "we do not have the equipment to complete your request" according to Sky; Sky don't know what equipment that means, my guess would be Openreach are still associating the line to my house to the old address of the property and hence think I don't have a line to my house. But there's no way of letting them know that I do!!
What staggers me is that Sky keep telling me they have no method of communicating with Openreach other than a so called 'chat' facility whereby they message Openreach and get a reply 48 hrs later?? Surely they must be able to call someone to escalate the issue?
 
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Do the link anyway, just in case their are any discrepancies on the databases (not that they would admit it).

As far as the equipment excuse, I can’t think of anything that would cause that delay, unless they are trying to lease exchange equipment from BT wholesale to supply you (FTTC cabinet issues are usually listed as a capacity problem).
 
I’m just wondering whether to order a new phone line to the property as a backup in case my existing problem continues unresolved, as some have suggested to me. Does anyone know what this would cost and roughly how long it would take from ordering a new line to getting it activated for broadband? Or would it run into the same problem that I currently have?
If it’s not overly expensive and would guarantee broadband in a couple of weeks it’d be worth the cost, but I don’t know what the process would entail.
Right now I’d pay big bucks to anyone who could get me back online!
 
You'd be best off just choosing a provider which has a low or zero new-line install cost. It may take a few weeks but then you've got the line forever and with it being brand new you'd expect it to be pretty perfect if Openreach do a good job testing it at install.

I know I'm really doing a lot of Vodafone marketing recently but they have a specific product available https://www.vodafone.co.uk/broadband/second-line now. I saw it first through the ISPreview main news section. There seems to be no install costs and just standard ongoing pricing.
 
Thanks, that looks like it might be a really good idea.
Excuse my ignorance here but would ordering a second line mean they install a completely new cable from the cabinet to my property, or does it actually mean they use a spare line in the existing cable (as I think I’ve read elsewhere)? If it’s the second, my concern would be that it would just lead to the same problem I currently have, ie Openreach thinking I don’t have any line/cable to my house.
Thanks, I’m learning loads reading this forum 😁👍
 
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So Sky have provided an update today, and it's not good...
Basically my order has been passed by Openreach to their planning team (??) who need to investigate and will provide an update by 30th Sept. Assuming they are happy by then it will then be a further 2 weeks to get my line activated. So that'll be over 10 weeks without any broadband. In a house with a working FTTC line.
If they don't have it resolved on 30th, I was told this could go on indefinitely until Openreach do confirm. And there's not a damn thing I (or Sky apparently) can do about it.
I just don't get it.
And the Sky technician advised me that taking a new line would just put me even further back as it would encounter the same planning issue from Openreach.
Can anyone recommend a good satellite broadband provider, that's looking like my only hope o_O
 
Thanks, that looks like it might be a really good idea.
Excuse my ignorance here but would ordering a second line mean they install a completely new cable from the cabinet to my property, or does it actually mean they use a spare line in the existing cable (as I think I’ve read elsewhere)? If it’s the second, my concern would be that it would just lead to the same problem I currently have, ie Openreach thinking I don’t have any line/cable to my house.
Thanks, I’m learning loads reading this forum 😁👍

That's right - you'd have a brand new cable, a brand new box/port in your house.

You shouldn't really have an issue with a second line as when Openreach come to install it the order for service is already attached to it and it gets activated at the point of install so there's no going between afterwards.

Sounds like in your case it could be the perfect solution. Especially with it being a specific second line product so the order would definitely go through as a new line instead of another provider trying take over the faulty line.
 
That sounds promising, though I would imagine it will take several weeks (or months given how Openreach have performed so far) for them to do something like this, especially if they've got to get a new cable from the cabinet to my property somehow.
But it would at least be a new line. I'll give them a call to ask.
I'm considering going down the 4G Broadband route with Vodafone as a stopgap solution, though as my 4G signal indoors is sketchy on my phone i'd probably need an external antenna which it seems would cost me around £300+ if I can find a good company to install one.
 
That sounds promising, though I would imagine it will take several weeks (or months given how Openreach have performed so far) for them to do something like this, especially if they've got to get a new cable from the cabinet to my property somehow.
But it would at least be a new line. I'll give them a call to ask.
I'm considering going down the 4G Broadband route with Vodafone as a stopgap solution, though as my 4G signal indoors is sketchy on my phone i'd probably need an external antenna which it seems would cost me around £300+ if I can find a good company to install one.

In most cases people don't need an external antenna for 4G routers and the routers internal antenna works fine. Though you're going to get significantly more stable performance with a physical line of course. You could give them a call - they'll likely give you an install date for the second line.
 
Probably a daft question but do 4g routers tend to get a better signal than a mobile phone does?
I’m considering buying the Vodafone gigabit thingy but my phone gets weak signal in the house on Vodafone and regularly flicks between H+ and 4g, so would a router pull a better signal, or would it need the antenna?
 
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They do sokewhat purely because they have a large antenna but it sounds like you’re in a poor 4G coverage area with Vodafone or your house is exceptionally good at blocking the signal.

I’d probably hazard a guess that your signal is going to be similar on a router and you’ll be wasting money.
 
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