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Blocked form changing provider due to no lines left in cabinet

trafficjamstudio

Casual Member
Hello everyone. This is my first time posting, so thanks in advance for any advice you might be able to provide.

It's a bit of a strange problem for us. We currently have two business properties, one using BT the other XLN telecom for business. The contract has run out on the XLN telecom line so we want to switch it to BT to combine both properties This should be straight forward, but BT says there are no more lines in the cabinet for 19/75 which is what we have now, so they would have to downgrade our line to much slower internet.

This make no sense to me, as we currently have 19mbs upload and 75mbs download, so logically in my mind we should just be able to continue using that very same line. Not according to the BT sales person who was insisting the computer says no. He suggest I call BT Openreach, but not sure why that would have anything to do with it.

I have searched on this forum for something similar, but have not seen anything, hence my post.

Has anyone here had similar issues or suggestion son what we can do about this? XLN bumped up our price by about 50% so we are keen to move to a more competitive supplier ASAP but do not want to downgrade the speed of our line.

A bit about our location, we are in a small light industrial estate (tiny) right in the middle of lot s of blocks flats and houses. It is strange as though we are pretty central in a giant city in East London, we have been overlooked for Virgin fibre due to the light industrial estate nature of where we are plus it seems BT fibre to premises too for the very same reason. I once enquired how much it would cost to have a leased line form virgin, but it was more than 14k I believe, so a non no for that one. Hence we are stuck with two line, 19/75 on each - every megabit of upload speed counts for us.

Thanks in advance!
 
This is a fairly common problem when the cabinet is full - have a look on Codelook to see if there is a planned expansion - my brother in Fulham is currently stuck with TalkTalk and can't move ISP unless he downgrades to ADSL - for example his cabinet is due to be upgraded by November:

 
Thanks for this. It does not look like there are any upgrades planned. Still makes not sense why I cannot continue with the same line - it is still using the same physical connection:(
 
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Trouble is the FTTC at the cabinet gets released when the current service is cancelled, before your new order can be actioned the released FTTC gets taken by someone on the waiting list and hence you join the back of the list on an ADSL line.
 
Yes, it seems that way for sure. Quite frustrating and it does seem to work against being able to move freely from one provider to another. Perhaps this is a bit of an oversight as I cannot imagine that the intention is to punish someone just because they want to switch provider. It si even more frustrating as I really want to move away from XLN.
 
The last update we ran on the cabinet capacity problem is linked below, which may give you some extra context:

 
The port you have is allocated to your provider on that account, it doesn’t belong to your line or your property.
If you close that account and it’s reallocated to a pool, if there’s customers waiting, they get it. Your new provider puts in a new order just like every other customer fed from that cabinet.
 
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Why not try 4g/5g instead? Its certainly capable of providing you with as fast (or possibly faster) as the connection as you have now (depending on carrier and contention). Might be worth investigating.
 
Why not try 4g/5g instead? Its certainly capable of providing you with as fast (or possibly faster) as the connection as you have now (depending on carrier and contention). Might be worth investigating.
A good suggestion. I tried 5G already - the signal is very weak in this area. I have asked multiple providers to contact us once they are ready for 5G business unlimited data plans as with that I am hoping to get great upload speeds. I also looked at satellite broadband, but prices are high and relatively the speeds are quite low.
 
The port you have is allocated to your provider on that account, it doesn’t belong to your line or your property.
If you close that account and it’s reallocated to a pool, if there’s customers waiting, they get it. Your new provider puts in a new order just like every other customer fed from that cabinet.
This is flawed in my opinion. It prevents us from moving to get a more competitive price, as I cannot move provider without suffering a significant loss in connectivity speed so I must stay with the current provider who is now charging above market rates. So this literally pushes up prices.

You have to remember, we are not trying to queue jump, we already have our connection for which we are now being overcharged to use.
 
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So no decent speeds on 4G at least? What are you getting on your phone?
 
This is flawed in my opinion. It prevents us from moving to get a more competitive price, as I cannot move provider without suffering a significant loss in connectivity speed so I must stay with the current provider who is now charging above market rates. So this literally pushes up prices.

You have to remember, we are not trying to queue jump, we already have our connection for which we are now being overcharged to use.
I understand your frustration, but you don't "already have our connection"

You have *A* connection that one ISP is renting from Openreach.

If you move ISP that rental ends.

The alternative sucks too - in that other people never get a service, or a provider - likely the likes of BT can simply just keep paying for it and offer service to a new person in the property and nobody else can get a look in.

There isn't really a good solution to a lack of capacity short term - just a need for more capacity, which ultimately is down to Openreach.
 
I understand your frustration, but you don't "already have our connection"

You have *A* connection that one ISP is renting from Openreach.

If you move ISP that rental ends.

The alternative sucks too - in that other people never get a service, or a provider - likely the likes of BT can simply just keep paying for it and offer service to a new person in the property and nobody else can get a look in.

There isn't really a good solution to a lack of capacity short term - just a need for more capacity, which ultimately is down to Openreach.
I understand your point. Unfortunately that system pushes prices up - it does not free a line for someone else as will will continue paying, pushing up the broadband price. There are two issues here as I see them.

1. Capacity. This, as you have highlighted, will only be increased by either openreach expanding the ports on offer or building. a new cabinet, something I read can take years (the link above) .

2. Ensuring that competition is there to keep market prices in check. With the inability to continue using the same port that has been allocated to our premises, the market has been distorted in favour of the provider as I do not believe many businesses or individuals would accept downgrading to a low speed service.

In reality, our hope is to get good 5G coverage, or even faster and more price competitive satellite broadband as we are not sensitive to latency.
 
Well Starlink is actually pretty price competitive - unlimited at £89 is very good - when you consider the issues and cost of providing it - and actually latency is excellent - 20-25ms - that's VERY good.
 
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