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Switching to Vodafone on CityFibre?

Anth

Super Pro Member
Just seen the deal posted for CityFibre on Vodafone. I was going to sign up to it as I am out of contract with TalkTalk and only on a rolling contract now.

However when I put my details into Vodafones checker it says

"Sorry, You can't get Broadband at your address".

I put in my next door neighbours address and it said no problem you can have this. So it seems its because I am with TalkTalk that is stopping this. The thing I am worried about is I cannot have any downtime (why are CityFibre making this so difficult to make changes like this).

So what do I do to ensure I have no downtime, do I need to phone TalkTalk and say I want my line terminated. They will probably say it will be terminated in sometime between 10-30 days I am guessing. then what do I do with ordering Vodafone? When will it say on their website I can order it, and what do I do to ensure there is no downtime (I don't mind a few hours, but if it comes to whole days i cannot live with that.

The deal with Vodafone only runs until next week too so this is going to need some careful timing - again why are Cityfibre being so difficult in letting you switch ISPs!!
 
I think this is falling back on the failure of process with CityFibre, where only a disconnected connection can be activated, and not transferred.
 
It really is utterly absurd, as CityFibre should know people cannot live with extensive downtime these days.

in 2023 its like switching Electric companies and saying, you will have two weeks without any electricity to make the switch.

I am in the queue for the live chat with Vodafone right now to see what they say.
 
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Vodafone's live chat were no help.

There needs to be a way to complain about this. This is further issues with me having CityFibre. They seem to want to lock you into the speed you originally setup with and the ISP you originally signed up with. And to change either they want up to 30 days down time with no internet. This is an absolute joke in 2023!

There is absolutely no way CityFibre could ever have thought this was acceptable when setting this process up.

Vodafone said they could give me a wifi mobile hotspot and a sim card in this timeframe. This is not helpful when everything I do is over the internet and I use up to a terabyte in a week nowadays.
 
I have never in my life experience a situation as stupid as this one that CityFibre have setup.

I have terminated my service with TalkTalk.

I then have phoned up Vodafone and tried to sign up. They still say I cannot sign up. According to them it shows as no active internet at my address at all.

So I am asking Vodafone generally when does this line lock get released so I can order with you so I don't get my line terminated and I end up with no internet. And they have no clue what I am talking about. The agents have spoken to two managers and both managers have said the issue is CityFibre have not installed to my area yet and I am telling them it is not that. I have an active CityFibre line. It is simply hidden on your system as CityFibre lock peoples lines to your ISP.

I was told by Vodafone yesterday to terminate my service to release it. I have done this and yet its still not available to order with Vodafone.

And I am telling them. All I am wanting to know is when this line provision gets released so I can order elsewhere and not risk extended downtime and nobody has a single clue what I am talking about.

How can CityFibre have existed for multiple years and not one single person in two of their main ISP providers (Vodafone and TalkTalk) even know the basics about the way they manage their lines and provide their service?

I am really worried here I am going to end up with 2 weeks to a month with no internet at all at my property all because I am wanting to switch ISPs at the end of my contract. I cannot allow that to happen. This really is a joke that CityFibre have set things up like this. This is stress nobody needs.
 
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I have been told by their live chat, their forum support and on the phone from their loyalty department and full fibre support. The only way to get out of talktalk and switch to someone else is to wait until the line completely terminates. You then have no internet at all. Only then are you free to sign up elsewhere. Then you will need to wait up to a month for the new service to go active as a new install to your property.

Basically you are being held hostage not letting you leave at all. As they know people cannot go a month with no internet in 2023.

I have therefore been forced to cancel the cancelation request and be stuck with TalkTalk as I cannot go a month with no internet.

CityFibre and TalkTalk should both go bankrupt and I hope they both do. This is blatantly unfair competition practice.
 
I have been told by their live chat, their forum support and on the phone from their loyalty department and full fibre support. The only way to get out of talktalk and switch to someone else is to wait until the line completely terminates. You then have no internet at all. Only then are you free to sign up elsewhere. Then you will need to wait up to a month for the new service to go active as a new install to your property.

Basically you are being held hostage not letting you leave at all. As they know people cannot go a month with no internet in 2023.

I have therefore been forced to cancel the cancelation request and be stuck with TalkTalk as I cannot go a month with no internet.

CityFibre and TalkTalk should both go bankrupt and I hope they both do. This is blatantly unfair competition practice.
terrible service from CF really - not the isps fault - i switched from cuckoo to aquiss within 10 days and i had internet then to BT within 10 days. this is with Openreach however.
 
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I do agree this is poor but it will change in the future as this becomes more of a problem, I image OfCom are seeing many complaints on this already but may be worth flagging it with them.
 
It kind of seems like that CityFibre doesn't have a clear process to migrate from one ISP to another on their network.

Openreach already have this sorted and it's been the same way for years and years.
 
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Do you have Openreach FTTP also available to you? You could order a service on a monthly contract to keep you connected albeit with less upload during the transition.
 
Do you have Openreach FTTP also available to you? You could order a service on a monthly contract to keep you connected albeit with less upload during the transition.

Openreach were installing cables to my street today so I suspect I will do quite soon. I am waiting however for Grain to install to my street so I can cancel this with a fall back. (I was intending on having both active at the same time as Grain is so cheap at £15 a month for 100mb/s) Grain have said September to install to my street.
 
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I put in a formal complaint to Vodafone about this and they responded to it saying I would need to wait till TalkTalk had fully terminated the line before I could sign up as a new user and this is a limitation with how CityFibre setup their service. This means I would have no internet for at the very least, best case scenario 2 weeks while they take the order and initiate a new user install to my house (even though I already have it installed).

After the complaint was rejected. I appealed the complaint quoting Ofcom's new laws that came into effect on 1st April 2023 saying this stance is illegal and anyone left in this position should receive compensation from the ISP.

And Vodafone offered me a free 4G Sim Card and Wifi Dongle to use in those (upto) a worst case scenario of two months of no internet (I will kick off if it is two months though).

So I have ordered a VN007+ 5G router from Aliexpress for £80 to use with the Sim they send as my main internet to my house and just accepted I am going to be between 2 weeks to a month without any Fibre internet at all.

This is beyond all levels of a joke in 2023!. How the hell to CityFibre expect people to go this length of time with no internet in 2023 and go through the sheer level of hoops I have needed to go through just to change ISP on their service.
 
And Vodafone offered me a free 4G Sim Card and Wifi Dongle to use in those (upto) a worst case scenario of two months of no internet (I will kick off if it is two months though).
That's not actually a bad solution. Considering Vodafone are working to the limitations of Cityfibres ordering system.
 
Have you reported anything to Ofcom? Given all the work that's been done on making migrations easier I think they should be looking into Cityfibre given the difficulties there are with migrating and even changing speeds with a current provider. I can understand some teething issues in setting up the network but now we're at least a couple of years in (at least here, I assume it must be longer elsewhere) these problems shouldn't be happening.

I started with Talktalk with a 500/500 connection at £35 a month with six months free and planned to have a look at what new offers were available when I reached the end of the contract. I noticed Vodafone are offering 1000/1000 for £29 a month so came to the forum to find if CF migrations are getting any better but it seems not. I don't know if there's any leeway with TT to threaten to leave and see if they drop the price a bit, I'll be interested to see how long your changeover takes.
 
I put in a formal complaint to Vodafone about this and they responded to it saying I would need to wait till TalkTalk had fully terminated the line before I could sign up as a new user and this is a limitation with how CityFibre setup their service. This means I would have no internet for at the very least, best case scenario 2 weeks while they take the order and initiate a new user install to my house (even though I already have it installed).

After the complaint was rejected. I appealed the complaint quoting Ofcom's new laws that came into effect on 1st April 2023 saying this stance is illegal and anyone left in this position should receive compensation from the ISP.

And Vodafone offered me a free 4G Sim Card and Wifi Dongle to use in those (upto) a worst case scenario of two months of no internet (I will kick off if it is two months though).

So I have ordered a VN007+ 5G router from Aliexpress for £80 to use with the Sim they send as my main internet to my house and just accepted I am going to be between 2 weeks to a month without any Fibre internet at all.

This is beyond all levels of a joke in 2023!. How the hell to CityFibre expect people to go this length of time with no internet in 2023 and go through the sheer level of hoops I have needed to go through just to change ISP on their service.
Did you get sorted in the end? Below was taken from City Fibre website "

I already have full fibre broadband, how do I switch providers?​

When you already have a live full fibre broadband service over the CityFibre network and choose to switch to another ISP who is also on our network, that new or ‘gaining’ ISP will reach out to CityFibre to arrange the ‘switch’.
When ordering from your new ISP, they should inform you to contact your current ISP and explain that you need to give them notice of your intention to cancel your service with them. The reason i ask is because i am looking to migrate to Vodafone on City Fibre network from an ISP on Openreach network
 
Not with Vodafone or TalkTalk. I put in a full line termination request to TalkTalk in order to free up my line to allow me to switch to Vodafone as a brand new user. I got the your line will terminate on this date email from TalkTalk.

I had to wait a full month for the line to terminate from the time of request. And TalkTalk just ignored the disconnect date and my service continued with them. I made a second termination request to TalkTalk and waited another month. TalkTalk just ignored it again.

I therefore switched to Yayzi and got a third termination and switch over date for Yayzi. TalkTalk just ignored it again.

I needed Yayzi to manually complain to CityFibre to get the line terminated from TalkTalk and switched over to Yayzi for me.

I read that on the CityFibre website at the time and even put in a formal complaint to CityFibre because this was not being offered to me by Vodafone and they said you need to take this up with the ISP you want to switch to and they can do this. Vodafone said it is CityFibre stopping them from even signing up with them and CityFibre said Vodafone just need to ask us. Neither took ownership hence why I had to go down the full line termination request route with TalkTalk.

Just out of interest given you asked. I just tried Vodafones checker now when I am with Yayzi and it is letting me sign up for them with CityFibre if I wanted so it is TalkTalk doing something to your line stopping you from signing up with competitors that Yayzi do not do (maybe because Yayzi run on 30 day contracts?)
 
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I'm with Zen on CityFibre and using the Vodafone checker, my address shows as being able to receive their service (also via CF not OR, as the upload matches the download). Perhaps it's a TalkTalk thing, or maybe things have changed at CF's end since the summer.

I'm in contract (and also happy with Zen) so don't want to change, but it does seem like it'd be possible now.
 
You are being told fibs, by untrained staff. There is a isp migration process with city fibre and it does involve a line termination. However this does not mean a dead line. Its more of a marker on the service to say it is available for other ISPs to place orders on. I know several people who have switched like this. The problem here is the big ISPs being crap. All of the people I know, moved to one of the smaller ISPs who where motivated to move them. Both voda is a big dumb corp, and talktalk are just dumb.

The process should be cancel with talktalk.
Wait 48 hours
place new order with new isp
a few weeks later the line should just switch
 
I think this is falling back on the failure of process with CityFibre, where only a disconnected connection can be activated, and not transferred.
It seems so. I recently tried to migrate from Vodafone/CityFibre to FACTCO/CityFibre. The migration failed and I was left without internet for four days. FACTCO had to scrap that contract and start me off as a new City Fibre client.

Hilariously, two days after FACTCO got me connected, City Fibre engineers came round to install my fibre, junction boxes and ONT. Robotically,even though they had been told I had been given a new user contract as a workaround, they assumed I needed a complete installation.
 
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