BT problem - "no data for this number"

First post to this group, so stop me if this is an FAQ...

I'm moving on Monday into a new flat, and was lucky enough to be able to
get access to the place two weeks in advance to do stuff like connecting
the phone. So I organised for a phoneline to be connected with BT and
all was well with the world. The flat is in an ADSL area.

Then I noticed the rather lurvely offer of 2MB ADSL from e7even for
£10/month. So the day after the phone went live (Fri), I tried to
order...

"There is no data for this number. This could be either because it is
not a BT line or it is a new BT number that has just been provided. Most
new numbers will appear 24 hours after BT has installed the line."

Oh well, never mind. The offer runs for 7 days...

Tried again after the weekend - same message. Tried at BT Broadband
availability checker which gave the same message, but also:

"However, in a very few cases, new numbers may not be reported
immediately to the availability checker. These numbers will only be
discovered and added to the availability checker following our regular
audit and cross-checking process and this may take up to six weeks."

Six weeks for BT to tell *themselves* that I am a customer. Seems
absolutely cock to me. Has anyone else fallen foul of this beastie, and
is there anything that I can do to jig them along? Six weeks of dial-up
does *not* sound like a laff.


--
treeherder.co.uk (marcus)

Any reference to trees or their herding is purely coincidental.

On Wed, 13 Jul 2005 19:57:05 UTC, Treeherder
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> Then I noticed the rather lurvely offer of 2MB ADSL from e7even for
> £10/month. So the day after the phone went live (Fri), I tried to
> order...
>
> "There is no data for this number. This could be either because it is
> not a BT line or it is a new BT number that has just been provided. Most
> new numbers will appear 24 hours after BT has installed the line."

> Tried again after the weekend - same message. Tried at BT Broadband
> availability checker which gave the same message, but also:
>
> "However, in a very few cases, new numbers may not be reported
> immediately to the availability checker. These numbers will only be
> discovered and added to the availability checker following our regular
> audit and cross-checking process and this may take up to six weeks."

Some ISPs will put in a manual order for you. This may involve emailing
them or calling them to ask them to do this. BT can then override the
'system'.

However, low cost ISPs are probably less willing to do this. YGWYPF. Try
anyway.

--
[ 7'ism - a condition by which the sufferer experiences an inability
to give concise answers, express reasoned argument or opinion.
Usually accompanied by silly noises and gestures - incurable, early
euthanasia recommended. ]

On 13 Jul 2005 20:09:02 GMT, "Bob Eager" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Some ISPs will put in a manual order for you. ...

>However, low cost ISPs are probably less willing to do this.
>YGWYPF. Try anyway.

Some ISPs seem more easily contacted than others, and offer extended hours
when their staff can be reached (rather than the 0900-1730 which some will
still stick to, where business users are considered prime customers, so to
offer out-of-hours service, especially with low monthly fees/profiy, isn't
popular or even seen as necessary). Yet to think some people complain my
ISP uses an 0845 {horror of horrors!} phone number for access :-) Peter.

--

UK ADSL <http://tinyurl.com/5jpa4> - Happy to save cash with Plus.Net!!

"Bob Eager" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
news:176uZD2KcidF-pn2-(E-Mail Removed):

> Some ISPs will put in a manual order for you. This may involve
> emailing them or calling them to ask them to do this. BT can then
> override the 'system'.
>
> However, low cost ISPs are probably less willing to do this. YGWYPF.
> Try anyway.
>

Thanks for the tip. Would you recommend anyone? I'm currently with Zen,
who have excellent service but 25GBP for 512 seems a little out-of-touch.


--
treeherder.co.uk (marcus)

Any reference to trees or their herding is purely coincidental.

On Wed, 13 Jul 2005 23:38:40 UTC, Treeherder
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> "Bob Eager" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
> news:176uZD2KcidF-pn2-(E-Mail Removed):
>
> > Some ISPs will put in a manual order for you. This may involve
> > emailing them or calling them to ask them to do this. BT can then
> > override the 'system'.
> >
> > However, low cost ISPs are probably less willing to do this. YGWYPF.
> > Try anyway.
> >
>
> Thanks for the tip. Would you recommend anyone? I'm currently with Zen,
> who have excellent service but 25GBP for 512 seems a little out-of-touch.

Can't personally do so. I use the Zen end of the market (but not Zen)
and have had excellent service!

I used to recommend PlusNet but

a) I'm not impressed by some of their recent actions in terms of
changing contracts and then saying they haven't
b) I doubt that they are flexible enough to do this

--
[ 7'ism - a condition by which the sufferer experiences an inability
to give concise answers, express reasoned argument or opinion.
Usually accompanied by silly noises and gestures - incurable, early
euthanasia recommended. ]

On 14 Jul 2005 06:58 GMT, "Bob Eager" wrote:

>On 13 Jul 2005 23:38 UTC, Treeherder wrote:

>> Thanks for the tip. Would you recommend anyone? I'm currently with Zen,
>> who have excellent service but 25GBP for 512 seems a little out-of-touch.

Metronet offers 500 kbps with an upper limit of 22.75/month (on their PayGo
500 or PayGo Extra accounts, which start at 11.75 and 16.99 respectively)
So for just 500 kbps you could get a reasonable deal with them (or from
Freedom to Surf, at something similar). Both of these offer fixed IP,
Metronet has news from Supernews, don't know about F2S, sorry.

>a) I'm not impressed by some of their recent actions in terms of
> changing contracts and then saying they haven't

As a customer, nor was I, but then again, other ISPs are waking up to the
idea they need to enforce their (previously unused) 'fair use' policies,
so I foresee a number of other ISPs getting criticism over the next few
months/years as they clamp down on their heaviest users, too...

>b) I doubt that they are flexible enough to do this

I believe they are, having seen a post by Alex Crosby on 02/07/05 (*):-

----------8<--------------------------------8<--------------------
I can probably fill in some of the blanks. We've been participating in
BT's simultaneous provide scheme for some months now, whereby we place
an ADSL order and a PSTN (voice line) order gets matched up to it and
they both become active at the same time. That is, at least, the idea.
This is a manual process and has to be done by one of our provisioning
team.

We do find a lot of simultaneous provides get cancelled by BT because
they couldn't make the ADSL order match up to a PSTN order. This ends
up just delaying the process because we have to fall back on a standard
cease and reprovide, which we could have initiated earlier if it weren't
for the attempt at a simultaneous PSTN/ADSL provide.

However, we have recently clarified the situation with BT Wholesale and
your best bet if you want to attempt the above is to follow this advice
(taken from a non-specific ticket to one of our customers):

"In order to reprovide the service at your new address as quickly as
possible, you will need to quote the following code to BT Retail when
ordering your "combined PSTN and ADSL delivery": XXXXX [You will get
this code when your ticket is passed to our provisioning team who
create the first step of your order in BT's system]

With this, BT will only allow an order for ADSL from us, and no other
ISP (including themselves), which is what you want.

If you have already ordered what you think is a combined PSTN/ADSL order
then you should have been prompted for our code by BT Retail. If this is
not the case, then your new line will not have working ADSL on it at the
same time it is switched on, and you should cancel and reorder with BT
as above. We have to initiate this order, BT cannot.

Please get back to us and reply to this ticket stating the following
information, all of which is required if the order is to be successful:

* BT's reference number for the order (should be in the format ABC123DE)
* Your new full address including complete postcode
* The date you'd like the service delivered (allow 7 working days) "
----------8<--------------------------------8<--------------------

(*) It was in plusnet.service.customer-feedback which might be seen via
the web portal, I believe - login as user guest / password guest but if
not, as there's a limit to how patient someone might be going back page
by page, then signing up for an Essential account would give three free
months of news + mail during which one could upgrade to ADSL service.


--

UK ADSL <http://tinyurl.com/5jpa4> - Happy to save cash with Plus.Net!!

On Thu, 14 Jul 2005 10:41:34 UTC, poster <us-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> >a) I'm not impressed by some of their recent actions in terms of
> > changing contracts and then saying they haven't
>
> As a customer, nor was I, but then again, other ISPs are waking up to the
> idea they need to enforce their (previously unused) 'fair use' policies,
> so I foresee a number of other ISPs getting criticism over the next few
> months/years as they clamp down on their heaviest users, too...

Don't get me wrong. The action was reasonable. Refusing to admit it was
a material change in contract meant that people couldn't 'get out'
early. Reduced their 'churn', but left a nasty taste.

--
[ 7'ism - a condition by which the sufferer experiences an inability
to give concise answers, express reasoned argument or opinion.
Usually accompanied by silly noises and gestures - incurable, early
euthanasia recommended. ]

"Bob Eager" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
news:176uZD2KcidF-pn2-(E-Mail Removed):

> Some ISPs will put in a manual order for you. This may involve
> emailing them or calling them to ask them to do this. BT can then
> override the 'system'.
>
> However, low cost ISPs are probably less willing to do this. YGWYPF.
> Try anyway.

Follow up...

Now I know why Zen are considered to have excellent customer service.
One of their guys got back to me by 9am this morning. "I have discussed
your situation with our service provision team who are responsible for
the technical aspects of placing an order. It seems that it is only the
speed that cannot be tested on your line at present, when we check the
number with BT's pre-order 'eCo' system it tells us that the line is
ready for broadband and is matched up to a property with the postcode
*****". Disco

Funny how BT couldn't match the number with any data and progress an
order but a third party can.

So thanks Bob for what looks like a successful suggestion, and thanks
Adam and everyone else at Zen for being excellent!


--
treeherder.co.uk (marcus)

Any reference to trees or their herding is purely coincidental.