House Move Guide

This guide tells you all you need to know about moving your broadband to a new address.

Choose one of the following options:

1. I wish to move my broadband and phone service together
2. I'm keeping the same telephone number (moving just broadband service)
3. I'm not keeping the same telephone number
4. I don't know my new telephone number
5. Potential issues

1. I wish to move my broadband and phone service together

If you are a PlusNet Home Phone customer, we can arrange the move for you, see our Home Phone House Move Guide.

For other phone providers, you need to arrange what is known as a 'simultaneous provide', this lets you move your phone service and broadband service at the same time. This means you don’t have any loss of service due to your house move.

This is currently a trial project run by BT Wholesale, so please be aware that the move process does sometimes take longer than normal. (i.e. this can take up to 2-3 weeks, the same as a same number move).

To arrange your move you should first contact your phone provider and ask them for a "Simultaneous Provide Code". So that we can place an order of this type, we need at least 7 working days notice, however we’d suggest you give us 2 weeks notice. If your phone provider doesn't support such moves you will need to arrange a regular house move.

Then contact PlusNet and give us the "Simultaneous Provide Code". We will then place the order for a simultaneous broadband and phone move. If there are any problems, we’ll get in touch with you to let you know. To place your order, please go to the Help Assistant > Customer Services & Billing > Account Management > Move My Broadband to New Premises > Move My Broadband to New Premises (new phone line ordered).

Note: For a Simultaneous order we do not need to know your new phone number at the time the order is placed.
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2. I'm keeping the same telephone number (moving just broadband service)

If you are moving house and just want to move your broadband service separate to the phone service there will be a period of about 2 weeks loss of service whilst your broadband is switched from one address to another. (This is due to the way BT Wholesale’s ordering system works).

Firstly, the broadband service at your current address needs to be cancelled - this takes 5 working days to complete. Once this is done, we can then place an order to have broadband installed at your new address. This also takes about 5 working days to complete.

To allow for delays in the ordering process and for the BT Wholesale systems to be updated we suggest you allow an extra five days.

Use our Move My ADSL tool to arrange your house move.
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3. I'm not keeping the same telephone number

This is by far the most straightforward type of move. You’ll need to do this if you are moving to an area which uses a different telephone exchange to your existing service. If you are a PlusNet Home Phone customer see our Home Phone House Move Guide.

Firstly we’ll place an order to have the broadband at your current property cancelled – this takes 5 working days to complete. At the same time we’ll also place an order for broadband to be installed at your new address.

Because these two steps can be done at the same time, it takes just 5 working days for the house move to complete.

Use our Move My ADSL tool to arrange your house move.
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4. I don't know my new telephone number

Unfortunately we need a telephone number to be able to complete your house move, unless you wish to move your broadband and phone at the same time. If you are waiting for confirmation about keeping your current or new number, you should get this first before contacting us to arrange moving your broadband.
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5. Potential issues

As with all ordering processes, it is possible that delays will happen from time-to-time. Some of the more common issues are:

a. DACS on the line
A DACS (Digital Access Carrier System) is a method used on some phone lines to allow two phone lines to make use of a single set of wires. This is often done to make wiring more straightforward or to reduce costs, especially in rural areas or built-up areas where it may be difficult to arrange a new line to be laid.
If you have DACS on your line you need to have this removed in order for you to get broadband service. There are two types of DACS:

• Internal - an internal DACS will be on your property and would need us to arrange a BT Openreach engineer to visit your address to remove this.
• External - an external DACS wouldn't need a BT Openreach engineer to access to your address, but may need one to get access to private land or, in some cases, to dig up cables in the road. The time needed to remove a DACS depends on the location and permission to close off roads for access.

b. Exchange Capacity
A telephone exchange cannot provide unlimited broadband connections. The capacity of the exchange is finite and as such, it is possible that the capacity can be reached. In these cases, broadband orders will be placed in a queue and will either be fulfilled as broadband connections become available, due to others moving and making capacity available, or when the exchange has additional equipment installed to provide increased capacity.

In these cases, we will contact BT Wholesale to try and determine as much information as we can on the potential delay. However, this can be difficult as we are not able to find out details of the length of the queue or the details of any upgrade plans.

c. Tags On The Line
A tag, or marker, is placed on a line to indicate that the line cannot have a broadband service installed on it. There are 2 types of marker.

• Broadband marker – this is the most common marker, placed by another service provider when they are responsible for providing a service on the line. If someone moves house but the marker is not removed, this will prevent us from placing a broadband order.

If a tag is on the line, then it is possible to arrange for BT Wholesale to remove it. BT have a dedicated ‘tags’ team who can be contacted on 0800 1690934 - you can call them and arrange for the tag to be removed from your line.

• Hard marker - this shows there is something physical stopping the broadband being activated on the line. If the property is old, it may have an old style BT bell box (installed before modern phone sockets and didn’t have a connection point, as the phone was effectively hardwired into the line).

Without a phone socket, there would be nowhere to plug your micro filters in. In addition there would be no connection for your broadband equipment, so the line cannot have a broadband order placed on it.

If there is a hard marker, it will be necessary for you to call your phone provider and ask them to have that marker removed from the phone database, this will then allow us to place your broadband order.

d. Incompatible Products

When we place an order for broadband, the initial checking phase will show if there are incompatible products on the line. As well as the tags/markers mentioned above there may also be other incompatible products such as:

• Alarm systems which link in to the phone line
• A PBX telephone exchange
• The BT Retail Light User scheme (BT Retail require a full subscription to be paid in order to allow broadband to work on the line).

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This page last updated 16th July 2007

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