Annoying situation re: new apartment

JaMarcus Hustle

Hi, have a bit of a frustrating situation to run by you guys. I was going to cross post this in the Broadband forum as well because I want some advice from both a tenancy/rights perspective, and from a technical perspective.

Basically, we moved into an apartment 2 weeks ago that was advertised with “Satellite TV” and “Broadband”. There is an Eircom line in the apartment, and a couple of days after moving in we set about enquiring with Sky as that’s what we want to get.

It turns out though, that the line is still active because the previous tenant never cancelled their Vodafone account (so if we plug in a router, there is wireless internet, and likewise if we plug in a landline, we have a working phone). Obviously we have no interest in using this as we want Sky, so we rang them to get our own service installed. But they apparently require a UAN number to switch over an active line, which the previous tenant should know (it’s on their bills, or they can get it from Vodafone). Unfortunately, the previous tenant has left the country and is un-contactable so we have no means of getting this number.

We got in contact with the bank (landlord), who have sent a mail to Vodafone confirming that we are now the legal tenants and that the previous tenants are no longer living in the country. That’s where we’re at right now. But I rang Vodafone last night and they said that they will soon tell the landlord that they will cancel the account (which de-activates the line, I believe). I then rang Sky, and they said it can then take up to 4 weeks for them to see the line reactivated on their system, so it would be about 6 weeks from move in date before we can even try and get someone round to install Sky.

I find it very hard to believe that it can take that long, surely things like this happen all the time? Anybody have similar experiences, or know anything we can try?

Any advice appreciated, thanks.

Mr. G

In order to port a line from another provider you need a UAN number, this is your eircom account number or if your not with eircom, its on the bill. To get this you will need to ring Vodafone.

Once the porting process has started, it takes 24-48 (Vodafone have to release the line in 24 hours, Sky then have 24 hours to port it over) hours for voice services to port, and 7-10 working days for broadband to move over. This is the same on all providers.

JaMarcus Hustle

Thanks Mr.G, but the problem is that Vodafone will not give the UAN number because we are not the account holder. Their solution seems to be terminating the existing account, and Sky advised that when this happens, it can take them up to 4 weeks to see an active line at the residence again.

I just find it hard to believe that if you move into an apartment with an active line where the account holder is unreachable, it takes over 4 weeks to get sorted. Surely this happens a lot?

Mr. G

JaMarcus Hustle wrote: »

Thanks Mr.G, but the problem is that Vodafone will not give the UAN number because we are not the account holder. Their solution seems to be terminating the existing account, and Sky advised that when this happens, it can take them up to 4 weeks to see an active line at the residence again.

I just find it hard to believe that if you move into an apartment with an active line where the account holder is unreachable, it takes over 4 weeks to get sorted. Surely this happens a lot?

I would say that usually the tenant cancels the broadband when they leave so you will have to order broadband and phone yourself.

bk

To be honest, there isn't much advantage to moving over to Sky from Vodafone.

In particular if you are in a VDSL enabled area, you would be much better off sticking with Vodafone.

If you stay with Vodafone, it might end up making the transfer easier and quicker.

Mr. G

bk has a point here.

colm_mcm

There is also the fact that you have free Internet for a while too.