New provider cancelled your broadband order?

Since 12 September 2024, switching broadband has used a process called One Touch Switch (OTS for short). You contact only the provider you're moving to, often called the gaining provider, and it arranges the switch. Your current provider, the losing provider, must send you switching information, including any early termination charges (the fee for leaving before your contract's minimum term ends).

Two of the rules Ofcom set for One Touch Switch, as reported by ISPreview when the process launched, matter most if your order falls through:

• The losing provider must keep supplying you on the same terms until the new service is activated, and must end your contract automatically when the switch concludes.
• If you're moving a phone number and the switch fails, the losing provider must reactivate the number and its related services until the number transfer (called a port) succeeds.

Ofcom's own switching page (last updated 1 July 2026) says that once your new service is working, your old service ends automatically. On that wording, if the new service never starts, the event that ends your old one hasn't happened.

Providers' own pages say much the same. Three (the mobile network's broadband arm) says your current service should remain active until the switch is completed, and BT's terms say that when you leave through an approved switching process, your agreement ends on the date the switch completes. Among full fibre companies that build their own networks (altnets), Zzoomm and Community Fibre both say your new connection goes live before the old one stops, when you use One Touch Switch.

One caveat: we couldn't find Ofcom guidance on what a gaining provider must do when it cancels a pending order itself, so do the checks below rather than assume all is back to normal.

We haven't found published figures on how often broadband orders are cancelled; the cancellation terms we read are mostly about installation. Openreach says most full fibre installations go smoothly, but some need extra work before you can be connected:

• digging, or clearing blocked underground ducts (the pipes that cables run through)
• tree cutting, scaffolding or road closures
• clearing water or debris from underground chambers or ducts
• a specialist engineer
• permissions from the council or a property owner, including wayleaves (legal permission to run cables across or under someone else's property)

Openreach treats these as reasons for delay, not cancellation; our guide to a full fibre install blocked by a duct or cable route covers them in detail. Some providers' terms, though, let them cancel outright when a survey or engineer finds the job is bigger than standard. This is what the terms and help pages we read say (checked October 2026; Sky's current broadband terms are the edition dated April 2025):

Permissions matter. Virgin Media's terms make you responsible for applying for the consents and permissions needed to connect your home, such as permission to lay a cable from the street, and say it doesn't have to install until all of them have been obtained. If you rent, Citizens Advice says to check your tenancy agreement, which might say you can't switch internet, landline or TV provider. Beyond that, it's sensible to tell your landlord or freeholder before any installation that drills through walls or runs a new cable to the building, because the provider may need their permission before it will go ahead. Our guide to broadband wayleaves explains how permission to cross someone else's land works.

If the order stalled because the provider couldn't find or match your address, our guide to what to do when your address isn't found explains how to get that fixed before you try again.

These are practical steps, not legal requirements.

1. Get the cancellation in writing. Ask the new provider to confirm by email or letter that the order is cancelled, why, and from what date. If a survey was the cause, ask what it found: you'll want that when you reorder.
2. Check your old service is still working. Test your broadband and, if you have one, your landline. Log in to your old provider's account and check that the account and contract still show as active.
3. Contact your old provider if anything looks wrong. Tell it the switch didn't go ahead and remind it of the One Touch Switch rules above, including reactivating your phone number if you were moving it.
4. Ask about money you've paid. Sky's and Virgin Media's terms both say they refund what you've paid when they cancel for installation reasons. Ask when and how the refund will arrive.
5. Ask about any kit that's arrived. If a router has been delivered, ask whether and how to return it.
6. Ask about compensation. If the start date had already slipped, or an engineer didn't turn up, before the order was cancelled, ask whether compensation is due (see below).
7. Keep a log. Note dates, names and what you were told, and save emails and webchats as evidence.

Sometimes the provider doesn't cancel but offers to connect you with extra work you'd pay for, usually called a non-standard installation. We haven't found consistent published prices for this work, so judge any quote on its own merits.

The terms of the three providers below leave the decision with you. We haven't checked every provider, so if yours isn't listed, ask it to confirm in writing that you can turn the work down without paying anything:

• Trooli says free installation covers standard installations only. Where extra work is needed, the fee is notified in advance and you have the chance to cancel without charge.
• Connect Fibre gives a written estimate after a separate visit and discusses the cost with you before installation. Charges are confirmed in writing only if you agree to go ahead.
• Zzoomm says you pay nothing to connect until the time needed and any additional costs have been agreed.

Before you decide, ask the provider:

• What exactly is the extra work, and who will carry it out?
• Is the quote fixed, or could it change once work starts?
• Does it need permission from my landlord, a neighbour or the council, and who arranges that?
• What happens to my switch date meanwhile?
• If I say no, is the order cancelled with nothing to pay, and will you confirm that in writing?

Weigh the quote against what else your address can get: another provider, possibly on a different network, might connect you with a standard installation, so compare broadband deals at your postcode before you agree to anything. When you compare, look at installation and connection charges as well as the monthly price, as Citizens Advice recommends.

You might pull out first, perhaps because the installation date keeps moving. If you signed up online, by phone or face to face at your home, the Consumer Contracts Regulations give you 14 days to cancel without giving a reason; there's no legal cooling-off right if you signed up on the provider's premises, such as in a shop, although Citizens Advice says it's worth asking anyway. Our guide to the broadband cooling-off period covers who qualifies, refunds and returning the router, so here we stick to what matters when the order hasn't gone live.

The useful point for a stalled order is timing. By law the 14 days run from the day after you enter the contract, but several providers count from a later point. BT's terms run the period until 14 days after the latest of equipment delivery, the service start date or receipt of the order confirmation, and BT's help pages say you can cancel online if your service hasn't started yet or started within the last 14 days. So after a delayed installation you may still be inside the cooling-off period weeks after ordering; check your own provider's start point before assuming you've missed it.

Three things to watch:

• You may pay for what you've used. If you asked for the service to start during the cooling-off period and then cancel, the law lets the provider charge a proportionate amount for the service supplied. Ofcom says that if the service has already started you might pay for the proportion used and any installation costs.
• Engineer installations can have their own rules. Sky's terms, for example, say a separate cancellation policy applies to fibre installation services when you've booked an engineer, and that you won't get back one-off activation or set-up fees if you cancel a service after activation.
• Your old service won't come back by itself. Ofcom says that if you cancel your new order within the 14 days, your old service will not automatically be reinstated. Its page doesn't distinguish between cancelling before and after the switch date, and we haven't found Ofcom guidance that covers cancelling before go-live. The rule that your old provider keeps supplying you until the new service is activated helps, but it isn't a promise that cancelling puts everything back as it was.

So the order of events matters: first ask your old provider to confirm in writing that your service carries on, then cancel with the new provider and ask it to confirm the switch has been stopped. Citizens Advice says a cancellation sent by post or email within the cooling-off period takes effect from the date you send it, so keep a copy.

Ofcom says providers must compensate you if things go wrong during a switch, including if a service or installation appointment is missed. Providers signed up to Ofcom's voluntary automatic compensation scheme pay set amounts without you having to claim: from 1 April 2026, £6.46 for each calendar day a new service starts later than promised, and £32.31 when an engineer misses an appointment or cancels with less than 24 hours' notice. Our guide to automatic compensation for broadband problems lists who has signed up and when you're excluded.

What matters for a cancelled order is how and when you're paid. Ofcom says the credit should arrive no later than 30 calendar days after a delayed start is resolved or the service is cancelled. Unless you agree otherwise it's a credit on your bill, but providers can offer another form of compensation of the same or higher value, as long as they tell you how much you could have had as a bill credit. If the order fell through before you had an account to credit, ask the provider how it will pay you, and get the answer in writing. If your provider isn't in the scheme, ask what its own policy is.

What you learned from the survey is useful when you try again:

• If the problem was specific to one network, ask other providers. One company's network problem won't necessarily stop another's. Our guide to which network your broadband is on explains how the networks differ, and you can compare fibre broadband deals across them.
• If permissions were the problem, sort them out first. Get your landlord's or freeholder's agreement in writing before you reorder.
• If a working line or fibre box is already in place, ask whether a different provider on the same network can use it rather than booking a new installation; our guide to self-installing your broadband covers plugging a router into an existing phone socket, cable socket or full fibre box. Our guide to broadband installation lead times explains how long different installation situations tend to take.

When you're ready, compare broadband deals at your postcode, or browse the broadband providers we cover, from Sky broadband deals to Virgin Media broadband deals. The comparison is run by our partner and shows what's available at your postcode; we don't switch you ourselves, so the order and the contract are with the provider you choose.

Before you reorder, ask the new provider whether your address will need a standard or non-standard installation, whether the order goes through One Touch Switch, and what happens, and what you'd pay, if it finds it can't install.