Exceptions
Where the usual rules do not fit
Most of this library describes a residential household in Great Britain, on a network the big retailers can actually sell. Several common situations are different. Assuming the typical path in those situations is how people order a product that cannot be installed, or apply an energy rate to the wrong country.
Reviewed 5 November 2026 · 6 min read · Independent · Not a price list
Hull and East Yorkshire
Kingston upon Hull and much of the surrounding area are served by KCOM’s network, not by Openreach. A national Openreach retailer who cannot wholesale KCOM cannot sell you a line there, however familiar the brand. KCOM’s own retail service, and any other provider that can actually order on that network, is the list that matters.
One Touch Switch is still a provider-run process. It does not put Openreach plant into a KCOM street. If you are moving between Hull and the rest of the country, treat the new address as a new network question. The package you had on one side of that boundary is not evidence for the other side.
Our KCOM provider guide is about that retail service. It is not a statement that every Hull address can order every KCOM product, and it is not a statement that no other provider can ever serve a given premises. The provider confirms the door.
Northern Ireland
Ofcom regulates communications across the UK, including Northern Ireland. The broadband switching questions on this site — who starts the switch, what an exit fee is, how a new contract must state a rise — are Ofcom questions, and they are worth asking in Belfast as in Birmingham. Availability is still the premises.
The Ofgem energy price cap is not a Northern Ireland cap. The figures we quote for October to December 2026 are for England, Scotland and Wales. Quoting them on a Northern Ireland energy bill is a mistake. Energy there is regulated separately. Take the unit rate from the local supplier and the local regulator, not from this page.
A household that splits time between Great Britain and Northern Ireland has two energy regimes and possibly two broadband premises. Do not average them into one “UK utility bill”.
Business lines, student halls, and second homes
One Touch Switch, as we describe it, is the residential process. A business broadband contract can have a different switching path, a different definition of compensation, and a different exit fee. Do not hand a residential guide to a limited company and pretend the dates match. Ask the business provider which process they will use.
Student halls and some rental blocks include broadband in the rent, or ban a second install in the riser. You may not be the customer. The customer is whoever holds the contract with the provider. If that is the landlord or the university, your individual switch cannot override their wayleave. Read the tenancy before you order an engineer the building will turn away.
A second home is a second premises. The package at the first does not transfer. A rolling contract at a house you rarely visit is still a direct debit. End it deliberately or keep it deliberately.
Blocks, new builds, and wayleaves
A freeholder or a managing agent can have agreed one network into the riser. Other providers may be unable to pull a cable until that permission exists. A postcode check that says “available” at the building entrance can still fail at the flat. Give the flat number. Ask about the wayleave before you take a day off work for the engineer.
A new-build estate is often phased. The show home and the first street can be live while your plot is waiting on a cabinet or a duct. “Coming soon” is not an activation date. Do not cease a working mobile-broadband stopgap, or a line at the old flat, on the strength of a brochure.
If the only service the building allows is one you dislike, the decision is the building’s, not a failure of One Touch Switch. You can complain to the freeholder. You cannot make a different duct appear by switching retailer inside a plant that is not there.
Questions
- Does Openreach cover Hull?
- Hull and much of the area around it are KCOM’s network. Do not assume an Openreach retailer can sell there.
- Can I use the Ofgem cap figures in Northern Ireland?
- No. Those figures are the Great Britain cap. Northern Ireland energy is a different regime.
- Does One Touch Switch apply to business broadband?
- Treat it as a residential process. Ask a business provider which process they will actually run.
- The postcode works but the flat does not. Why?
- Buildings, wayleaves and phases are premises-specific. The postcode was the wrong unit.
- I am a tenant. Can I switch?
- Only if you are allowed to, and the building will permit the install. Check the tenancy and the wayleave first.
- Will you map every exception?
- No. These are the common ones. The provider and, for energy, the relevant regulator are the confirmation.