BT Connection Charges (merged threads)

kelly1980_2 · 6 June 2006 at 8:51PM

Does anyone know if there is anybody else who can connect a phone line other than BT. Unfortunately this is the second time i am moving in to a 'NEW BUILD' house within a year and a half. When i moved in to here i had to pay £75 connection fee, now i have just found out that it has been increased to £125. A whopping £50 increase. How wrong is that!! Last time they came out it took 5 mins. How can they justify all that money?

Browntoa · 6 June 2006 at 8:56PM

could cost £100,000 to cable to the New build, you only pay £125, swings and roundabouts

and no, there is no alternative unless Yelewest/NTL cable go past the house

hammy_the_hammer · 7 June 2006 at 12:27AM

kelly1980 wrote:

Does anyone know if there is anybody else who can connect a phone line other than BT. Unfortunately this is the second time i am moving in to a 'NEW BUILD' house within a year and a half. When i moved in to here i had to pay £75 connection fee, now i have just found out that it has been increased to £125. A whopping £50 increase. How wrong is that!! Last time they came out it took 5 mins. How can they justify all that money?

5 minutes to lay all that duct work and cable it all ?
100 houses on new estate paying £125 each equals £12500 ....about the price of a conservatory on said estate

alared · 7 June 2006 at 7:39AM

They don`t even "come out" as it`s all done at the exchange,about a 5 second job.
A friend recently moved into a new studio apartment,this new block has 72 apartments and BT wants to rip off 72 people at £125 a time.
Nine grand (£9,000) just for one building.
The sooner they are completely broken up the better.

stiffnuts69 · 7 June 2006 at 9:26AM

I cant believe that this debate still goes on. Just pay the Flipping money and get it done. If you have moved in to 2 new build homes in a year then you can afford it. There are some real people here who struggle to pay their bills.
Its like going on holiday then moaning about the cost of a passport.
A £125 quid to get a working phone line installed in you house for the rest of your homes life which is also maintained and worked on if necessary is in my opinion a good return.

moonrakerz · 7 June 2006 at 1:29PM

alared wrote:

They don`t even "come out" as it`s all done at the exchange,about a 5 second job.
A friend recently moved into a new studio apartment,this new block has 72 apartments and BT wants to rip off 72 people at £125 a time.
Nine grand (£9,000) just for one building.
The sooner they are completely broken up the better.

There speaks someone with no concept of how much a telephone line actually costs ! Who provided all the equipment in the local exchange, who provided the main cable to the block, who paid the men to install it ? - Father Christmas ?

£125 to supplied with a phone line is a bargain - once you've got it you don't even have to use BT. If you have any sense you will, for your line rental.
BT is the only telephone provider who HAS to allow customers using their lines and services to transfer to anyone else.
Go else where if you don't like BT, but it WILL cost you more in the long run.

ahrimaniac · 7 June 2006 at 11:19PM

'They don`t even "come out" as it`s all done at the exchange,about a 5 second job.'

Oh, do they? Seems almost stupid. As someone quite rightfully pointed out, £125 is nothing compared to how much it actually costs BT to do the work in the first place. Yeah, so the builders have put the boxes on the wall in your new house. Did they connect them to the lines and sort you at the exchange? Did they register your new line with BT's computers, set up an account and pay the engineers?

And again, quite right: who is the one company that everyone !!!!!es to when the line goes down, and who fixes the line free of charge if anything goes wrong even if you're not with BT? Hmm? Yeah.

Sooner they're broken up the better? That'll be great: we'll just have people moaning tenfold that they have to wait ages for a repair that they'll have to pay for themselves because they went for the cheapest possible solution. End of the day, a lot of the time, you get what you pay for.

alared · 8 June 2006 at 6:24AM

My heart really bleeds for BT.
With inflation running at 2.5%,how can they justify a massive 25% increase.

moomintroll_3 · 8 June 2006 at 6:48AM

alared wrote:

My heart really bleeds for BT.
With inflation running at 2.5%,how can they justify a massive 25% increase.

The price of copper (which is what telephone lines are made of) has risen massively in the last 12 months (like from about $3K a tonne to over $8K a tonne at one point, right now its just under $8K a tonne - see here for a graph).

BT need to pay for that, therefore so does anyone who gets a new phone line. Simple.

I'm with others on this - the increase may seem like a lot but once you actually look at the price of the raw material it's nothing. I'm the last person who would normally defend BT and their monopolistic practices but... I used to spend approx. £15 million/year with them in a previous job. I can tell you that other telco's are worse and their prices are higher most of the time.

G

normanmark · 8 June 2006 at 8:01AM

ahrimaniac wrote:

'They don`t even "come out" as it`s all done at the exchange,about a 5 second job.'

Oh, do they? Seems almost stupid. As someone quite rightfully pointed out, £125 is nothing compared to how much it actually costs BT to do the work in the first place. Yeah, so the builders have put the boxes on the wall in your new house. Did they connect them to the lines and sort you at the exchange? Did they register your new line with BT's computers, set up an account and pay the engineers?

And again, quite right: who is the one company that everyone !!!!!es to when the line goes down, and who fixes the line free of charge if anything goes wrong even if you're not with BT? Hmm? Yeah.

Sooner they're broken up the better? That'll be great: we'll just have people moaning tenfold that they have to wait ages for a repair that they'll have to pay for themselves because they went for the cheapest possible solution. End of the day, a lot of the time, you get what you pay for.

Fact overload :T

highet · 8 June 2006 at 10:44AM

i had a fault with my line last week - phoned bt who had engineer out the next day - he phoned me direct to tell me it was major digging up road to fix job - bt had it fixed three days later and they even sent me regular text messages with job updates - they would have diverted all my calls to my mobile for free while the work was going on and given me a rebate to cover calls made on my mobile whilst my line was dodgy - the original engineer even turned up at my door on friday morning to check everything was back to normal - its the best customer service i've had from anyone in ages - certainly compared to talk talk who i used to have broadband with and who ignore calls and emails for weeks on end - excellent service for £11/month

BT Connection Charges (merged threads)

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