Avoiding the £125 reconnection charge

RugbyPete

Choosing NTL as my TV, phone, provider two years ago I was locked into the Cable broadband service for some time.
The reason I couldnt leave was due to the £125 reconnection fee BT wanted to charge in order for me to get any ADSL service. Renegotiating with NTL was easier and worked out cheaper than many ADSL deals.

Now, ADSL has become much cheaper, I want more choice. Also, lots of work is going on within the isp, causing many performance problems. After my 5th call to the support desk who gave me excuses like "You were on the 'wrong' server, let me reconenct you" or "your on a 200mb a day cap... er I mean 3..450mb" I had enough. Due to the way the exchanges are managed these days, they have more freedom for ISP's to put their own kit in there... meaning more deals for consumers! This however means BTopenreach charge the flat £125 for all reconenctions, slight drawback.

If you apply for any ADSL they will say you need a BT line, and that you need to arrange with BT before calling. This proves two problems. One, that the bt line comes with a 12 month contract, and so any phone deals with broadband (unless they sit ont he BT line) will be no-go, as the contract locks you in. Secondly it costs £125. Two barriers to entry.

HOWEVER, Tiscali and Talk-Talk I know DO have the facility to get around these issues. Talk-talk, being super cheap, aren;t interested in non-BT customers, however the shockingly unreliable Tiscali ISP are!

So, I called Tiscali and got the following deal. Currenly I pay £10 for my lin rental, £12.50(on a deal) for my 4mb ntl broadband), frill free and low performance (get 1mb most of the time), over cable.

Tiscali offered:
£30 to reconnect the line (much better!) (one off - pay nothing until september)
Free broadband wireless router (have one already but fine)
Free weekend calls - (cost an extra £5 on ntl)
8MB ADSL unlimited (4mb faster, Im 900m fron the exchange)
Line renatl included in the price
All for £9.99 a month and nothing to pay until September.

This avoids the BT £125 reconnection fee, gets me a better deal, and opens up some great future deals on adsl services from anyone after 12 months.

This may be an option for those wanting to move from bad performance and lack of competition of cable internet, or return to adsl for future deals.

Couple of points when it comes to Tiscali I researched:

Don't use heavily from 6pm - 11pm - this is peak time, and monitoried closely for 'top talkers'. By heavy I mean large downloads or P2P. Your line speed will get capped in no time if you do not adhere to this. If you have big ISO downloads, do it overnight or in the daytime (use a free download manager)

MANY people have complaints, if you are willing to be patient or dont get stressed too easily, you can make the relationship work... but 'customer always right' isn't to be expected! I'm seeing it from a 'Grateful for the reconnection saving' point of view.

Lastly, once the line is reconnected the contract is in full swing, so make sure it's the correct decision for you.

For me, possible poor service (many are fine) outweighs the benefits of breaking from 'single isp cable', and the £125 reconnection fee up front, effectively with a cost saving too (keeps the missus happy!)

An option for you to consider anyway.:beer:

Quentin

If you don't have a bt line, then the tiscali £30 connection fee is no use to you.

It doesn't pay for a line to be installed at all.

When you join tiscali there is a one off connection charge (the £30), and you must already have the line installed!

deklan99

You eventually end up on Tiscali's unbundled MPF network to "benefit" from really cheap line rental, calls and broadband deals. Therefore any "BT" line you have will be transferred over. You then cannot get broadband from any other ISP and you no longer have a "BT" line.
It then may cost you to get back to BT's network.
As has been pointed out many times you do not have to contact BT to get a "BT" line.
Openreach doesn't charge £125, they charge £88 + VAT.
BT retail charge £125 (current special deal £30), other providers charges vary and that "should" only apply if the line has been disconnected from the exchange or the number reallocated.

penrhyn

I'd offer a 3rd point regarding Tiscali.

Avoid them!

carly

a fourth point;

Tiscali WILL throttle your connection at ALL times. Speeds are much slower than they promise.
I never managed more than 1.1Mb in three years with them, average recentlly was 880kb,and was often down to 100k at peak times. I switched provider and speeds have been consistently 2.3 to 2.5 Mb which is close to the max my line can manage.

Browntoa

BT will connect you for £29.99, take a look at this thread

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=878915

if you are coming back from cable, looks like you are only tied in for the line for 18 months , choise of ISP is yours

Kerilinann

penrhyn wrote: »

I'd offer a 3rd point regarding Tiscali.

Avoid them!

I agree. I will never ever use them again.

paulmcfadyen

Don't expect your Tiscali phone line to be useful for talking on the phone.

And do expect them to disconnect your broadband service spontaneously without warning or reason.

RugbyPete

Sorry guys, nothing but good feedback so far.

The line was activated, BT openreach came out, messed with the lines for 4 hours, CHARGED ME NOTHING, I called Tiscali to confirm, correct they will CHARGE ME NOTHING.

Got regular emails with full progress the whole stage of the process.

Telephone line is fine, used it for over a week now with no probs.

Rang my dad to see how he's going, he said "Yep! all activated and online, brilliant"

Which IS good news because hes only been able to get dial-up for the last 15 years, used to drive me mad when i visited or had to work out of hours on call. He tried sattelite, they went under, he tried 3G dongals no signal, he tried ADSL a few times too - line blacklisted so whoever you called you got the same "sorry sir...". Tiscali said "we can give you a meg and a half, that ok?" - he was over the moon - 256k would have been fine for him! Talking to an engineer it's apprently because new ADSL firms are putting in new ADSL2 kit, Tiscali still have loads of old kit for crap 30+ year old lines like his out in the countryside, hence why previous efforts failed for him.

I'm free from ntl, that's the main thing, and my dad finally gets broadband for the first time ever :T and no BT connection fees

charltonfan1

Do you have to sign with tiscali for 12 months?

peachyprice

Good luck, you'll need it!

Check your bills carefully for random amounts added.