£24050 + Vat for a new line

kerrybee

I am moving house and as I work from home requested an additional phone line, all this seemed fine until BT called and said there would be some excess charges! £24050 + Vat, apparently they need to put in 24 new poles and 1400m of cable. i asked why they cant use the original poles, and they said they were old and would need replacing to carry the extra weight of my additional line! This seems crazy - and there is no way I can pay for this. If anyone can offer some advice i would love to hear from you.

RichOneday_2

kerrybee wrote: »

I am moving house and as I work from home requested an additional phone line, all this seemed fine until BT called and said there would be some excess charges! £24050 + Vat, apparently they need to put in 24 new poles and 1400m of cable. i asked why they cant use the original poles, and they said they were old and would need replacing to carry the extra weight of my additional line! This seems crazy - and there is no way I can pay for this. If anyone can offer some advice i would love to hear from you.

Wow!! Are you sure you want an additional line? That seems outrageous, but then agan it sounds like a lot of work. I think you need to find out whether their infrastructure needs upgrading anyway and they are just taking you for a mug or whether it is genuine. Is cable an option?

davy_fulla

kerrybee wrote: »

I am moving house and as I work from home requested an additional phone line, all this seemed fine until BT called and said there would be some excess charges! £24050 + Vat, apparently they need to put in 24 new poles and 1400m of cable. i asked why they cant use the original poles, and they said they were old and would need replacing to carry the extra weight of my additional line! This seems crazy - and there is no way I can pay for this. If anyone can offer some advice i would love to hear from you.

You are given an allowance of £x (which I'll get sacked for if I post on here) for your 1st line to a premises. We have to raise excess charges for any work over this allowance where we have to 'extend' the network. For example, if an overhead pole route finished quite a way from your house, we would charge for any work over £x to extend the network. Note, for 1st lines we only charge for extending the network, NOT for upgrading cables further back in the existing network

For 2nd or subsequent lines you are also given an allowance, albeit a lower one. Again, excess charges are applied for any work over this allowance. However, in this case we charge for work anywhere in the network, i.e. not just extending the network. Note, we charge the CP and it is up to them whethr they pass the charges on to you (obviously they usually will).

Do you live in the north east as there's been a job through our office with similar charges on lately?

I'm a planner with Openreach btw

ACDeag

kerrybee wrote: »

I am moving house and as I work from home requested an additional phone line, all this seemed fine until BT called and said there would be some excess charges! £24050 + Vat, apparently they need to put in 24 new poles and 1400m of cable. i asked why they cant use the original poles, and they said they were old and would need replacing to carry the extra weight of my additional line! This seems crazy - and there is no way I can pay for this. If anyone can offer some advice i would love to hear from you.

Could you not use VOIP? https://www.vonage.co.uk or https://www.sipgate.co.uk are among some available.

blue_monkey_2

Hi Kerrybee, can you get callsign? This gives you an 'additional number' to the same line you use now but it gives a different ring tone so you can tell which is business and which is pleasure.

http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/displayCategory.do?categoryId=CON-CAL-FEAT-R1&s_cid=con_FURL_calls_1571

Costs £1.75 on top of your normal bill and it is what I use for my business calls to the house.

HTH.

BritBrat

For that amount of money I would want to own them and charge for any further connectiions to the same poles.

davy_fulla

Atomised wrote: »

BT continually overcharge people and nothing gets done about it. Their call out fees are ridiculous and you are made to pay even if they are at fault.
You should check if you live in a cable enabled area. They would be cheaper

So we should do the work free of charge as we're a charity? The excess charges applied are actually used to cover the cost that Openreach pays to its contractors to carry out the work. The profit margin is zero. The allowances Openreach give actually mean we pay towards the cost of an end user getting service from their CP.

Of course cable is an option but by the sounds of this location it is in quite rural area where cable companies don't even bother with due to the costs they would incur. Cable companies can cherry pick which areas they serve whereas Openreach is legally obliged to provide service to even the most remote areas.

BritBrat

And there was me thinking our line rental paid for the infastructure.

MrsTinks

I'd go VOIP... depending on the quality and line length there is some new technology coming out at the moment that should help with that - Tiscali have just come out with Annex M and BT are close behind with THEIR new technology too

ORE

Atomised wrote: »

BT continually overcharge people and nothing gets done about it. Their call out fees are ridiculous and you are made to pay even if they are at fault.
You should check if you live in a cable enabled area. They would be cheaper

when have you been charged if its bt's fault???

how long would you have to pay line rental to cover the £24000 cost it was going to cost to get the line there....

i think ill go up to my local garage and suggest they give me a new BMW and ill give them a tenner a month for the next 200 year...Do you think many businesses would survive operating like this

davy_fulla

BritBrat wrote: »

And there was me thinking our line rental paid for the infastructure.

Your line rental is paid to your CP. That has nothing to with Openreach who maintain the infrastructure.