Avoiding BT one ton connection charge

hammy_the_hammer

MORPH3US wrote:

I have had the same problem with BT. Its a joke, they should absorb the cost of installing the line and sign people up for a 12 month contract!

Worst thing was the flat below had a line that went onto our outside wall and then down to their flat so they would only have split it and given us the other half.

M

by just 'splitting' the external wire would hardly give you a telephone service...contact BT and ask them if you could pay the actual costs of installing the line to your premises.

gt94sss2

BT have to charge whats in their Price List - they are not allowed to alter prices for individual customers - due to the way they are regulated.

As such, if someone needs a new BT line, its £124.99 regardless of whether the new line actually takes 10 minutes to install or 100 hours...

Regards
Sunil

MORPH3US

hammy_the_hammer wrote:

by just 'splitting' the external wire would hardly give you a telephone service...contact BT and ask them if you could pay the actual costs of installing the line to your premises.

Doesn't matter now mate, am moving to a new house soon which has a BT line in already, but I won't be using those w**kers anyway.

Will be using NTL. Only wanted a phone line to get on internet because have mobile for phone calls.

Cheers

M

Heinz

MORPH3US wrote:

Will be using NTL.

It might be a good idea to save THIS in your favourites then.

And, spookily, THIS THREAD was immediately below this one when I posted.

macminiuser

hi all - I don't know about any other companies, but I know of at least one that still charges £99 for a new line installation. I know this because I work for them, but I won't be spamming your forum! I just wanted to let you know that the wholesale cost is only fractionally less than £99 from OpenReach (for the time being), so hankering for a discount probably won't happen unless the company is prepared to take a loss on a new line installation - but if they do that, they'll probably want to tie you into a contract; which nobody likes. In any case - £99 new line installations WITHOUT any contractual obligations are available if you shop around.

macminiuser

Just had another thought - even though I work for a telecoms company, they refused to give me a staff discount on a new line installation. (Was previously with NTL; the less said about THAT the better.) So I too went looking for the best way to get a BT-compatible line installed at discount price.

Hearing about all the problems people were having with Bulldog (in the papers, on Watchdog etc) - I figured, with financial backing from telecoms giants Cable and Wireless, they'd probably sort themselves out. So I deliberately joined in the middle of all their bad press figuring that I'd probably get priority service while they tried to get a good reputation back.

How wrong I was. It took about four months to get my line installed, which fair enough I only paid a pound for (I'm not sure what they charge now, but I'm fairly sure they still do it for a quid). Although, whether that was Bulldog's or OpenReach's fault is debateable. After three months sitting around waiting for something to happen, I had several allegedly "missed appointments" - even though I was in on the two occasions they claimed they couldn't gain entry to the property. I had even put a notice on the (unlocked) front door saying "DEAR PHONE ENGINEER - I AM IN! PLEASE COME INSIDE AND INSTALL MY LINE!" - but apparently OpenReach engineers cannot read, instead preferring to put a card through the letterbox of an unlocked (!) front door. Each time I received one of these cards I was threatened with additional "missed appointment" charges, and delayed the installation process by at least another week or more. There is so much more to this story but I won't bore you with all the details!

To cut a long story short, when the line was finally installed around November 2005, it worked straight away and I've never had any problems since. I can't figure out what all the stuff on the bill means for the life of me (anyone who's seen a bulldog bill will know what I mean - it's all over the place), but the final figure seems about right each month. So, you get what you pay for - if you only want to pay a quid, you will get a line installed that works... eventually. But getting there will probably !!!!!! you off quite a lot.