BT Connection Charges (merged threads)

gbear100

After reading all 10 pages, i've been compelled to join and post!

Firstly, considering this thread started off being a very simple money saving question, i cant believe some of the awful replies! I started off totally unbiased and looking for answers, then got very quickly angered by people saying 'if you can afford a new house then you can afford to pay £125' (absolute bol****), and also by a very distinct 'PRO-BT' feel from a number of members. Having now read all 10 pages I'm now simply just very confused!

Am I right in thinking that I can get an independent Openworld engineer to connect my 'residential phone line', and then arrange a 'non-BT' phone/broadband as normal? Thus avoiding the £11pm BT Line Rental?

I have a new-build flat, with at least 4 telephone sockets on the wall! I expected to just call up BT and say 'switch me on'! I was never at all comfortable at having to pay £11pm for Line Rental, when I didnt necessarily want to use BT at all. Now I'm even less happy at having to pay £125.

Surely if any phone/broadband provider can use the BT network, then the line rental/connection issues should be between the owner of the network (BT?) and the phone/broadband provider. i.e. they pay the line rental etc. I know this would ultimately be passed on to us but at least it would allow for proper competition?

And surely it is a monopoly because BT as a private company have inherited the entire network, and are basically the only company that can offer a line and have a massive, monumental head start over anyone else wanting to compete. They can therefore charge us as much line rental as they want.

I'm not even sure if this makes sense! But at least I've made a post! All I want really is cheap broadband in my new flat but its so bloody complicated!

Lee

Heinz

If you can find a company which will 'switch on' the sockets in your new flat, please let us know.

We know BT would charge £124.99 to do so - so details of any other firm and the price they'd charge would be very interesting.

gt94sss2

gbear100 wrote:

Am I right in thinking that I can get an independent Openworld engineer to connect my 'residential phone line', and then arrange a 'non-BT' phone/broadband as normal? Thus avoiding the £11pm BT Line Rental?

Surely if any phone/broadband provider can use the BT network, then the line rental/connection issues should be between the owner of the network (BT?) and the phone/broadband provider. i.e. they pay the line rental etc. I know this would ultimately be passed on to us but at least it would allow for proper competition?

You can't get an "independent BT Openworld engineer" to connect the line yourself but any licenced telephone company can ask BT Openreach(not Openworld!) to
connect the line on their behalf and BT Openreach would then bill that telephone company their standard wholesale installation charge/line rental and the phone company will charge you whatever retail price they like..

If you call BT, its "BT Retail" who ask BT Openreach to do the work and BT Retail have decided that the £125 installation charge and £11 line rental is appropiate considered what they are being charged by Openreach. Any other telephone company would also be charged the same wholesale price by Openreach as BT Retail are. In fact what you are describing is usually called 'Wholesale Line Rental' (WLR)

However, very few companies are prepared to offer this option to their customers, instead preferring (like TalkTalk) to take over and WLR an already installed/activated line.

There have been some but sometimes they charge more than BT or insist on very long contracts or won't offer access to indirect codes like 18185. There are also others like Bulldog who do offer to deal with BT Openreach and they will charge you £99 not £125 but only if you agree to take one of their internet packages and use them for your telephone calls as well.

And surely it is a monopoly because BT as a private company have inherited the entire network, and are basically the only company that can offer a line and have a massive, monumental head start over anyone else wanting to compete. They can therefore charge us as much line rental as they want.

Wholesale line rental prices are regulated - so if BT Retail was making a lot of money, anyone could come in and undercut them.

Regards
Sunil
PS: Congrats on your first post.

gbear100

Thanks for the replies guys. It does seem confusing though! So confusing that no doubt I'll just end up paying BT the connection fee and the line rental and be done with it! Although I think I've decided to opt for a new Orange mobile in April (when my Vodafone contract runs out) so I can take up the free Orange Broadband. This means at least I have a few months to get my head around it all. I really dont agree with having to pay BT £11pm line rental when all I want to use is Broadband.

Dando83

Folks,

I switched from BT to Telewest very shortly after my move into my house three years ago. Since then...

Some exterior building work has resulted in two BT extension wires being pulled out and the wires cut back to the main box.

A severe downpour resulted in line static on the Telewest line. The Telewest engineer removed what looked like an internal patch from the old exterior BT box (which was waterlogged). I was a little confused as to why it was set up to piggy back unless it was time or cost saving shortcut during original TW installation.

Interior decorating has resulted in the inside BT box being very lose on the wall. It's hidden behind the TV, so has not been a major concern.

BT's phone rep at 0808 100 5152 where they apparently handle enquiries from cable customers (I told her I was with a company that started with "T" and ended in "elewest"....she didn't get it) said that because the line from the street was in tact, but there'd been messing at the house, the charge could be anything from nothing to £125. She also said that if they were satisfied that Telewest messed with it, they'd send THEM the bill. Ultimately, she said if I was uncomfortable paying £125, I could cancel.

Now, that's all fine and good, but has anyone been "partially" billed for switching back?

How likely is it that the engineer will tell me on the spot that it's going to be £0 or £125 to reconnect, and that he'll be sufficiently empowered that I can request to cancel the switch then and there?

If BT have already told Telewest I'm switching back (I'd like to keep my telephone number), isn't there a chance that such a late cancellation would leave me with no provider at all?

Any experiences would be welcome.

DonnyDave

Dando83 wrote:

Some exterior building work has resulted in two BT extension wires being pulled out and the wires cut back to the main box.

If it's the extension wires that have been removed, then I think that it's safe to say that you will be charged simply because it's not BT's responsibility to connect extensions from the master socket, unless you pay it to do so.

If the house has extensions to different rooms (which I believe is what you referred to), then perhaps they were disconnected from the BT line and connected to the Telewest one so that it could be used in all rooms with sockets. You need someone to come and put that back into the BT socket, if that is what has happened. This does not have to be done by a BT engineer.

What does have to be done by a BT engineer, if it needs doing at all, is connecting the BT master socket up to the dropwire. Do you have a BT NTE5 master socket? A picture of it is:

Is this what you mean when you refer to the "main box"?

Dando83

There WERE three BT extensions in the house, today possibly one (if it works). Inside the house, the BT box as pictured still exists, but it's come loose from the plaster because of decorating, and Telewest messed around with it a bit when the phone line went all crackly. It appeared to me that from the time they'd installed TW, some wiring in the BT box was being used. This link is now severed...but the status of the BT box is in question.

All old BT phone lines ran outside the house and in through knackered old window frames. So when we had windows, guttering, and brickwork replaced, the tradespeople pulled all the superfluous wires out and cut them back to the BT point on the outside of the house. As we were with Telewest, I didn't want to have to drills holes to keep extensions for a phone service that I no longer used.

I've had conflicting reports from two BT reps. One stated that the charge from the engineer could be £0, £125 or anything in between depending on the condition and because Telewest were messing, they might be liable. A second has told me it's all or nothing.

Bearing in mind it will mean a day off work to have the engineer in, and possibly £125 (at best amortised over a year according to BT), I'd have to be saving a tenner a month on the phone/internet bill to make it worth it. If you consider as well, Telewest have been fairly rock solid, don't suffer the same peak time slowdowns as DSL, can live up to advertised speeds, and increase line speeds to keep up with the market, switching isn't as good a deal as some people suggest, especially if I don't make more than 5 minutes of calls a day.

If this £125 charge didn't exist, I'd have put the order to switch in today.

Dando83

Just did the old Telewest download speed test.

2.0 mbps EXACTLY. They do have one up on DSL for being consistently fast.

georgiegirl_3

gbear100 wrote:

Thanks for the replies guys. It does seem confusing though! So confusing that no doubt I'll just end up paying BT the connection fee and the line rental and be done with it! Although I think I've decided to opt for a new Orange mobile in April (when my Vodafone contract runs out) so I can take up the free Orange Broadband. This means at least I have a few months to get my head around it all. I really dont agree with having to pay BT £11pm line rental when all I want to use is Broadband.

I agree with your grievance over Line Rental, We are moving shortly to a new place and have the same thoughts about just NOT having a BT Line but trying to find a Broadband connection used through a Mobile Phone, you mention Orange, I didn't realise they did this. Thanks for that info. We make very few calls either on our landline so find BT quarterly bill unnecessary.

hurrah

georgiegirl wrote:

I agree with your grievance over Line Rental, We are moving shortly to a new place and have the same thoughts about just NOT having a BT Line but trying to find a Broadband connection used through a Mobile Phone, you mention Orange, I didn't realise they did this. Thanks for that info. We make very few calls either on our landline so find BT quarterly bill unnecessary.

To use the Orange Broadband you will require a BT Landline. Its not delivered by your mobile.