Line broken

robpalmer777

I have just moved home and tried to transfer my BT line, the phone line was broken at my new property due to high vehicle passing. BT sent an engineer to survey the repair, they report that the telegraph pole is too low and they would have to re-route the line to re-connect me, they have quoted me £902 to do this yet when they initially confirmed the repair they only quoted £122.
We are not in a cable area so can anyone help with how l can get a phone line without paying £902

DVardysShadow

Take advice from Ofcom. I think Openreach have quoted BT for the work, when probably Openreach should pay for it. And then some low level person in BT has probably taken a decision to cut you off when they should be sorting it out with Openreach. I might be wrong.

spike7451

It's a gray area,BT are responsible for anything up to & including the NTE5 Master socket however they move the goal to suit themselves.

This may be usefull...

http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/pricing/loadProductPrices.do

iniltous

If you are moving into a property that has stopped line and that line has a fault that cannot be repaired, so the property requires an alternative method of service should be at BT/Openreach expense, I would guess that the line into the property is in part overhead and the rules as to what can be done overhead are a lot more strict compared to what was allowed in the past, so the line cannot be reinstated in the way service was previously provided.
If the line into the property is 'ceased' then it could be argued that the property is getting a new line so could fall into the 'excess construction' charges category, BT have to provide anyone who asks for service providing its reasonable to do so....this was taken to be 100 man hours of work/stores, at a rate of £40/hour, so BT will 'pay' the first £4000 and the end user pays the rest so if your are required to pay £902, then the cost to BT is £4902, in the past rules may not have been strictly applied but you could cease service after a year or move to a supplier that only rents the line from BT/Openreach, so the £4000 they spent providing the line is repaid as £125 install fee (or whatever it is these days)...£11.25/month for the first year and then only £88/year after that, so you can see it makes no economic sense for BT to do the work for less as it will be decades before they break even let alone make a return on the outlay,

Buzby

Surely, if the pole is BT's property and is too low, this is THEIR concern, not the OP? If the pole was self-provided by the earlier tenant, then I agree with BT's stance - but if the cable route is over public accessible land, then BT still have their universal opl;igation to install (and repair) as required.