BT line reactivation question

gemstars

This post relates to my previous thread which can be found here if you're interested

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=2212769

The BT line at my property probably needs reactivated, as although there is the boxes on the wall, I've never used a landline there since I moved in in August, so although I haven't checked, I'm pretty sure there's no dial tone.

I popped into the Orange shop to ask a few questions last night. The sales guy told me this -

If the BT line at my property needs to be reactivated, when I ask BT to do this I will have to enter into a 12 month landline contract with BT.

Does anyone know if this is correct? The reason I'm asking is that I have been thinking of a BT as a provider of the physical line, and BT as the provider of a landline service as two separate things, am I wrong?

The Orange package I'm looking at for home broadband includes line rental, which if this is true is no good for me, but as far as I understand it I could get Sky in if I wanted to, get the line reactivated and pay Sky line rental, which seems to be the opposite of what the Orange guy told me.

If this is true then it looks like o2 will work out to be my cheapest option afterall :T

Is anyone is able to clear this up for me?

kwikbreaks

If you want ADSL you will need a BT Openreach telephone line.

You will have to pay for that one way or another but there are a number of businesses you can pay for it through who will also charge for any calls made - that may be BT retail, or a host of other companies. They will all offer a minor discount on the BT price for the line and try to sell you a bundle of some sort.O2 don't currently resell the actual line but I read recently that they probably will offer that too in a couple of months or so. The chances are they will all impose a minimum contract period.

iniltous

Any Service Provider can arrange a line to be installed/started using BT Openreach but not all SP's want to do this, lots of them only want to migrate a working customer fron BT Retail to themselves,
If you ask BT Retail ( you cannot speak to Openreach ) to arrange the installation or takeover of a stopped line they will (quite rightly ) expect you to commit to a minimum term contract, and if you move provider within that period you would pay a penalty charge for breaking the contract....but only BT Retail have to allow access to any other ISP for broadband, as well as CPS and indirect access call suppliers,

dylanuk

If you go with Plusnet they only charge £79 for a new BT line, whereas BT will charge £125.

Plusnet offer good broadband packages too, so worth a look. http://www.plus.net/

Orange has quite bad customer service history, just look around this forum.