Wholesale Cease Charge?

lanemeyer

longtime lurker newbie poster here....hi all!
hope someone can enlighten me with answers to this.

Im out of contract with BT for my broadband, so have signed up with Virgin for their 50MB service..
just wondered...
Do i have to pay this £25 Wholesale Cease Charge to BT due to Virgin not needing a MAC code on the fibre optic connection?
is this a charge for an household cancelling any type of broadband or just adsl type?

Also
I obvisouly want my internet until virgin come later in the month to fit stuff.
Can i just cancel my connection with BT the day before?
the phone line will change to virgin too.

thanks for any forthcoming suggestions.

kwikbreaks

Whether you get charged or not depends on the ISP and as you have been lurking you will probably have seen people complaining because BT did charge them. You fit the profile for being charged.

When you cancel the BB and phone is up to you but BT will want some sort of notice on both and I imagine they will provide the service until that notice period is up.

lanemeyer

thanks for some response..

Apparently im not supposed to cancel my bt line, due to keeping the same number
Virgin do it their end when the line is changed over.....or something like that.

anyways,..i was told i wouldnt have to pay a cancellation charge due to being out of contract..as i say it was just this bit of the email confused me.

" 8. When you end your broadband service and do not request and use a migration authorisation code to move to another service provider, you will have to pay a cease charge of £25. You will not have to pay this charge in the event you are moving home and we are unable to provide the service at the new address"

Seeing as Virgin doesnt need a migration authorisation code but im still carrying on with A broadband service...

The email carries on with

"The charge for ceasing Broadband service is rising to £25 (including VAT) and will be applied to all customers whether they are in or out of contract. The charge only applies where customers simply cease Broadband service altogether. It is not applied where a customer moves house or moves to another provider using the MAC process, or in cases of death or severe illness. This is the actual cost to BT of the work required within an exchange to recover equipment and amend records."

kwikbreaks

When ADSL is installed a a cable pair is wired to ADSL kit at the exchange by BT Openreach (the division that looks after the wires, digging big holes in the road etc.)

When ADSL is ceased they could actually just leave those wires in place and record that the port in the ADSL kit is really free because they do no harm (this may well be what they actually do in practice) but they could also physically disconnect those wires as well as recording that the port is free.

The charge made because there is some work needed - either by some bloke with a screwdriver or some other bloke on a keyboard in India or maybe even both.

Their letter says "broadband" but it should really say ADSL.

iniltous

The MAC process is when you migrate from one adsl provider to another,and as you are going to VM (cable) the MAC process doesnt apply so you will be charged the £25 adsl disconnecting fee,
Are you also taking VM telephone service ?, if you are and want to keep your phone number you should have told VM already, they will tell you if you need to call BT or if they arrange the cease of your current telephone service, if you are getting a new number from VM then you will have to call BT to cease the line yourself, if you are keeping BT line for telephone then nothing to do apart from cancelling the adsl with your ISP
The adsl disconnection fee is because BT say they have to send an engineer to the exchange to disconnect the line
(working or ceased) from the ISP's DSLAM , if you migrate from one adsl provider to another the disconnection from the original ISP's DSLAM is done by default by moving the line to the new ISP's DSLAM