Plusnet - Ex Talk Talk

muskoka

I'm going to rent a house (currently lived in by owner occupier who is on Talk Talk for his phone & has never had internet. Talk Talk told him that if renter (me) wants to use a different provider, then it will cost me £124.99 as Talk Talk remove BT equipment from exchange when they take over a line. I spoke to BT who seemed to understand this but said if I placed order in advance (now), they could do it for free connection. I then spoke to Plusnet & explained and they wanted £50 to connect, but then said they would do it for free if I agreed 12 month contract now. Plusnet have sent an email to me saying blah blah, and that it will be no charge for connection. Does anybody know if this can come back & bite me please?? Or, if anybody cant throw any more light on this, that would be great. Thanks

macman

BT do not charge for a return to donor, but you have to take out 12 months line rental with them in return.
What Plusnet are quoting you for is installing a new line.
Since presumably it doesn't matter in this case if you keep the old number or have a new one, I would go for the cheapest option.
But either way you will have to sign up for 12m line rental.

muskoka

Sorry for the delay in replying. Thanks very much for that. Would you/anyone happen to know (if owner on TalkTalk & as far as he knows he has no internet connection) DOES Plusnet still require a MAC code please?

macman

A MAC is only for migrating your broadband. If no bb on the line, nothing to migrate, so no MAC needed.

muskoka

Thanks. I did realise that MAC was for moving broadband, but with the nightmare stories about Talk Talk, just wondered if something could have been a little different. Many Thanks

kwikbreaks

The only thing that can bite you here is the 12 month contracts. The rest is all pretty much standard practice. TalkTalk may have a case against the property owner though if he hasn't completed his minimum contract term so you should maybe mention this to him.

Just to clarify though - the Plusnet £50 quote would have been for the initial ADSL install because that requires a small wiring job at the exchange for which BT Openreach charge ~ £50 and standard ISP practice is to either pass that on or absorb it in return for a 12 month contract. Moving between IPstream ISPs is just a keyboard job for which the charge is much less so that is virtually always free.