Has any one experienced...

[Deleted User]

Hi there,

Ive just moved to a new build property and phoned up BT... they told me that they charge £75 to connect me ... the operator went onto say that they are unsure if i've been connected to the router box in the street...

Now i know its pretty obvious that they dont connect one person at a time on a new housing estate... they go to the box and connect everyone at once! simple economies of scale!

Has anyone experienced this? What was the outcome?

Thanks



Do you think its right to charge £75 in such an instance? I wouldnt have thought it would take more than half a day to a day to connect a whole estate at once... At £75, that would equate to over £10000 PROFIT on my estate!!!

Martin, this is a con and people need to be made aware of this!

Simpson

have you spoken to your neighbours or the builder?

Would BT be prepared to negotiate for a multiple order?

I bought a new build 9 years ago, but I don't remeber a £75 charge for connection is this a recent price hike?

Steve_xx

Simpson wrote:

have you spoken to your neighbours or the builder?

Would BT be prepared to negotiate for a multiple order?

I bought a new build 9 years ago, but I don't remeber a £75 charge for connection is this a recent price hike?

If it is a new property, and therefore not had phone connection there before, then you will be charged the full connection fee.

[Deleted User]

It just seems a big con to me.

No way on earth do BT connect each house seperately as and when a connection is requested. Simple economies of scale. A 1month (eg £10) would be reasonable as they would still receive between £1-2k what is effectively for one engineer to come out for a day (max!)

£1-2k for one days work is more than enough if you ask me! That alone has to be one hell of a mark up!

And dont forget here... i was attempting to become their customer!

Steve_xx

Yes I understand how miffed you feel at having to pay the full installation cost. Nowadays it only seems to happen that way where there has not been an installaion previously.

However, I would advise that you have a BT exchange line due to the fact that BT have to allow you to route your calls via other operators if you wish to do so. Other service providers are not forced to allow you to do this.

dag_2

I agree with Steve. If you can negotiate cheaper installation - great - but if you can't, I still reckon it's much better to have a BT line than a Telewest or NTL line, or to rely on mobiles.

I once moved out of the family home in a hurry, and into a really grotty bedsit. Of course it had never had a phone line before. I ummed and arred over the installation charge, because I didn't want to stay in the bedsit any longer than necessary - and I didn't know if my length of stay would justify the phone line.

So I analysed my mobile phone usage, and figured that a BT line would pay for itself in three months.

As it happend, the landlord gave me notice a month after I put the line in anyway. He wanted to demolish the house, and build a block of much posher flats, that he could sell or let for much higher rent. But I still think installing the BT line was the right decision.

nearlyrich

Surely if you were a good customer at your previous address they should take that into account, I thought the high charge was for new customers. It is another example of BT charging what they like.

Steve_xx

BT are not allowed to charge what they like for line installation. They are very heavily regulated by OFCOM. Whereas other operators in the UK are allowed to charge more or less what they like. BT have what's known as a "universal service obligation", which means that they are obliged to install exchange lines for customers when it may not always be economical for them to do so.

There is choice available and you can always opt to have an exchange line provided by another operator. But then again, if you choose to have an operator other than BT to provide your exchange line then you may find that you cannot take advantage of the myriad of low cost service providers to route your calls because only BT have to allow other service providers to route your calls on their exchange lines.

So, all in all, BT isn't the big bad wolf it's often portrayed to be.