BT unable to install line

Jamesdeer001

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone had any advice for me please. I've recently moved into a new home. The property original had virgin line rental rental/phone services. I went for sky though for providing my tele,b'band and line rental services as they were the cheapest for my needs. The tele was installed last week and went fine. Today, they were meant to setup the landline.

A BT openreach engineer came round and said tried to install the landline. I wasn't there at the time but my wife was. Anyway, the engineer wasn't able to install the landline. He says that there was an existing landline there, but he couldn't find the entry point into the house. It would appear that the entry point was either plastered over or built into the cavity walls and no longer visible. Anyway, he said that our options are either to knock in the wall to try and locate the entry point, or dig up the garden (and he meant proper dig up the garden!)

The property is rented, therefore there is no way that the walls can be smashed in to find the entry point/gardens completely dug up.

I rung sky to cancel but they said there was nothing they could do at the moment as the failed installation hadn't yet appeared on their system.

I'm essentially trying to find out my options. The BT openreach engineer seemed to imply that those were the only 2 options with a BT physical line. Does that mean then that I have to go with virgin for my physical landline or do I have other options? Virgin landline and broadband seems very expensive when compared with sky (about £7 more a month) so I'd rather not be forced into that. Can virgin provide the landline and someone else provide the internet?

Any help is really appreciated,

Thanks in advance

UncleZen

Your landlord may know where the line entry point is.

Jamesdeer001

Hi,

I appreciate that he may know, but this would still involve knocking in the wall in that area, requiring us to get it repaired/replastered after!

Thanks

spike7451

Jamesdeer001 wrote: »

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone had any advice for me please. I've recently moved into a new home. The property original had virgin line rental rental/phone services. I went for sky though for providing my tele,b'band and line rental services as they were the cheapest for my needs. The tele was installed last week and went fine. Today, they were meant to setup the landline.

A BT openreach engineer came round and said tried to install the landline. I wasn't there at the time but my wife was. Anyway, the engineer wasn't able to install the landline. He says that there was an existing landline there, but he couldn't find the entry point into the house. It would appear that the entry point was either plastered over or built into the cavity walls and no longer visible. Anyway, he said that our options are either to knock in the wall to try and locate the entry point, or dig up the garden (and he meant proper dig up the garden!)

The property is rented, therefore there is no way that the walls can be smashed in to find the entry point/gardens completely dug up.

I rung sky to cancel but they said there was nothing they could do at the moment as the failed installation hadn't yet appeared on their system.

I'm essentially trying to find out my options. The BT openreach engineer seemed to imply that those were the only 2 options with a BT physical line. Does that mean then that I have to go with virgin for my physical landline or do I have other options? Virgin landline and broadband seems very expensive when compared with sky (about £7 more a month) so I'd rather not be forced into that. Can virgin provide the landline and someone else provide the internet?

Any help is really appreciated,

Thanks in advance

Depends on if the previous owners had Virgin Cable or Virgin National.
With the Cable,you cannot have DSL broadband (Sky/O2/BT ect) on a Virgin Cable phoneline due to the way it works.Cable Broadband comes over the same line (Coaxial Cable) as the TV.
None of VM's cable services connect into the BT exchange,rather they go to a street mux (phone) & da(tv/bband) then onto Fibre Optic & it can be many miles before it connects to the BT network.

With Virgin National,you can have any DSL broadband on the line however you'll be back to square one as it's BT Openreach again who will install the line,so the end result will be the same as happened to you already.

Jamesdeer001

Thanks for the replies.
Sky have been in contact and are going to liaise with openreach to see if there are any options which don't involve plaster removal/garden digging up.
Otherwise, looks like we're with sky!

Buzby

A cable tracer on one end of the line will allow him to follow the route with relative ease, and remove much of the uncertainty. I don;t think he was all that interested if following it trough. but if this is after the NTP, then that could be your job, but it is not impossible to resolve.