Moving Flat, Need Line Installed?

bherts

Hi
I am moving into a new build flat at short notice. There is a physical line but it has never been connected so I guess this needs an installation?

Calling around I have been told that the earliest an engineer could come is the end of December. Any ideas who could/how it could be done sooner? Seems amazing that in 2011 it takes a month to get a phone line set up.

Thanks!

Heinz

Unless you're talking about Virgin cable (unlikely with a new build), BT Openreach will do the instalaltion/connection regardless of which company you ask to do it (nobody else is permitted to do such work).

It sounds like Openreach have a hefty backlog in your area.

bherts

Thanks - the weird thing though is that I phone Post Office and they said the next date is 22 December, and I phoned Primus and they said they could do it on 7 December... Seems weird. Is there any way of speeding it up !?

c-m

Most companies can get openreach out for work in 3 days if they really want to. I know ticali used to do this, it came at a price (loss or rights, not cost)

macman

4 weeks for a residential install is very much typical. Back in the days of the BT monopoly it could often be 3-4 months or more. My parents waited that long in the 60's-and even then when they did get it, they had to share a party line for about ten years. Happy days...
No one under 45 will have a clue what a party line is of course...

c-m

typical is within 2 weeks

Mark_In_Hampshire

The question about "expedited install" has come up before. Some ISPs offer this, and if you want line & broadband the quickest way is to order them together as a "simultaneous provide" from the same supplier. If you can get the expedited install (believe circa £100 extra) then you could potentially get it done quicker. Or, as said before, cable, since it doesn't use Openreach.

c-m

It is a bit rubbish that every time you move property you have to wait a good month to get first a telephone line, then broadband installed.

Mark_In_Hampshire

Unless you make sure you always move somewhere that's cabled

You can try and get it all in action and moving forward before you move in, but that's not always possible.

Outside cabled areas Openreach have no competition at all. No competition = no incentive, like it or lump it, as it were.