Business Phone Line

ajnicho

Hi,

My wife is setteing up a shop and is trying to get her phone line set up. There is a current BT line which is still connected up but they've said it's not activcated.

They said it would cost £99 to have the phone line activated and they would have to come out to put a new line in?

Is there any way of getting this done without paying this fee up front? I dont understand why they cant just activate it by pushing the same button they pushed to deactivate it.

fguk

No way I have ever found. But you really do get an engineers visit, and they will normally put the line wherever you want it, within reason.

ajnicho

There are about 4 telephone points in the shop.

What a waste of money!

InsideInsurance

There are a few telephone engineers in the broadband section and they may be able to give a better answer than me. My very basic understanding is that whilst they "press a button" to deactivate a line that line is then evidently noted as deactivated and so the next time a person asks for a new line into another property and the engineer goes to the cabinet they are told where to plug the new line into. If all the spaces are full then evidently they start physically disconnecting the lines that are in there but currently deactivated.

In theory BT could instead of charging a flat fee to everyone instead bill people the true cost of the line installation but this would mean isolated villages etc simply never getting connected because of the thousands it would cost.

In reality when BT was privatised it was done so with certain provisos one of which was a cap on line installation costs. Many years ago I used to work for BT and we'd often get people in scottish villages asking for new lines and opening admitting they had been told by another telephone provider to ask BT to do it as it would only cost them £100 (or what ever it was at the time) and the other telecom company would then discount their bills by the line rental amount for 12 months.

When I had my "new line installed" they do just reactivate the existing one and come into the property to make sure its working (which it was with all the pre-existing phone points)

Miss_Beaumont

That's strange, when this happened to myself (albeit at a residential property) they arranged for the engineer to visit...

However, on the day he never showed up, they then stated that it was all done remotely (or however it was worded) and they didn't need to visit afterall...

This was back in the early part of 2010. The "activation fee" was around £120, but thanks to Martin Lewis I had it waivered.

I initially signed up to 12 months and had to pay the fee. But Martin's email the day after I signed up stated that if I signed up to 18 months, they waiver the fee. So I mentioned this, managed to get a refund...

Super Martin! :money:

Worth a try...

ajnicho

I managed to get XLN to to do it for £49 plus they offer the cheapest Line rental at £11.99 a month and it is half Price for 6 months.

Only a 12 month contract as well

Thanks

pcombo

talktalk business are the cheapest.

http://www.talktalkbusiness.co.uk/store/business-calls-packages/

ajnicho

That's not cheaper than XLN's line rental

paulwf

BT waived the fee for me when I agreed to a 3 year contract. On reflection I'd rather have paid the £99 and not be tied to them for so long!

One thing I always say...are you sure you need a phone line? It will vary a huge amount from business to business but I get next to no customer calls just loads of junk marketing calls. If it wasn't for needing the line for credit card and broadband I'd get rid of it and just use my mobile. Paying for a phone line seems a complete waste of money based on how often it is used for genuine phone calls...you may need one a lot more though.

ajnicho

Tis true and most people have mobiles now anyway, so calling a mobile number isn't expensive as it used to be!

ColinAllCars

ajnicho wrote: »

I managed to get XLN to to do it for £49 plus they offer the cheapest Line rental at £11.99 a month and it is half Price for 6 months.

Only a 12 month contract as well

Thanks

XLN woops !!!

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1731457

and https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/535228