How can I avoid the installation charge?

EmHurst

Hi,
Desperate for help! A few months ago we moved in to a new housing development. When we first moved in we opted for TalkTalk's current deal of free installation for unlimited broadband and home phone, that was on the 4th of August, when the line was eventually fitted on the 25th of August by a BT engineer we were still waiting for the router, 10 days later this arrived and I tried to connect but failed, long story short, TalkTalk hadn't connected us at their end and wouldn't be able to get an engineer out until the 4th of October (This was on the 5th of September) so we cancelled based on the pretty poor service we had received.

Since then I have been trying to find a decent service to get connected to the web. Having finally decided on Tesco Internet and home phone as they had the fastest connection speeds in our area and unlimited downloads, they then informed me that our local exchange did not support the technology they required but if I could get my own phone line fitted they could supply broadband but at an increased cost as a stand alone service wouldn't come under their current offers. So i then went about ringing MANY companies to try and get a phone line (which we wont use) installed in order to be able to get internet and everyone wants at least £50 to install a line because its a standalone service rather than phone AND broadband! Im so frustrated because as far as I'm concerned thats what the BT engineer did on the 25th of August but on all systems it would appear we have no line. We don't have £50 spare having just moved in to our first home and yet we have promised our lodger internet access which he is getting increasingly frustrated at the lack of.

Can anyone suggest a way we can get unlimited broadband at a decent speed without having to pay a huge installation fee?

Thank you.

sophlowe45

BT said take out an 18 month contract and we won't charge you the 130 pounds installation free, so I did, but regretted choosing BT.

other providers may offer a similar option? 50 pounds sounds cheap to me.

can you get your lodger a dongle for the time being so at least it helps him at little.

spike7451

The is no such thing as "they had the fastest connection speeds in our area"...the speed you get is determined by how far you are from the telephone exchange as the drop wire is routed to your NTE5 Master Socket & the age/condition of said drop wire.
All ISP's will give you roughly the same speed dependent on the connection type,give or take a meg or two.

macman

£50 is a bargain; as pointed out the standard BT rate is £130 for a reconnection or new line provision.
Whichever provider you choose, it will still be BT OR who do the physical reconnection of the line, and the schedule will be the same (typically 3-4 weeks).
You say 'we won't use a phone line'. But how do you think ADSL broadband will operate without a working line?
if you knew that the property had no line connected then surely you budgeted for that when you moved?
The only way to get a 'free' connection is to take out a longer and more expensive phone and broadband; contract.

EmHurst

spike7451 wrote: »

The is no such thing as "they had the fastest connection speeds in our area"...the speed you get is determined by how far you are from the telephone exchange as the drop wire is routed to your NTE5 Master Socket & the age/condition of said drop wire.
All ISP's will give you roughly the same speed dependent on the connection type,give or take a meg or two.

We've had such varied reports from different providers though all claiming different speeds, the average is about 2 meg but Tesco said they could provide about 16meg which obviously seemed alot more attractive but as I said we will then have to get our own phone line installed.

EmHurst

macman wrote: »

£50 is a bargain; as pointed out the standard BT rate is £130 for a reconnection or new line provision.
Whichever provider you choose, it will still be BT OR who do the physical reconnection of the line, and the schedule will be the same (typically 3-4 weeks).
You say 'we won't use a phone line'. But how do you think ADSL broadband will operate without a working line?
if you knew that the property had no line connected then surely you budgeted for that when you moved?
The only way to get a 'free' connection is to take out a longer and more expensive phone and broadband; contract.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough, I do completely appreciate that the internet requires a phone line but I simply meant we won't make any calls from it, therefore are not fussed on inclusive minutes and various bundles etc. With it being my first home and having never lived in a new development I rather niavely didn't consider that it would not have a phone line connected given that there were so many other extras like solar panels etc included in the house price.

I guess I will just have to bite the bullet and pay for a phone line to be installed which has already been installed by BT when we took out our TalkTalk contract!

Thank you for everyones responses )

spike7451

EmHurst wrote: »

We've had such varied reports from different providers though all claiming different speeds, the average is about 2 meg but Tesco said they could provide about 16meg which obviously seemed alot more attractive but as I said we will then have to get our own phone line installed.

If other providers can only provide about 2 meg,then the is no way on this earth that Tesco can provide you 16 meg!..
Put the phone number,address or post code into the link below & it'll tell you EXACTLY the speed range you can get for each service.

https://www.btwholesale.com/pages/static/Community/Broadband_Community/Coverage/ADSL_Availibility_Checker.html

The UK average is around 6-7 meg.This is mine;

For Telephone Number 02********* on Exchange ********

Your exchange is ADSL enabled, and our initial test on your line indicates that your line should be able to have an ADSL broadband service that provides a fixed line speed up to 2Mbps.


Our test also indicates that your line currently supports an estimated ADSL Max broadband line speed of 8Mbps; typically the line speed would range between 7Mbps and 8Mbps.


Our test also indicates that your line currently supports an estimated ADSL2+ broadband line speed of 8Mbps; typically the line speed would range between 5.5Mbps and 12.5Mbps. Our test also indicates that your line could support an estimated ADSL 2+ Annex-M broadband upstream line speed of 1Mbps and downstream line speed of 8Mbps; typically the downstream speed would range between 5.5Mbps and 12.5Mbps.

Our test also indicates that your line currently supports a fibre technology with an estimated WBC FTTC Broadband where consumers have received downstream line speed of 59.6Mbps and upstream line speed of 20Mbps.

I normally get around 7Mbps but for some reason it's running a little slow today...

GlynD

Go to http://www.plus.net/ and subscribe to their fibre optic service. They will defer all installation charges if you give them a 12 month contract. I had a nightmare with internet service until I went with them and now get 40mbps download speeds - and I'm in the middle of nowhere!

ajbell

spike7451 wrote: »

The is no such thing as "they had the fastest connection speeds in our area"...the speed you get is determined by how far you are from the telephone exchange as the drop wire is routed to your NTE5 Master Socket & the age/condition of said drop wire.
All ISP's will give you roughly the same speed dependent on the connection type,give or take a meg or two.

When you only get 2 Mbps like me there are big differences between ISP's .The sky connection i have now is much slower than the BT connection i had before.

GlynD

spike7451 wrote: »

If other providers can only provide about 2 meg,then the is no way on this earth that Tesco can provide you 16 meg!..
Put the phone number,address or post code into the link below & it'll tell you EXACTLY the speed range you can get for each service.

https://www.btwholesale.com/pages/static/Community/Broadband_Community/Coverage/ADSL_Availibility_Checker.html

The UK average is around 6-7 meg.This is mine;



I normally get around 7Mbps but for some reason it's running a little slow today...

/QUOTE]

It was a BT man who wised me up on this Spike. If your exchange has been upgraded to allow fibre optic from BT you can get the same service from some other companies. Therefore avoiding the massive BT installation charges. Even Sky can offer it to me now.

ajbell

Not true.

My exchange has been upgraded to Infinity 2 which i can ONLY get through BT. No other ISP's offer this to me currently and cannot tell me if or when they can.