BT phone line activation charge

mike1988

Hi people.

I am moving house in 3 weeks time and BT want to charge me £130 for them to send out an engineer to activate the phone line..

Are there any ways that I could get the fee whiped? Or cheaper?

If only I could cancel the contract and take a new 1 out then that would be free to have it activated...

Please help me

talktalktobt

mike1988 wrote: »

Hi people.

I am moving house in 3 weeks time and BT want to charge me £130 for them to send out an engineer to activate the phone line..

Are there any ways that I could get the fee whiped? Or cheaper?

If only I could cancel the contract and take a new 1 out then that would be free to have it activated...

Please help me

If you are locked into a contract with BT and that is what they are going to charge, that will be what they charge.

Hedgehog99

It used to be the case that you could ask the seller to ask BT to leave the line connected - then you didn't pay a reconnection fee. This was before the days of different telephone providers though! Worth asking if the seller is with BT? How much is your exit fee from your BT contract?

A_Flock_Of_Sheep

Does BT come to the house then and disconnect the line for the seller? Do they then ravel the wire up to the phone pole? You then have to have a person back to unravel the wire and hook it back to the house?

I say that because I dumped my BT landline. Have no land line. The day it was due for disconnection no one came out and removed the wire. No one came to my house at all.

I laugh at how the cost for landline telephony is like dealing with a solicitor. No matter what happens there seems to be a hefty charge.

Yet you can connect to any mobile phone network by buying a SIM or taking out a contract and no engineer needs to charge £130 to do it.

LazyTyper

A_Flock_Of_Sheep wrote: »

Does BT come to the house then and disconnect the line for the seller? Do they then ravel the wire up to the phone pole? You then have to have a person back to unravel the wire and hook it back to the house?

I say that because I dumped my BT landline. Have no land line. The day it was due for disconnection no one came out and removed the wire. No one came to my house at all.

I laugh at how the cost for landline telephony is like dealing with a solicitor. No matter what happens there seems to be a hefty charge.

Yet you can connect to any mobile phone network by buying a SIM or taking out a contract and no engineer needs to charge £130 to do it.

Of course they don't ravel up the wire, that would be silly.

But you don't know if a field engineer disconnects your copper wire at the PCP cabinet or at the main jumper frame in the exchange. There is a finite amount of capacity in any given exchange which needs to be used efficiently, or at least until further capacity is provided.

The £130 would be for a line to be provided which includes any relevant engineering work required.

Usually if the customer signs up for a 12 or 18 month contract this £130 is waived though...

A_Flock_Of_Sheep

LazyTyper wrote: »

Of course they don't ravel up the wire, that would be silly.

But you don't know if a field engineer disconnects your copper wire at the PCP cabinet or at the main jumper frame in the exchange. There is a finite amount of capacity in any given exchange which needs to be used efficiently, or at least until further capacity is provided.

The £130 would be for a line to be provided which includes any relevant engineering work required.

Usually if the customer signs up for a 12 or 18 month contract this £130 is waived though...

That's another thing I find odd. How the £130 charge suddenly becomes £0.00 if you tie yourself in. Why do BT Openreach suddenly work for free if someone commits for a term.

Like I say. You can sign up for a 30 day rolling Mobile phone sim and you don't get charged for an engineer to set uou up.

Let's face it BT are just a bunch of robbers.

JJ_Egan

A_Flock_Of_Sheep wrote: »

That's another thing I find odd. How the £130 charge suddenly becomes £0.00 if you tie yourself in. Why do BT Openreach suddenly work for free if someone commits for a term.

Like I say. You can sign up for a 30 day rolling Mobile phone sim and you don't get charged for an engineer to set uou up.

Let's face it BT are just a bunch of robbers.

Out of interest what does that cost you as replacement for phone line broadband and what sort of monthly data are you using .

talktalktobt

A_Flock_Of_Sheep wrote: »

That's another thing I find odd. How the £130 charge suddenly becomes £0.00 if you tie yourself in. Why do BT Openreach suddenly work for free if someone commits for a term.

Like I say. You can sign up for a 30 day rolling Mobile phone sim and you don't get charged for an engineer to set uou up.

Let's face it BT are just a bunch of robbers.

BT Openreach don't suddenly work for free. If you tie yourself into a minimum contract the company justify covering the cost because of the amount of profit they will make over the course of the term. (only £12 a month for a 12 month term or £6.60 over 18 months).

In terms of the mobile network - it works differently. There are few physical wires. Connections are done virtually via a computer, and in many cases automatically. They don't need to hire someone and send them out to connect wires

BT are a bunch of robbers (look at how much they cost), but not because of the connection charge. If you were in a similar situation with the majority of other UK telecoms providers they would charge the same.

LazyTyper

Also note that Openreach and BT Retail are completely separate. Openreach are a supplier to BT Retail just as they are to other providers.

Openreach always charge the provisioning fee to the retailer, but often the retailer will absorb this. Sometimes Openreach also do a special offer for free connections to the retailers.

The prices Openreach can charge are regulated, and often set, by Ofcom.

I wouldn't say BT, or any part of BT, are robbers (do they force you to hand over money at knife point?), they are not the cheapest of providers, but they are far from the most expensive also.


As for the mobile network operators, they pay billions upfront to Ofcom for the rights to use certain frequencies. Then they charge about 25p per minute to call mobiles and landlines and also free-phone numbers! And they don't provide you with a handset for free, which is paid over the course of a contract... unless you got for a PAYG option where you must provide your own.

bubblegun

You could switch to Sky telephone and broadband, they will give you telephone and broadband without having to pay a setup charge if you take a 12 month contract.
Sky (I think) are still doing contract buy-out with shopping vouchers to the value of the ETC if you switch to them. Make sure they add notes to your account that this was offered when you place your order.

Alternatively BT have been giving free telephone activation at new properties if the customer will sign-up to their tv service for 12 months.