Who do I contact to move master socket?

guineapig

Hi

We have telephone and broadband provided by John Lewis Broadband. We are having some building work done and need to have our Master socket moved. Do I contact BT about this?

Also, I have heard that this will cost £130 call out and then £70 for the work to be done!! As though I would want to pay £130 just to have an engineer call and stand there!! Is this pricing correct?

Are there any other (legal) solutions?

(apologies if this has already been asked - I couldn't find the info when doing a search)

Thank you.

System

As your line rental is with JL then you contact them. They will arrange with Openreach to do the work. As a minimum I would expect £130 attendance charge as Openreach will bill JL who will bill you. It probably will be an extra £70 to actually move the box

newbie1980

any electrician with the correct tools can do this and some suppliers actually tell you to get a local guy. Just ring around

guineapig

newbie1980 wrote: »

any electrician with the correct tools can do this and some suppliers actually tell you to get a local guy. Just ring around

Is that legal?

[Deleted User]

I think Openreach would take a very dim view of an electrician doing any such work since the Master Socket is not the property of the customer.

However, if done properly, they are unlikely ever to know.

BUT I'm also not sure if it would be significantly cheaper to pay an electrician to do the work over Openreach

iniltous

OR recently relaxed the rules about who can 'touch' the master socket, making it easier for CP's like Sky to do work like moving the master socket , I doubt if John Lewis would have the staff to do this directly , so they could use OR , and bill the end user whatever they feel appropriate , there doesn't have to be a connection between the wholesale price OR charge the CP and the retail price the CP charges the end user , although it seems to be in the £100 to £130 range,
The OP could employ a third party to do the work, or do it themselves , but understanding if they screw up and OR have to attend because of a fault they would charge for that,
if it were just a case of re routing some internal cable I know what I would do, but if it were moving the underground feed or drop wire from a pole then I would use OR, but the CP (John Lewis) would have to arrange this

Spookieuk

iniltous wrote: »

but understanding if the screw up and OR gave to attend on the premise of a fault they would charge for that

To follow on from that if they realised it had been moved if you got a fault in the future there isn't anything stopping them from billing you for moving it anyway.

Not to say they would but they could if they were being spiteful. You might as well get it done properly.

System

Of course another problem with getting your local leccie to do it is if there is not enough incoming cable spare to move it where you want,

You either end up with a bodge job using a couple of Scotchloks (which probably isn't going to help your broadband speed) or they run a new longer cable in from the junction box outside. OR may turn a blind eye to extending with Scotchloks until you get a fault with it but actually tampering with the cable from a junction box would be a big no-no.

Of course the other good reason for getting a proper telecom engineer doing it is that they will have the kit to be able to test the line correctly both for voice and broadband

newbie1980

guineapig wrote: »

Is that legal?

totally. if you have a fault on the line and when they do the tests it shows no fault they will tell you theres a call out fee or try a local electrician

i would only get a electrician to move box if enough wire allows it and nothing else

C_Mababejive

I'll do it for £100 ..

macman

I thought it was £130 for call out and the first hour?