BT Phone Line Charges

Shrimp_Stu

Sorry but I dont quite understand the charge that BT make to upgrade my phoneline....

I am looking to sign up on a BB package for my AOL dialup (£14.99) and have decided to go with Madasafish - the 2MB package at £17.99 with the first two months free (basically £14.99 a month for 12 months).
So I went through the process and then noticed a charge associated with BT for £42.50 to do "something" to my phone line! So I cancelled my order as I didnt quite grasp this associated charge from BT.

We have recently moved into a new house and in our old house I used dialup and then used a broadband connection for a one month trial with One Talk and didnt need any payment made to BT.

Am I missing something? If I want Broadband do I have to pay this charge to BT?
Can someone please help clear up my quandry.
Thanks

Edinburghlass_2

Its a charge for enabling your line to receive broadband. Sometimes your ISP will pay BT this charge and that is what is called free connection. HTH

Shrimp_Stu

Thanks I thought that the Madasafish deal included the free connection -therefore back to the drawing board !!

withabix

Try https://www.virgin.net broadband offering.

Currently free setup/connection, free modem and 1 MONTH CONTRACT, no penalties.

bbb_uk

iainkirk wrote:

...no penalties.

Not strictly true.

I had a quick glance at Virgin's t&c the other week and noticed they charge a cancellation fee of £50 if cancelled within 12 months.

Madasafish_Customer_Care

***edited by MSE Controller2***

While its good CS to respond to customers queries with your company, this post could be considered advertising which is not permitted on this forum

thanks

bbb_uk

This may not be necessary but I thought I'd point out what each of the three abbreviations used by the post from Madasafish Customer Care.

ISDN - Integrated Services Digital Network. It offers slightly faster speed than a standard phoneline. It can be used for the internet but it can be costly and not worth it compared to ADSL. ISDN was popular years ago before ADSL but isn't as popular now as it was. In a normal household, ISDN isn't used and probably not in most businesses now as well. Also there is an additional charge for this as mentioned by Madasafish Customer Care.

PSTN - Public Switched Telephone Network. This is the normal line used for making/receiving calls and is used by all most everyone with a phoneline and it is this we pay the £10.50 for to BT for BT Together Option 1, etc.

ADSL - Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line. This is broadband over a normal (PSTN) line. It offers far greater speeds than an ordinary line and that of ISDN.

djohn2002uk

Shrimpers_Joy wrote:

We have recently moved into a new house and in our old house I used dialup and then used a broadband connection for a one month trial with One Talk and didnt need any payment made to BT.

Am I missing something? If I want Broadband do I have to pay this charge to BT?
Can someone please help clear up my quandry.
Thanks

Looks like the previous occupier of your property had ISDN installed. One way of avoiding the ISDN removal charge is to sign up for BTBroadband. If you talk to them reasonably and tell them you will only sign with them if they drop the removal fee they will do it, they did it for me.

bbb_uk

djohn2002uk wrote:

Looks like the previous occupier of your property had ISDN installed. One way of avoiding the ISDN removal charge is to sign up for BTBroadband. If you talk to them reasonably and tell them you will only sign with them if they drop the removal fee they will do it, they did it for me.

Surely it it was the previous occupier that had ISDN then why should the new occupier pay for its removal unless the new occupier was aware of it and agreed to carry on with ISDN.

Rex_Mundi

Before anyone considers Virgin as an ISP. They should have a look at THIS site. You can compare Virgin with up to five other suppliers. I've just looked at Virgin, and they have absolutely TERRIBLE ratings consistently over the last six months on all three categories (speed, reliability and customer service). This should be a good guide. The April ratings were judged by 2688 people. That's a large enough sample to give a good overall understanding of what their customers think of them.

Shrimp_Stu

Thanks for all the info.
I think I clicked on the box for ISDN. I dont really understand the technical side but if I am correct then I have a normal BT line - not ISDN - as we use BT Together service.

The previous occupier was an old lady with no pc - so doubt that ISDN isnt installed so with an ordinary phoneline I wont need to pay for the conversion, and thus not fork out £45 needlessly?