Are we connected?

ianianian_2

We've moved into a new place, there are BT sockets for phone and internet everywhere, but no actual telephone and we want to know if we are connected?The landlord seems a nice guy but is a bit clueless he mentioned he thought we may be with NTL, but he's leaving us to it.

We basically want to get on talktalk as recommended on this site, but when we rang them up they needed us to have a BT line. I don't know whether we've got one, so we ended up ringing BT who are basically a joke. After pressing 1 for this 2 for that for 30 minutes i found out that we didnt have a BT telephone number but the operator couldn't really answer any of my questions and so gave me a number to another BT department. After going through hours of indian call centres where no-one understood me, randomly hung up on us while costing a bomb on our mobiles we gave up..... can you help?

Do we have to pay a connection charge even though there has clearly been a line here in the past?
Is it possible we could have a line setup with someone else and BT didn't (couldn't tell us)?

Thanks!

BritBrat

We basically want to get on talktalk as recommended on this site

Is it?

Plug a phone in and if it has a dial tone dial 150 that should tell you who the line is with.

Also dial 17070 and if it's a working BT line it should tell you the phone number.

If you do install a new BT line keep line rental with BT.

Stuart_W

Getting hold of BT sometimes can be difficult and confusing!

Certainly a top tip is to get hold of a phone that you can plug in and see what happens when you dial 150 "Welcome to BT..." or "Welcome to Virgin Media..." will be a big clue for starters.

I recently moved into a new house - the BT box had had the wiring behind it changed, so although it said BT on the box it was a cable line.

If you discover what you have is a BT-based line, call 17070 to see if the line still has a number associated with it. If it does, a recorded message will read out the number.

BT would restart you for free (if you can get hold of them) but you'd enter a 12 month contract.

The Phone Co-op will restart the line for £5.88 and you'd only be in a 3 month contract. This can then be switched over to your referred choice, TalkTalk, after that time. The phone co-op are exceptionally easy to get hold of and seem to be very friendly and are a pleasure to deal with.
http://www.phone.coop/residential/linerental.html

That doesn't help with Broadband, but AOL's "Flexi" broadband may be available which has no minimum contract, but the first three months cost £4.99 a month - whilst you're doing your time with the Phone Co-Op. You should then be able to transfer over to TalkTalk line rental and broadband. There is a £29.99 connection fee with this deal for AOL, but you do get those three months at £4.99 and it comes with all the wireless kit you get you up and running.
http://myaolbroadband.co.uk/broadband/broadband.adp

I believe this is the quickest and cheapest route to being with TalkTalk 3 months down the road. I hope it makes sense.

ianianian_2

Sounds good guys! Many thanks!

ianianian_2

I plugged in a phone last night..... dead!
Gutted, does that mean we have to pay £100 plus connection charge with BT or can we do it with one of those stated above?

utilitybroker

ianianian wrote: »

I plugged in a phone last night..... dead!
Gutted, does that mean we have to pay £100 plus connection charge with BT or can we do it with one of those stated above?

If the Phone Coop can restart it you can use them as already mentioned.

If however a completely new connection is required they will charge £116.33,and its a 12 month contract like BT. Give them a ring and ask them they are very helpful.

Quentin

There is no minimum contract if you use the post office to do a connection. (£110). If it can be just swiched on (though it sounds not), then they do that free. You can leave with just 15 days notice.

Or if you are prepared to stay 18 months with BT, then they will do it half price - £62.50.

ioscorpio

Other people have got SKY to pay their re-connection fee for them.