Re: BT Line Installation Costs >£100?
 

Re: BT Line Installation Costs >£100?
 

Installation of further extensions are not included although i was under the impression you could pay someone else to do this after initial installation by BT?

Both phone and broadband are connected to the same socket using a filter which may mean initially phone calls are a bit crackly - for the first 10 days or so to find out the best speed for your line. I got three filters with my ADSL modem kit supplied by VM.

Re: BT Line Installation Costs >£100?
 

Both BT and VM use a master socket as the first point in the house. These master sockets are designed so that extension sockets can be connected without the need for BT or VM to do the work.

When we bought our house there was a similar looking grey conduit coming up out of the ground and a blanking plate on the other side of the wall in the kitchen. Taking the blanking plate off there were the easily recognised telephone wires. Taking the grey conduit cover off outside you could see the other end of the telephone cable that came out of the kitchen and similar wiring coming up out of the ground and capped off. The two cables were not connected.

We had both BT and NTL for a while and both master sockets were side by side in my study. It was very easy to get the other extensions in the house connected to either master socket.

Re: BT Line Installation Costs >£100?
 

You maybe able to get BT to do a site survey, just to confirm exactly what work is required,


1. There is only normally 1 master socket. Unless everal different people have requested installation of the master socket in different locations (generally older houses) Or if there is a second line installed.

2. Bt dont generally install extensions anymore thats why they introduced NTE5 Master sockets. With an IDC tool from B&Q and a couple of wall boxes and a few metres of twisted pair you can easily run in your own wiring and conenct as follows.

White/Orange 4 - 3 Orange/White
White/Blue 5 - 2 Blue/White
White/Green 6 - 1 Green/White

Depends whether you enjoy DIY! There are plenty of EX BT engineers in the local paper who will do it for a small fee!

3. If you want to connect both to the master socket you will need a filter. You will also need a filter installed on every extension socket in the house. You can buy wall boxes with built in filters now for a little more, they look a bit neater I think.

4. It always best to use the Broadband on the master socket. Less to go wrong and less excuses for BT not to send an engineer when there is a problem. Also less line distance between modem and exchange.

I was quite lucky as I have completely gutted my house I have ran in Cat 5e for Network and Pairs for the Telco accross my house and installed all master sockets for ntl and BT all in one corner with my router, which makes everything nice and neat. I also hid all the ntl cabling behine the skirting board. If I were eevr to move to BT changing over would be pretty simple just a new router. Sky would be the only ones able to make a mess but I wont let them near here again!.

Re: BT Line Installation Costs >£100?
 

Very useful info there thanks guys.

I rang BT today to enquire about the line and they told me (by looking on their system) that the wiring to the house has already been done by the house builders - good.

But they said they still might charge the full £124.99 installation charge depending on the amount of work that's involved at the exchange. I didn't understand what he was saying to be honest, and it sort of seemed to me they wanted to charge me £125 for simply flipping a switch on their end to make the line active.

And another thing that surprised me was the minimum term contract of 12 months - once I get the line installed I need to pay them £11 rental for a minimum of 12 months from the date of installation, which is ridiculous IMO. I asked if I could just get the line installed and not activated just yet and was told this wasn't possible. What if after trying an ADSL broadband service I find my line gives me below acceptable speeds and decide not to go long term? I would still need to continue paying BT line rental even though the line wasn't being used :mad:

Does this all sound right to you, or was this CS dude talking out his backside?

I'm pretty convinced now that all the engineer needs to do in the house is attach one of those master sockets to the wall. What's this work that needs to be done at the exchange (by different engineers I was told)?

Re: BT Line Installation Costs >£100?
 

Look into a VoIP service like voip.co.uk, you could even get the kids their own landline phone each! If you have heavy internet use, you may need to get a decent VoIP router with some QOS

Re: BT Line Installation Costs >£100?
 

Take the bottom bt together option and that has a min term of 3 months instead of 12, the 2 higher packages are 12 only.

I expect you wont have to pay the install fee but the problem is BT dont want to decide that before the install takes place.

Re: BT Line Installation Costs >£100?
 

The ADSLMax training period won't affect phone calls. ADSL should be outside of the audible spectrum and well beyond the range of the human ear.

If you could hear the ADSL through a filtered socket the filter is failing abysmally to do its' job and it actually breaking the line. The whole point is to seperate them to avoid the voice part interfering with the DSL.

Re: BT Line Installation Costs >£100?
 

When i complained to VM that is what i was told (stupidly i believed them ;))

But my crackling did subside after a few days :)

Re: BT Line Installation Costs >£100?
 

Unfortunately, BT Together Option1 now also has a minimum 12 month term, since 1 May 2007 I believe.

Anyway, I'm getting a line "installed" on 18 June 2007 and I'll look closely at what work is being done by the BT engineer. Tea and biscuits will be my weapon to soften him up and try and get that fee waived :D

After looking at our options we've pretty much decided we're going to change our phone and broadband to Sky (we already have Sky TV) from VM.

Is it possible to estimate what speeds I'm looking at with:

1. Sky's 'Max' option (ADSL2+)
2. Sky's other options (ADSL)

given the following information from samknows.com?

I'd be happy with 4Mb really. Any higher is a bonus, any lower is a downgrade from what I have at the moment (VM 4Mb).

Re: BT Line Installation Costs >£100?
 

The fact you cannot get 2meg fixed is a sign of a long line and is over 43db attenuation, I have 49db attenuation and the checker says yes to me for 2meg fixed.

Also your estimated max speed is 3.5meg whilst for me is 4.5meg.

I estimate you to expect somewhere between 4 and 5meg on adsl1 and perhaps 4.5-6 meg on adsl2+.

Re: BT Line Installation Costs >£100?
 

Time for an update.

After much consideration we've decided to change our phone and broadband to Sky. In addition, I managed to negotiate a half price Sky+ box with free installation :)

We should have phone by next Wednesday, having transferred our VM number to the BT line.

Broadband will start from 22 July.

Sky+ is being installed on 4 July.

I'm glad I came here for help, you guys have given very useful advice so thank you :)

Finally, with regards to the original thread topic, the official BT line installation charge is £124.99 and all the engineer did was put a master socket on the wall and attach some wires in the green box down the street. He said I may not be charged but will have to wait and see.

Even if we do pay the whole installation charge, we will have made up for it within 3 months from the amount we should be saving on our monthly bill.

Thanks again.

Re: BT Line Installation Costs >£100?
 

Re. the Sky Broadband -

Have a read of these :)

http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/speed...explained.html

http://www.dslzoneuk.net/socket.php


And consider getting one of these for the BT master:

http://www.adslnation.com/products/xte2005.php

Re: BT Line Installation Costs >£100?
 

I have just had my bt line 'turned on' for free, previous house owner must have had bt and the line was all intact.

This next part is slightly off topic but has to be said ::::

My current services:
sky+____VM 20mb___Vonage unlimited
37.00___37.00______7.99

Total: £ 81.99

My new services:
sky+____VM 20mb___Sky Talk___Sky Broadband 8mb___BT line rental
21.00___37.00______5.00_______5.00_______________ 11.00

Total: £ 79

So i dropped the movies ( dont watch them ), and gained a real land line, gained an extra 'upto' broadband service, and saved money at the same time :)

Re: BT Line Installation Costs >£100?
 

FYI I was informed by the guy sellin g sky in the local shopping centre that the sky+ half price offer uses reconditioned plus box's. Not sure if that will be the case for you though.