BT Line Installation Costs >£100?

[anotherhuman]

My first post so howdy all

We're thinking of moving from VM telephone and BB as it's just costing us too much.

We've been living in this house since it was built 7 years ago and have always been with NTL/VM here, so there is no BT line to the house (I assume). I found out installing a line will cost over £100.

First question - can you guys confirm this high cost?
Second question - I hear some people install lines on a freelance basis (and at a much lower cost); has any one heard such a thing? If so, where can I find out more?

Many thanks for your help.

[MovedGoalPosts]

to Cable Forum

BT line install costs have always been quite pricey. Makes sense really since BT end up installing and then find the line is handed over via LLU rules to a competitor so BT don't even get their costs bak, let alone make money from phone calls and the like.

[punky]

to the site

As far as I remember, installing BT lines do cost about 100 quid, so that's not suprising. I thought they tended to provide offers nowadays, but I guess you're unlucky.

I don't know about freelance installers though. I'd guess they'd discourage this as they wouldn't want other people tampering with their network.

[MovedGoalPosts]

You can get whoever you like to wire up extensions and stuff within the house. Can't see how a freelancer could do the stuff needed to get the connection into the house though.

[Paul K]

BT put it's installation prices up about 18 months ago I think and yes that is the price as far as I am aware. If you get a line installed by a third party BT will not support the line if it proves faulty. They only provide support for lines and equipment they fit.

[NoKnowledge]

The cost of a new residential line is £124.99

You can pay in installments

Alternatively, you can spread your connection charge with one initial payment of £27.49 followed by four subsequent quarterly payments of £27.49. This makes a total of £137.45

Long link

[Nedkelly]

Wow thats expensive

how is going to BT gonna reduce your bill anyway?

[Paul K]

£124.99? Bl**dy he** they put it up again? Wow, they must really hate new customers lol

[punky]

I remember when I had a line installed in my room. Dial-up internet those days so for a young, hormonal boy, that's important. I remember (to the pound) BT wanted 110 quid, but Cable & Wireless only wanted 11 quid. So that was the start of my C&W/NTL/VM career, way back in... '95-ish

[anotherhuman]

Great help guys thanks.

zinglebarb: we don't want to switch to BT, but getting a BT line will give us so many more options and give us some flexibility. The kids in the house are growing up and using the phone a lot more (I can't understand how they can talk so much!)

Our bill with VM is pretty silly at the moment and going with someone who offers free local and national calls will save us a lot. We're also paying £25 a month for broadband and monthly we're paying around £70 with the phone bill. Switching to someone else, TalkTalk for example, will save us a good £40 a month considering local, national and some international (USA and Canada especially) calls will be free. Although I hear bad things about TalkTalk...

Anyway, the line is to give us more choice. Using the example above, I guess the line would pay for itself within 3 months considering the savings but as you all know, the cheapest isn't necessarily the best value for money.

Any recommendations for our case? Lots of calls all around the UK during the day and evening, quite a few calls to USA and Canada, and moderately heavy broadband users.

Thanks.

have you not heard of VMs unlimited local and national geographical offer then?

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/webs...ct.do?id=10258 there is an international call plan you can have

[anotherhuman]

Thanks for making me aware of that package. Unfortunately, we'd still be paying £25 on top of that for broadband.

If the BT line installation charge wasn't so high I probably wouldn't hesitate to switch, so it'll take a bit more consideration.

Many thanks for the help guys, muchly appreciated

---------- Post added at 00:25 ---------- Previous post was at 00:22 ----------

Originally Posted by Rob

You can get whoever you like to wire up extensions and stuff within the house. Can't see how a freelancer could do the stuff needed to get the connection into the house though.

What exacly is involved in "installing" a BT line in a new house any way?

[danielf]

Originally Posted by anotherhuman

Any recommendations for our case? Lots of calls all around the UK during the day and evening, quite a few calls to USA and Canada, and moderately heavy broadband users.

Thanks.

Calls to the US and Canada shouldn't cost more than 1p/min. It's as simple as dialling a prefix before the number you want to connect to.

Personally, I still use Onetel for international calls, but they don't take new customers just for the international calls since they were taken over by Carphone Warehouse.

0844calls.co.uk offer a similar service. I've never used them, so I couldn't comment on the quality of service. There are several other companies offering a similar service though.

another thing that ive started to recommend those who want to leave vm and go adsl is to ask your neighbours what kind of service they get and if they get speeds that are fast enough.If you to far from the exchange you may get a lot less than the 4 meg you get now also there are often hard caps on cheaper services Talktalk for example have a hard cap of 40 gig per month.Orange is unlimited upto 8 meg for £20 quid.Probably the cheapest unlimted service is with sky but then of course you have to subscribe to sky tv.
Dont expect to be able to find an good fast speed with high download cap for nothing we all want that you did say moderately heavy broadband users so to find a package for less than 25 quid with a good high cap and then get cheap calls abroad and included calls in the uk for less than the VM packages isnt gonna be as easy as you may think