BT Line Installation Costs >£100?

[pedantic]

Originally Posted by anotherhuman

3. If this line in the living room is the only one, I presume both phone and BB will need to be connected to it (through one of those filters)?

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/splitters.htm

[superbiatch]

Originally Posted by anotherhuman

OK now a few more things have occured to me. (Note I don't have any experience with ADSL)

1. Is it standard to have only one BT line point in the whole house? We have 3 NTL ones at the mo.
2. Is installing points in other rooms in the house part of the BT line installation cost?
3. If this line in the living room is the only one, I presume both phone and BB will need to be connected to it (through one of those filters)?
4. If other points are installed in the house, would it still be best to hook up BB to this 'master' line in the living room for the best speeds? Or would that not make a difference?

Wow I never thought this thread would turn into this Thanks again.

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.

[ian@huth]

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.

[themelon]

Originally Posted by anotherhuman

Well a number of other forum users have said BT waived the installation fee because there wasn't much work to do (in their new'ish homes), so if this is in fact a BT line I'm hoping they'll waive the fee for me too.

When I last called them a couple of months ago I told them it was a new property and a BT line had never been used in the house. I was told in that case I would need a BT line installing, costing £125. But now that I've discovered this I think I'll tell them there's a cable coming into the house which I think may be a BT line, and see what they say.

Thanks for the help.

---------- Post added at 15:42 ---------- Previous post was at 15:29 ----------

OK now a few more things have occured to me. (Note I don't have any experience with ADSL)

1. Is it standard to have only one BT line point in the whole house? We have 3 NTL ones at the mo.
2. Is installing points in other rooms in the house part of the BT line installation cost?
3. If this line in the living room is the only one, I presume both phone and BB will need to be connected to it (through one of those filters)?
4. If other points are installed in the house, would it still be best to hook up BB to this 'master' line in the living room for the best speeds? Or would that not make a difference?

Wow I never thought this thread would turn into this Thanks again.

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!.

[anotherhuman]

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

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)?

[lincsat]

Originally Posted by 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.

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

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by anotherhuman

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

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)?

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.

[Incomplete]

Originally Posted by superbiatch

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.

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.

[superbiatch]

Originally Posted by Incomplete

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.

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

But my crackling did subside after a few days

[anotherhuman]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

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.

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

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?

ADSL is available in your area
Your exchange is also enabled for ADSL Max services


According to BT Wholesale, your line should be able to support a 3.5Mbps or greater ADSL connection via ADSL Max.

Standard ADSL RAG results:
You cannot receive 2Mbps ADSL
You may be able to receive 1Mbps ADSL
You can receive 512Kbps ADSL
You can receive 256Kbps ADSL


You are approximately 2.12km from the exchange (straight line distance).

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).

[Chrysalis]

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+.

[anotherhuman]

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.

[Tezcatlipoca]

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

[anduin]

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

[handyman]

Originally Posted by anotherhuman

Sky+ is being installed on 4 July.

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.