Does anyone know why it takes 24hrs to make any changes on a BT line?

I ordered Call Diversion from the website as I have to go away for a couple of days and wanted to divert my home phone to my mobile. One the order was placed I received an email saying that it will take "up to 3 days" for the change to take effect.

I called BT and spoke to a chap in India who said that it always takes 24hrs for any changes to take effect on a line, and for some services (such as Call Barring) it takes 7 days.

I cancelled the order there and then as I will already be away when it is actived.

But I am curious as to why it takes so long. When I was with NTL in my last house they made some service changes on-the-fly once I had spoken to them. Ok, so I had to be on hold for an hour to speak to them, but at least they could make the changes. Why can't BT?

They're just covering themsleves.

I doubt it does take that long.

I ordered Caller Display via their automated (freephone number) system when it first became free on 1/7/2005 - and it was active within ten minutes.
Last edited by Heinz : 03-04-2007 at 18:55

Indeed, my experience is that it is a worse case scenario, they are just covering themselves. Normally, things seem to take a few hours at most. Pretty remarkable when you consider how complicated the system is.

i work at BT, it is usually minutes to be honest but we have to say 24 hours to stop repeat call prevention in case there is a delay as it goes through 2 systems.

I've ordered it online before - and had it on within minutes.

I've also ordered it and had to wait days.

I think if you have a faulty line and call up they can magically get it on your line rather quickly.

It's crazy they charge you a couple of quid per month for this!