Hello everyone,

Thought I would post my questions to this wealth of knowledge.

I am a Virgin customer who has television, phone and broadband. I have been a customer since the NYNEX days.

I want to switch back over to a BT line so I can have the freedom of choice to pick a telephone provider, most likely TalkTalk at this point.

So speaking to BT and TalkTalk I have discovered the slightly hidden points. Even if I do not have to pay the engineer to reconnect, BT want a 12 month contract from you which then when the switch over to TalkTalk happens I will have to pay both line rentals from what I can tell.

My query is that if I was to get reconnected to BT and then cancel the contract within the legally allowed time that we all have on any contract we sign, could I then call up TalkTalk? I would of been reconnected by BT and then turned off, would this work or do I have to have an active account with BT to switch?

The reason I thought of this was because of people who move home, where the previous residents would of canceled the contract. Would they need to start a contract with BT before going over to another provider?

I am suspecting this is either an idea that has no hope or is a commonly done way around paying two line rentals for people coming back to a BT line from cable. I will sit and wait.

Kind regards,
claughton

Welcome to the DS forums claughton.

If you want to change from cable to an ordinary landline, you need to select which landline provider you want to go with (let's assume Talk Talk at this stage).

It sounds like you'll need a 'new provision' or a 'reconnection' so, most likely, are going to be liable for connection charges. BT charges a standard £124.99 for that but Ofcom opened up the market by forcing BT to set up a separate engineering company (Openreach) some time ago and so any of the providers now in the market can take your order and then employ Openreach (just as BT Retail has to do) to do whatever engineering work needs doing.

So, you ask Talk Talk to connect you. The problem is that, despite the open market, Talk Talk still lies and says "only BT can do that" and/or "you'll have to have a working BT line before we can take you on as a customer." They do that because they dob't want to have to pay Openreach to do the work and then bill you and it's cheaper to get you to pay BT and then switch to them. They have to pay less than £3 to take over the line but you'll have already paid £124.99 to get the line from BT and will then be liable for £70 for breaching the minimum 12 month contract.

Is Talk Talk still your preference?

Hello Heinz, thank you for your reply, you are providing a lot of help and information as I am unsure about some things in the telecoms industry.

It is interesting you mention Openreach, because it is hard to distinguish what is BT the retail business and BT the separate line operator. I think this is why people get intimidated, they feel as though they are betraying BT by using their line with another provider.

My current line situation is that my physical line is disconnected from the main telephone box and if it is reconnected by myself the line is dead. I did query this with BT and they of course said an engineer would have to assess the situation, but would most likely have to pay the price to be reconnected. My question is though, I can call up some one in the Yellow Pages and connect my line, but that still won't make my line switched on and usable by TalkTalk or another non-BT provider, correct?

If Openreach do the engineering work do BT really need to be involved, is there away of getting my line to the point where I can move to another provider without BT getting me into a contract?

In response to your TalkTalk preference question, I am open to any provider. With my call patterns it seemed like the best deal for me. I am open to suggestions though.

Thank you again,

I think you would have to have a very unusual calling pattern for Talk-Talk to be your best option.

Heinz has a very good post somewhere detailing the best way to go about things but IIRC it's usually Primus Option 2 for evening and weekend calls and Call1899 (or one of that group) for daytime and mobile.

And never switch from BT for you line rental.

No, if you ask BT to do the connection (my recommendation too), you agree to a 12 month contract for the line with them. You can immediately CPS your calls and/or use indirect access providers for your calls though - and that's the post qpw3141 is referring to.

See HERE.

I would warn you and anyone else away from Talk Talk, we signed up to their service back in the summer and at first their service wasn't bad. Sadly that isn't the case any more.

OK, their phone service works OK, but then it's not hard to screw that up. However their broadband service is terrible, put simply it is over subscribed to such an extent that using the internet even for browsing is next to impossible at peak times, forget about downloading anything. I tried to download a 12mb file, after the 6th attempt I gave up and downloaded it at work.

Their customer service is non existent, you call to complain and they just don't care, nothing ever happens as a result of calling them. Worst still, we're no locked into a 18 month contract so were stuck with them until next Christmas.

Whatever you do, don't got to Talk Talk, find someone else.

Have you considered First Telecom's Cable Saver?

http://www.firsttelecom.com/resident...monthly-CS.htm

Might save the hassle of moving to BT. I pay Virgin £0 for calls.