My girlfriend was a former BT customer but has been charged £125 to come back.

She has been without a land line for the past couple of years, but, from what she tells me she used to have a BT land line about 6/7 years ago until she transfered to Cable for a few years, then later cancelled that due to the boom in mobile phones.

Since disconnecting from BT the little white box has always been on the wall and has never touched.

She bought her daughter a lap top for Christmas and so needed a phone line connection to access the internet.

Not knowing all the ins and outs, like folk on these forums, she rang BT to reconnect and they have charged her £125 which is to be paid in installments, some of which has been paid already.

They did send an engineer round to do an installation but at best all he has done is take the original white box off the wall and replaced it with a new one.

I fear that when she rang up the CS rep has not taken the time to ascertain whether she was a returning customer or not and has just booked her in as a new customer and moved onto the next call, lumbering her with the charge.

We would just like to know where she stands regarding a possible refund of this connection fee, because as far as I'm aware they don't normally charge old customers to come back as long as the little white box is still on the wall?

Sorry it's a bit long-winded but if you're still reading any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Regardless of whether the "little white box" was there or not, it was (by your own admission) 6 or 7 years since your partner was with BT previously - the line has been out of use for a long, long time.

There was probably work that BT had to do away from your home in order to get an active line. This could be work at the exchange, one of the cabinets on the road or even underground.

£125 is quite reasonable IMHO

I looks even more reasonable when you compare it to the ridiculous £25 I paid virgin to fit my telephone, tv and broadband.... oh wait..... no it doesnt.

My friend had the same reconnection quote today, £11 a month over 12 months, what a nice bunch BT are. NOT

Why not get one of the plethora of other companies now in the market of 'line provision/rental' (all of which, like BT, have to pay Openreach to do the work), to reconnect you then?

I would recommend ordering your connection through madasafish.com. The price is only £10 cheaper than BT at £115, but the customer service is far, far superior and makes the experience a lot less stressful.

As for the price (or Openreach's service) being reasonable, I couldn't disagree more. When I recently had a line installed the engineer - after I waited four weeks for him to turn up - took a grand total of 5 minutes to do the work. If there was other work involved outside of my flat then it would have to be incredibly complex for it to come even close to what Openreach charge. The cost and the amount of time it takes for an engineer to come out and install a new phone line in this country is completely unacceptable as far as I'm concerned.

I would echo that Simon. People see the NTE5 socket and a line going to the pole and think, "Oh well it should be easy, flick a switch or something and it's done in 2 minutes"

NO - if only.

If the line has been out of use for any length of time then it's "connections" (for want of a better word) beyond the bit you see will have ceased to be. Especially in areas where copper lines are in demand for ADSL, due to lots of fibre and not enough copper, then it will all have to be re-assigned and re-connected to give you a working service. Just as much work, if not more, as provisioning a brand new service.

It involves more than a bit of cable between you and the pole!

LCDMAN............The man with no sig!

Still only £25 through Virgin for 3 services compared to BT's £125 for 1 service.

And your point is?.................... it's still 1 "cable" regardless of what comes down it. They can't get/don't want/didn't mention Virgin so your comment is irrelevant! Anyway, it's a loss-leader for Virgin, the actual cost to them is much more - you pay for it with your spend on their services! How much did it cost them to get the cable into your street??


LCDMAN................

I think it's beyond question that if Openreach were subject to proper competition, the price would drop substantially and the amount of time consumers have to wait would be reduced.

I cannot accept that setting up a new phoneline is so complex a procedure that it takes four weeks to complete (I've had an extension to my house completed in the amount of time it took me to get the internet sorted in my new flat) and the fact that the charge is a blanket one regardless of circumstances would suggest that it's not the best deal for the consumer. Five weeks to have the internet up and running is pretty pathetic in this day and age and that's when everything runs smoothly - there are plenty of stories out there of people waiting three months.

Is there a geographic issue?

I've had an extra line added twice in the last 7 years (each time when moving house) and it's never been more than 10 days from my call to the new line being installed. In one case I called to organise it on a Friday and it was booked for, and done, the following Thursday. Both times in the fringes of Leeds within 10 miles of the city centre (so not in the wilds!)

From my experience, therefore, I can't understand people saying it took weeks & weeks! {Bunkmedal} Are they in densely or sparsely populated areas or have crowded exchanges or what? Or do they mean "I called and they said it was £125 so I waited 3 weeks and called back to arrange it?"

They give you an installation date there and then on the phone when you order it (or by email soon after if you do it online) so I'm a little confused by comments such as "after I waited four weeks for him to turn up " Surely you knew when he was coming or did you just sit at home in the vain hope someone would turn up?? (Or where there some particularly special circumstances you haven't told us about?)

£125 as a flat fee seems a reasonable average, some times they will make money and I'm sure other times they won't. Would you prefer they charged you the real cost, if it was say £4K because of your location? Would you believe them anyway?

LCDMAN..................The man with no sig!

Of course its relevant how could it not be ???

One company is charging £100 more for doing less work than the other for the same service.

No, I'm saying I ordered a new phoneline/broadband upon moving into my new flat on the 10th of November, a few days later I was given a date of the 8th of December for the engineer to come out, after the phone installation I had to wait another 11 days for the line to be "broadband activated". A grand total of 5 and a half weeks to install the internet (which I need for my work incidentally). This is evidently quite normal, I had a friend who was waiting upwards of 7 weeks and there are numerous stories of people waiting for months if you search google.


Openreach was only created in January 2006 so I imagine experiences 7 years ago say very little about the present situation. I live about twenty minutes from Glasgow in a town of 10,000 or so people so geography certainly doesn't seem to be an issue. My friend who was waiting 7 weeks lives in the centre of Glasgow.


£125 is actually only what BT charges the customer, Openreach as far as I can understand charge something closer to £200. Neither of us knows whether that's a fair reflection of the hidden work which goes on, but without proper competition we'll never know how low the price should be. At present Openreach is a virtual monopoly and the standard of service certainly reflects that as far as my experiences are concerned.

Perhaps I worded that badly or you mis-read it - the last time was only September last year - prior to that was May 2001 (hence "twice in the last 7 years" - not "7 years ago"!) - but I had a similar experience both times - in fact it was last year when I organised it on the Friday and it was done the following Thursday.! My point was that it didn't seem to have worsened since Openreach was created - but got better given my experiences before and after Openreach.

So you weren't actually waiting for 4 weeks with no idea of when they were coming were you - "waiting for him for 4 weeks" comment - you knew exactly when it would be when you ordered the line (or pretty soon after)? So you weren't actually waiting wondering when it would be done, were you? So that's not quite accurate is it?


Lastly, your new flat - was it new build without any previous phone service in situ? That would explain a lot.

Also you need to separate the phone line installation and the broadband provision - they are two distinctly different issues. I agree that broadband provision takes too long even on an existing line but if you go to www.thinkbroadband.com you will learn more about why, when the clock starts and in what order things have to happen.


LCDMAN................The man with no sig!

I don't really see how you could have made that point - that it didn't seem to have worsened since Openreach was created - when you didn't state the dates on which the two phone lines were ordered or the fact that they were ordered either side of Openreach opening for business. If you've had better luck with this then all power to you, but my experience is far from unique, here are several links detailing complaints about waiting times (from this forum and elsewhere):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2007...rss&feed=money

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2007...esandbroadband

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...d.php?t=659154


At no point did I ever claim that I didn't know when the engineer was due to arrive. My annoyance with Openreach is with the fact that it took four weeks in the first place, I have no gripes with their communication. The comment you're referring to served only to illustrate the amount of time I was waiting for him to appear, it had nothing to do with their notification.


It's not a new build and there had been a bt line before, just not in the last 6 months. As stated above my experience is hardly unique and doesn't seem to be related to the specifics of my situation.


They are indeed separate problems and both of them take too long. It's not acceptable to wait four weeks to have a new phone line installed without there being exceptional circumstances. This would be pushing it if we lived in a developing country, far less the UK. As said above, I can have an extension on my house completed in the amount of time it took to get a phoneline connected.

I'm in exactly the same situation. I've just ordered a BT line, it too has cost £125.

It was explained to me that the number that used to serve the house (10 years ago) has been allocated elsewhere and I need a new number and there is work needed doing on the cabinet before they bring in a new line.

Frankly, it's worth it to be able to lose Virgin. While their phone service is great, I don't use it as it only provides a line out for the alarm dialer.

The broadband and TV, however, I can't wait to get rid of.

I'll see what packages Sky can come up with, failing that I'll go to 02 broadband which is a bargain at £7.50 pm

we are basically the transco of the gas network. we have a set price that we charge your CP's. we have gone through years of training and experience and the one thing that we focus on is getting a pair of wires from the exchange to your socket. there are many many issues that can affect this, and considering we are using a very very old network of cables we are doing the best we can. at the moment we are using contractors to do the basic pair provision work i.e provision to new builds, but because they don't work to the same quality standards we do, (we can lose our jobs if we don't follow them) and only get about 10-20 quid a job their quality of work is not the same as ours, and it is now a common thing where our lads and ladies have to go in joints after them to put things right.
if you start putting it out to competition then it will be done as cheaply and quickly as poss till the whole thing goes tit's up.
the waiting times is purly a geographical issue and is down to the volume of work in that area.
if we started to do provision work and charged on the time it takes to complete all the work, including the van hire wages, stores etc. then believe me there would be alot more people complaining about the cost of having the lines installed.
FYI you can always appeal against the cost of the installation charge put on you by your CP, i did.

£7.50 for O2 pay monthly customers.

I've no doubt that Openreach are doing the best they can, but when customers are having to wait the 4 weeks+ which evidently they are in the Glasgow area in recent months, it's obvious that there aren't enough engineers to deal with the volume of work. The only answers to that are either for Openreach to employ and train more staff (and no doubt have to charge even higher prices) or open it up to other companies. There may well be other problems associated with opening it up to competition, but at present the amount of time some of us (though not all) are having to wait for something which is close to a necessity really isn't acceptable.

Indeed! An unexpected bonus of iPhone ownership

we have taken on more staff, we've taken 3 on in our patch this past year. and that is similar across the country. however it takes time to get them fully trained and acredited so that they are running at the same pace as the rest of us. as far as i know my wages are still paid by BT, well thats what's on the payslips anyway, we are slowly moving onto our own budget's etc, but it will take time to completely seperate from the mummy's teet. our prices were agreed with ofcom, and if we wanted to change them we would have to go through them, as you quite rightly said previously we are a mini monopoly.
just on another note it's quite common for a company reselling another company's product blaming a price increase on the original company. the main problem with the delays in line provision is that we have had to migrate onto a new system to seperate us from the systems bt used. and this has caused nothing but chaos. the creases are slowly being ironed out and hopefully things will be improved in the future. if the orders in glasgow were taking that long to progress because of lack of engineers then we would have moved staff into the area to cover the overflow and bring the workstack down to a reasonable level.

Yes, but Virgin's phone call charges are a complete rip off and you don't get as many options for putting calls elsewhere to reduce costs.

Why dont you ? I use other companies to ring abroad with a freephone number, and can use them for landlines or mobiles, I was also given free eve and weekend calls too at no extra cost, my phone bills were always loads more at bt.

You don't know me very well then, I've been giving years of advice on how to get the best call rates from landlines, on forums and newsgroups.

Yes, you can use the likes of 18185 via their 0808 access number and others via 0844 number etc, you have to be careful with some as cable charge higher rates to call those numbers than from a BT line, you just can't get the same low rates as you would if you had a BT line. Also First Telecom, although cheaper than cable, not as good as if you had a BT line.

For example:

18185 calls to landlines from a BT line is 5p per call, on a cable line that is 1p/min + 4p connection.

You can get evening and weekend calls package from Primus for £0.00 per month - £3.45 per month cheaper than VM, plus their daytime rate doesn't kick in until 08:00 so you get more free calling hours, they bill per second, don't have a call connection fee, and also can have calls to UK mobiles for 20p for up to 20 mins.

Daytime calls to UK mobiles are 10p/min via 18185 on cable, but 6p/min on 18185 via BT. Cheaper international calls too.

I myself have a cable line, but that's only because to keep me as a customer (previously had broadband and also a TV package (free)) they offered to install the phone line for free, give me free line rental and free evening and weekend calls package and free caller display for as long as I remain a customer.

For 2.5 years before that I was VoIP only - 2.5 years of phone service via VoIP for just a total of £6 plus the £20ish cost of the ATA.

Before that I was BT for line rental, calls via another provider for free evening and weekend calls and other calls going via 18866, then 1899 - when they were 1p/min, then 0.5p / min, then 1p per call, 2p per call etc.

If you can get a deal on the cable phone line then yes go for it, but if you have to pay the full price then as it has been for 5 - 6 years they are the dearest around.

id imagine the operator has made an error as £125 pounds is usually to get a new line installed, unless like some av said that things were neeing attending to before a line was installed, but if there was a white box already there that means there was a phoneline in your house.