I'm afraid it's a standard charge across the board, the only time that it can be free of charge is if there is a stopped line at the premises (a dial tone you can't use). Even us openreach engineers get charged the £125 to have a line fitted even though we would do the work ourselves.

BT were and are a total rip off.

ON TOP OF YOUR BT LINE RENTAL MAKING IT £19PM

hey i dont think 125 quid is fair at all infact its pathetic .I never even paid virgin a penny for virgin to install my phone and broadband and tv packagei get a good deal with them comon i know bt say its good to talk but thats just plain greed

TheFirstCut explained the BT charge very well a few days ago in another thread.

Agreed. £10.50 is what I have been quoted. I have to pay that to Virgin at the moment anyway.

On top of the £17.50

I recently left BT for Virgin, the reason - hopeless customer service and very long waits to be connected using 150, all I needed to do was change a few details on the account.

I was told very firmly that I would be charged £125 to return to BT if I left for Virgin. Would this apply to somebody who bought my house and was a BT customer at their previous address?

I don't understand this and it just seems to be another example of "rip-off Britain", or is it naked corporate greed again?. I live quite close to the BT exchange in an area where there is very little land left for more development. So who are they going to allocate the cables to my house to? Several years ago I returned from Telewest to BT at another address and there was no charge at all. I phoned up in the morning and the line was back on same day, late afternoon.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...08&postcount=4

this may help
..... ...if your getting a bt line and sat tv(sky) ....they will give you the £124.99 back as a credit ...takes about 6-7 weeks to sort out ....you pay ...send in your 1st bill to sky (will post address if needed) they credit your account with that amount ...
1 mix £16 x 12m = £192 less £124.99 = £67.01
to get this offer you do need their bbi and talk both free (2mb & e/weekend calls sub to network...)
...........only if your getting sky ....no guns to heads........

BT engineer turned up today to install line.

Already had a call from the exchange on Sunday to say the work there had been done and would I like to try it.

I pointed out there wasn't a BT socket in the house (it must have been removed at some point)

So today's appointment was left standing.

Engineer turned up at 10.15. Looked over the job, decided that I would need a new cable ran from the telegraph pole down the road (as the old twin pair was OK, but probably 50 years old)

Much climbing up and down pole and up to the eaves of the house. Gave me a number of options for where the cable drop should be, but actually recommended the most difficult one as it would be an invisible job from the front of the house.

Then tied it into the existing cable socket, which means that the house (up for sale) didn't have loads of sockets on the wall, and meant that all the sockets in the house live on Virgin became live with BT.

Neat, tidy, efficient Job.

With work on the cabinet ( a street away which he admitted he was dreading as it is old and time consuming to deal with) the whole job took nearly three hours.

Frankly, well played BT. And I didn't ever think I'd say this, but thought the £124.99 well spent and considering the work, good value.

D

i'd just like to say thank you for this comment. our ethic is when working at someones premise when cabling is to cable as if it's your own house, which this lad/ladie did.

I've never has an issue with BT, I was charged £75 per line a couple of years ago, the engineer spent most of the morning here, and given plenty of tea!!

He tried to run the lines by pulling cables through some conduit the builders had left, but couldn't do it, so he did a very neat job of running the cable outside, the other line he could pull through to a different part of the house. Joints were well sealed, neatly clipped.

10 / 10 for effort. I thought on the whole scheme of things it was a good price.