My sister has just moved into a new build house which already has a BT line installed. She is already a BT Customer, and was assuming that the service would just be carried over to the new property.

However, as I feared might happen, BT are charging her £120 for a 'new connection'. They claim that they will have to send someone out to do work next week to get the line working.

However, this evening she plugged a phone into the socket, got dial tone, and was able to call me.

BT clearly don't have to send a man out next week as they claim. Does she have grounds for claiming a free 'line takeover' rather than paying the £120 (which appears to be money for old rope....)?

BT will charge you (the householder) a fee for 'first connections' it covers the charges that your builders don't pay, i.e. the final length from cabinet to home, and a shared cost of the local loop.

In reality if they charged the real price for connection I'm sure it would be a lot more than £120.

Also remember that you will be in contract to BT for 12 months, so you will not be able to move service to anyone else within that time. (you call use other call providers)

The only way I found to get a discount on this price was to take other services, for instance I had two lines fitted at once, they only charged me for one line. You may well get a visit from an engineer to test the line locally, even though you get a dial tone, have you tried 17070 to see what circuit you are connected to?

I think you are confusing a property "having a BT line installed" and one having complete internal wiring and BT having already installed network wiring.

As hippey says, the first occupant picks up the £124.99 initial connection charge.

Thanks for the info. She was under the impression that the builders had paid for the installation, and that it was included in the cost of the property.

Also it sounded as if BT were 'sending somebody out' just because they did not have the property on their database, so a new cable was required, when that isn't the case.

No the builders never (or very rarely) pay for the first install, obviously on grounds of cost, but also people can have whateven installation they want that way.

When I finally moved into my new build, the builders has pre-wired some of the sockets, when the Openreach engineer came, he ended up pulling new cables through to the faceplates, and replace the faceplates as the builders had used very poor quality, and wired one of them wrong!

Vote with your custom. Ask cable to install and don't use the BT socket - they typically charge £25, but that's for TV, broadband, etc and there are often offers for free installation.

which is fine if its a Virgin Media area . The difference in price is because BT are obliged to provide a service when requested, Virgin Media aren't and so will only do so when it suits them.

Indeed - I did recommend that she sign up to Virgin Media as, when I checked their availability, all the surrounding streets had it available. I assumed that Virgin would naturally take the opportunity to cable the new development from the outset.

How wrong I was! I went up there a few days ago and there was no sign of any infrastructure in the new estate at all - no pavement boxes or manholes with CCTV on, no green street boxes. The only lids visible were BT, Electricity & Water.

These developments are built over the course of a couple of years - you would have thought that it would have been cheaper for Virgin to install their cables before they laid the new streets & pavements.......

Has anyone heard of any cable being laid in recent years?

Indeed - it's a bad joke isn't it.

21st century and all you can get is a bit of twisted pair copper to your new build house.

No Fibre to the House or even street cabinet, and not even a coaxial cable when there is an existing network only 50m away in the next street.

Too right!

I have been in the same position. Bought a new build, the whole area is cabled for Virgin apart from the new estate.

I'm sure I recently read a report on DS that Virgin Media are not investing any capital for new cable in areas that aren't already connected.

Shame really as they are losing out on a lot of customers.

You are right, it is ridiculous, as the demand for broadband and other media services increases you would think the best way of attracting new customers would be to wire in Cable to new builds as the overheads would be lower - But thats common sense talking, and large companies don't seem to grasp that concept.

We have a new house (built two years ago) on a new development and we have BT and Virgin Media installed, bear in mind though BT still only install Co-ax TV feed (analoge VM) and it is strange they are still doing this.

We have fibre to the cabinet, and the last length in copper.

One thing about all new houses here, (and most old ones) we all have ducting to the house, and a large easy access comms panel on the outside. Okay it houses a co-ax connector and half a dozen twisted pairs, but it is a good idea for future proofing!

I don't understand 'BT still only install Co-ax TV feed (analoge VM)'.