In 10 days I am moving house, I am moving into a new build apartment. I called Tesco Home Phone (who my line is currently with) and told them I want to move the service to my new property. But unfortunately they said as it is a new build there won't be a line, and need a new line installing in the property first.

They don't do it, they said to call BT, they said it will cost £122.50 with 12 month contract :O :O

I wondered if any other companies install telephone lines, other than BT ??

Preferably with no / a very short contract, so I can switch back to my supplier ASAP once the line is in....

Can anyone help ??

Thanks in advance

I hear the Post Office (0800 092 0514) is cheapest for un-discounted installs but whether they do new builds I don't know.

OTOH, I also hear BT have a sub-£30 installation offer available if you ask (see HERE). The catch is an 18 month contract.

You could go to the Post Office who have a short minimum term ( 1 month I think ) or BT were doing connection for £29 on an 18 month contract.

Are you sure you need to go with Tesco ?

best to keep your line rental with BT anyway - you call still have another provider to route your calls through cheaply.

By law, BT is the only company that is forced to let you use other call-provider services, while keeping the line rental with them.

Ok Thanks for the help... I'll try the PO

Tesco is handy because most of my friends/family are on it and I get free calls to them any
time

Thanks again

sorry to Hijack, but i'm in a similar predicament.

I'm sick to the back teeth of my VirginMedia Broadband connection and am contemplating binning the lot and going for SKY HD, Sky Talk Unlimited and Be internet.

Problem being is i've never had a BT phoneline in the house, is there a way of installing a BT line in the house and then using Sky for the line rental and Be for the internet, or will it be cost prohibative?

As has been posted, I think Sky will install the phone line for you (well, they'll credit you the £125 installation charge, so it's as good as done), on the promise that you sign for 12 months. You'll need to do that anyway for their Sky TV product, so you might as well! Equally, you might like to consider their Sky Max broadband - especially since you'll be getting TV with them.

Hi you can get a line with

Direct Save Telecom (no 12 month contract so you can switch if you want)
Primus
Madasafish
Plus Net

I'm in the same boat guys. I'm with BT and moving across the road. I rang them to get changed over, and they are charging me £122.50 as they said there is no existing line at the new premises.
I'm also with Sky and have my Broadband and Sky Talk with them and they rang me 2 weeks ago and asked if I wanted to take there line rental as well, so I rang Sky back and asked if I take there offer off line rental will they move my line and they said I have to have a BT line in the new place but I explained that they will have my line as I will be paying them and they said it doesn’t work like that, when I move there line rental stops and then when I get the new line in the new place to contact them to reconnect my broadband and rent the line from them again, so you can guess my answer to that one!
Also I have tried Post Office and various other companies and they said they can give me a line no problem but the problem is that Sky will not take over any other Line accept for BT as that’s who I am with now. You sort off get the feeling these big companies are all working in unison so they can rip people off or maybe I’ve been trying to hard and becoming paranoid…lol
So all in all it looks like I'm gonna have to pay these Sharks BT £122.50 to get sorted, as for sky, they better not ring me and ask if I want to rent my line from them again or they will get what’s for.

BT are offering at the moment free installation but you
have to comit to an 18 month contract so you would
pay a penalty if you moved to Sky or anyone else within
the minimum term you also have to make a number of
calls per month but these call be inclusive calls depending on the
calling plan taken

Why do we always have to go to BT to have a new line installed ?

It's 2009 and not 1950.

I they have to physically install a line it might be OK but if they just have to deal with lines already installed and switch it on why so much ?

And I'm against long contracts of 12 or 18 months.

I want to pick an choose and move when I want and not be stuck to any one company especially someone like BT.

And using a copper wire attached to wooden poles to connect seems well a bit queer in this day and age.

You don't have to go to BT to install a line. In theory any service provider can call up Openreach (who more than likely will do the work) and get them to install a line for you. But it would seem that they rarely do so.

Maybe they just can't be bothered, who knows. Possibly saves a few quid on overheads if they just take over an existing line or something.

And of course a very large part of the infrastructure is owned and maintained by BT.

And if you think the £125 or whatever that you get charged for a new line represents anything like the true cost of line installation think again! If you had to pay the true cost of installing a line from scratch you would soon realise what a bargin it is! By charging everyone a more or less flat fee the cost of installing new lines is in part subsidised by the other jobs that just need a line waking up.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with copper wire. It is perfectly OK for the job for which it was originally intended. ie allowing you to press a few buttons on a little box on the table and speak to someone miles away. It only falls over when we ask it to do something for which it is not really suited. like sending 100MBit/sec broadband 30 miles from the exchange to your home