Hanging on the Telephone

[caddyman]

I fear it, I really do.

I have been looking at the BT website, trying to find out how to order a landline from good old British Telecom. There's lots of information - but significantly I can't find details of the connection charge and I don't know what I am likely to pay as a new customer moving into premises that havfe the wires already in place, but no account with BT (as yet).

I can't work out if, as a new customer, I pay for their reconnection or new line service and whichever it is, what it costs. Such is the system in this bloody country that if I look at one of the competitors' websites, they simply assume that you have a BT line and tell you how to switch to their 'cheaper and more reliable' alternatives. No-one apart from BT seems to actually connect you to the system in the first place. Of course, that then brings me to the 12 month contract. If I pay BT to connect me, I have to stay with the brutes for 12 months before I can take advantage of the 'cheaper and more reliable' alternatives.

Pah. It is to weep.

The line here in the Athenaeum Club is in colonel_maxim's name and is with Talk Talk. I suppose I could get it switched to my name and transferred, but I don't know if that's possible without creating more hassle than it's worth. And it still doesn't get me past the reconnection - new connection problem. My only prior experience in this field is with NTL and frankly I'd rather gouge my own eyes out with red hot spoons than deal with those b*ast*rds again.

What to do? What to do?

I suspect that I shall spend more time than I wish speaking to an underpaid drone in India tomorrow morning trying to find out what fiery hoops I have to jump through to get the telephone connection sorted in the new flat, and how many internal organs I shall need to sell to finance it!

Grumble.

Comments

[phil99.livejournal.com]

I have always found bt's sales/connections team to be ok to deal with.

I'll try to dig out their direct no. tonight.

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Most kind.

[invisible-al.livejournal.com]

Dude I sit next to the guys who run BT.com so I'll ask them and give them some valuable feedback. By memory if the line has been 'ceased' rather than had a 'hold' put on it BT have to pay BT wholesale a chunk of cash, just like all the other landline companies because of rules. BUT there's usually a discount they can give you when you ring up. Will find out the score tomorrow.

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Squire.

Dons corporate hat

[kt-peasant.livejournal.com]

Want me to try and find out? Will feed back via useless infernal channels anyway.

Re: Dons corporate hat

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Dr Peasant.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

I just had mine done. It cost me £120 for the reconnection fee, because while there was a socket in here, it only went as far as the telegraph pole (or something similar. And I only had to go for the 12 month contract if I wanted the cheapest line rental.

[invisible-al.livejournal.com]

Right, this is a bit complicated due to this whole barrier between BT Wholesale (who do lines) and BT Retail (who sell phone services) that Ofcom set up to make sure BT wasn't a monopoly.

Basic cost is £124.99 for a line reconnection, this is the charge for a BT Wholesale engineer to go into an exchange and reconnect stuff.

However if a phone line has been being used at the property within the last 3 months you probably won't have to pay the charge. However we (BT Retail) don't know that until we've tested the line, which is after you've placed an order.

Still with me? Ok if you do it online that 124.99 charge will be added to your basket, then we'll contact you by phone/email (I think within 48 hours) to say if we need to charge you this and see if you agree or not.

Similar process by phone, but occasionally we do discounts on reconnection, you would need to ring and find out if one is on atm.

And yes we're updating the info on BT.com to make this a lot clearer in the near future.

[invisible-al.livejournal.com]

Additional: Basically if there's still a dialling tone at the place, it doesn't cost to get a phone line set up. Also you can talk about payment options and spread it out over up to 12 months.