Disconnected Phone Line

[Hightower]

We bought our first house recently, and will be moving in at the end of January. Anyhow, we know the current phone line is disconnected as the current owner didn't want to use it.

 

We're looking at certain deals from Tiscali and Sky etc, but were wondering how the line will be activated again?

 

Can Sky/Tiscali do this or does it have to be BT first and then transfer it to one of these companies?

 

Thanks,

[Ric_]

I had a friend go through this recently... it transpired that BT were the most expensive at re-activating/installing a line and that Sky or Virgin would happily pay the majority of the installation fee (obviously BT still did the job).

 

Of course, they don't offer this initially and your best speaking to someone with the companies involved. I fyou fancy a Sky referral, get in touch and you should be able to get a free Sky+ or Sky+HD box.

[kmount]

We had virgin fit our phone line free of charge. (And it's not a BT line)

 

It's important to establish what is available in the place you're moving into to see whether you could get a better deal from Sky(via BT or LLU) or Virgin or whatnot.

 

Do you want TV etc?

[Ric_]

We had virgin fit our phone line free of charge. (And it's not a BT line)

 

Obviously if you live iin a cable area, you can a phone line from Virgin... the scenario I described was for those that aren't lucky enough to have all these options!

[kmount]

Obviously if you live iin a cable area, you can a phone line from Virgin... the scenario I described was for those that aren't lucky enough to have all these options!

 

Wasn't to point fault with what you wrote Ric just that in our case BT weren't anything to do with it.

 

If I wasn't in a cabled area I wouldn't be with Virgin, I'd look at Sky broadband over LLU with their TV bundle. Failing that, I'd probably cry.

[Ric_]

If I wasn't in a cabled area I wouldn't be with Virgin, I'd look at Sky broadband over LLU with their TV bundle. Failing that, I'd probably cry.

 

I use Sky Broadband over LLU and I still cry at the speed I get living in the sticks

[kmount]

Better than you'd get on an adslmax upto8mbit special!

[Ric_]

Better than you'd get on an adslmax upto8mbit special!

 

No... 640k is 640k on every service!

[kmount]

Is that on an adsl2+ circuit ?!

[Ric_]

Is that on an adsl2+ circuit ?!

 

That's miles from the exchange... along ancient copper... oh for some gypsies to come and steal a load of the phone lines

[IanT]

I moved into my place in early 2008 and I got a BT line as I was going to use Be* Internet......the line wasnt in use by the current owners.........think it cost me £125 for BT to push in 1 cable in the exchange

 

But I do get a good 21mb sync on my internet

[DaveMurphy]

That's miles from the exchange... along ancient copper... oh for some gypsies to come and steal a load of the phone lines

 

They're called 'travelers' not Gypsies apparently now. I watched someone get in trouble for talking about them. anyway...

 

If I'm right the futher away from the BT Exchange you are the 'pooper' the speed? What slow speed is unacceptable? I rang them as I was getting 600kb downstream and they said it was acceptable. It wont even load my Facebook.

[Edu-IT]

TalkTalk will also do you a line for £59.99.

[maniac]

If the line is still physically connected to their network, they should re-activate it for free. If it needs a little bloke to come out in a van and physically connect it up or lay new cables to the house, then it may well cost you.

 

DO NOT connect it through one operator, then change to another one for your calling package, as most will sign you into 12 month contract when you activate the line, and charge you a fee to move away before the end of the first 12 months. Get the line activated by the operator that you want to take your calling plan out with.

 

I fell into this trap recently through naievity, thinking BT were always responsible for the line no matter who I had my calling plan with, I re-activated my line with BT straight away, then decided to go for Skys 3 in 1 package when I was looking for broadband and TV. BT charged be £89 for the priveledge of ending the contract early - I had no idea I had entered a contract when re-activating the line, should have read stuff more carefully - my own silly fault, but you may learn from my mistake.

 

Mike.

Edited December 28, 2009 by maniac

[russdev]

That is because the line is sorted by BT Open Reach and not BT the phone service provider.

[Hightower]

Well, we currently have BT Vision (at parents house) and I love it, but it's not cheap when you tot everything up.

 

Then I found Tiscali had a similar sort of service, and they could also offer Sky Sports - a major plus. But I've heard nothing but bad things about their service which is very off-putting.

 

Then there's the Sky option, and they charge a mint but I do really fancy HD Sports - especially after a colleague showed me it a week ago and it looked amazing!

 

Still trying to get the missus to think about Sky. BTW, we're non-cable area.

[kmount]

Hightower,

 

I'd avoid Tiscali like the plague.

 

Have you checked whether you will be moving to an LLU area? (If so, the broadband part of the Sky deal will only cost you a fiver/tenner)

[Haptic]

Virgin Media all the way , yes they have issues like most isp's but the speed is true and not constantly throttled, I was with BT for 6 months and had nothing but trouble including them throttling legal torrent downloads, there enginner said its ilegal to download torrents to which I replied how do you know that the torrent I am downloading is actually illegal

[nicholab]

Get an a proper ISP be ulimited or o2 it so good. A&a are good as well if you want some line bonding.

[Hightower]

Have you checked whether you will be moving to an LLU area? (If so, the broadband part of the Sky deal will only cost you a fiver/tenner)

 

A quick check shows that the area is LLU enabled - whatever that all means

 

Virgin Media all the way , yes they have issues like most isp's but the speed is true and not constantly throttled, I was with BT for 6 months and had nothing but trouble including them throttling legal torrent downloads, there enginner said its ilegal to download torrents to which I replied how do you know that the torrent I am downloading is actually illegal

 

We're with BT now (at parents) and it's the best broadband I've ever had, and we've tried plenty of companies! We're getting 5 1/2 meg when neighbors are only getting 3 meg. Never had a spot of bother with BT since we took them on 3 years ago, and now we get the TV from them as well and it's pretty impressive the way it all works.

 

As for Virgin, as I said we're not in a cable area and want to take on a bundle that includes all three. We don't want phone/bband with one company and TV with another. We want it all on the same bill for ease.

 

Get an a proper ISP be ulimited or o2 it so good. A&a are good as well if you want some line bonding.

 

As I said to Simon, we don't want three different bills. We want one good package that covers us for everything.

[kmount]

I won't bore you with the details but effectively LLU allows the provider (ie, Sky) to not have to pay BT for the 'last mile' to your house (so they don't pay what used to be £10.50 to BT a month, not sure these days.... been a while since I did adsl stuff) plus with them having their own equipment in the local exchange allows them to offer ADSL2+ connections instead of the 'normal' upto 8mbit adslmax packages effectively resold from BT. - So this works out cheaper per month for the provider so they can pass this onto you, it's how people like Tiscali offer broadband cheaper than 2 pints of stella and a bag of crisps.

 

It's not available everywhere as it's not cheap to unbundle an exchange per provider and unless you know you're going to make the pennies back why bother!

 

In the case of you wanting everything together, I'd recommend Sky to you (and agree with Ric_) as you should be able to get a good bundle taking into account the LLU (so upto 24mbit potentially). I've not seen many get above 15mbit but it's all dependent on the line quality etc.

 

I'd suggest you nip over to skyuser.co.uk and have a look through their forums/offerings to see if there's any good deals to be had, or check in with Ric_ here as an existing customer.

[kylewilliamson]

www.samknows.com have a list of which LLU providers are in which exchanges.

[nicholab]

LLU fact sheet LLU Factsheet

[Simcfc73]

Thought BT were waving the £125 reconnection now?

 

When I moved in we didn't have a cable so I actually got to see where my £125 went, the guy had to sling a cable from the telephone pole to my house and connect everything up.

[Andrew_C]

Thought BT were waving the £125 reconnection now?

Possibly because people like me said -

 

"So, I've got a BT socket, and a wire to your pole, I'm going to make calls that you will charge me for, and you still want £125+VAT to reconnect my house?"

 

BT - "Yes"

 

Me - NTL will dig up the pavement and install cable for free, and you are still going to charge me for flipping a switch in the exchange?"

 

BT - "Yes"

 

Me - "Probably without getting out of your chair..."

 

BT - "Yes"

 

Me - "You're not getting this are you? A bit like my business..."

 

 

She really couldn't see where I was coming from. NTL/Virgin have had no significant problems in 5 years or so.