New Telephone Line

[PmSonic]

Questions thrown out to anyone who's bought a new build home.

Obviously im wanting to have a telephone line, but have had bad experiences with BT so currently use telewest. Nice and easy, but does require cable being available.

Im (hopefully) about to move into a new build in the next few months and am unsure of what deal to go with. The place will have telephone sockets setup, but i dont know if it'll be registered and a number allocated.. i suspect it wont.

BT seem to be the only company that will install a new line, at a cost of £124.99

Anyone know about new build and seting up a telephone line for the first time? i'd really rather avoide bt if possible.

and, nope the new place doesnt have cable in the street yet.

i'm wanting to get sky hd, broadband and phone sorted as a sensible cost. so far that looks unlikely.

[stevelup]

Hi.

You have no choice I'm afraid other than to order a BT line.
Even if your exchange has been unbundled, I don't believe any of the other providers will install a circuit to your property.

Sorry,

Steve

[PmSonic]

Thats unfortunatly what i thought too, was shocked at the cost.

[JohnG]

It's a rip-off isn't it ! When I moved into this house about 15 years ago they charged me £170 for that privilege The bloke was here for about 15 minutes and just enabled the line which was already connected.

[PAH]

I'm in the same position, just moved into a new-build house and wanted a phone line. Rang BT and they wanted £120 to install the line. Was also looking for broadband and found a website (can't remember name but put 'broadband' into google and it was in the adwords section) that lists all services available for a postcode. Saw that Bulldog do LLU (local loop unbundling) in my area and had a shufty at their website. Signed up for a new line for £1 and it's getting installed on friday, fingers crossed. Funny thing is it's a BT engineer that's doing the install

Admittedly had problems with Bulldog just trying to confirm the address as it doesn't appear on most address lookup systems yet (i.e. the Royal Mail haven't got round to adding it though next door is listed!) and in the end they accepted the plot number. Bulldog also announced plans to withdraw from the residential market a week after I placed my order so don't know if that affects new orders placed since.

Didn't find any other companies offering a new line other than BT and Bulldog in my area though others that do LLU in other areas may be able to help. Even though it's still down to BT to do the connection the LLU providers may be offering incentives in the form of subsidised installation as Bulldog appear to be.

Of course until it's all installed and working there's still chance the engineer will turn up expecting a line to already be there or something. Hope they're not that incompetent! They've given me the new phone number it will be set up as so it's looking promising so far.