VAT on Fibre connection

[JohnnyB]

I see from an older post that an internet connection wasn't zero rated but has that changed now it is a requirement for high speed internet to be connected to a new build?

 

It used to be easy to get a new phone line, and free from what I have been told by the builder opposite our site.  I have found that I need to go through Openreach as a 'developer' and they now charge £2000 plus VAT.

 

My understanding is I am required to have a high speed internet connection for building control to sign off a new house, so it seems wrong that it isn't zero rated.

 

Is this something that is left over from a time when a phone line was a choice and it was quite cheap to get a new connection?

 

Or am I missing something and there is an easy and cheap way to get a new internet connection?

[nod]

If your only doing one house you can still go through bt Weve just paid £100 plus vat for fibre 500 meters and across a 60 mph road 

[JohnnyB]

1 hour ago, nod said:

If your only doing one house you can still go through bt Weve just paid £100 plus vat for fibre 500 meters and across a 60 mph road 

Interesting, I'm sure we called BT last year and were told we need to contact Openreach as the house isn't on the system.  Is your house signed off yet and when did you start the build?  Building control notes make it sound like we need to be high speed internet ready before they will sign it off.

[nod]

26 minutes ago, JohnnyB said:

Interesting, I'm sure we called BT last year and were told we need to contact Openreach as the house isn't on the system.  Is your house signed off yet and when did you start the build?  Building control notes make it sound like we need to be high speed internet ready before they will sign it off.

Unless it’s regional BT told us we are not allowed to contact Open-reach directly After the third missed appointment 

 

My wife has just informed me that the new line and connection was actually free after several missed appointments and arriving without a cherry picker 

[Temp]

1 hour ago, JohnnyB said:

Interesting, I'm sure we called BT last year and were told we need to contact Openreach as the house isn't on the system.  Is your house signed off yet and when did you start the build?  Building control notes make it sound like we need to be high speed internet ready before they will sign it off.

 

Did they mean it wasn't on the address database? You can fix that.

[JohnnyB]

It sounds like I need to call BT again and see if I can get any further with them.

2 hours ago, Temp said:

Did they mean it wasn't on the address database? You can fix that

I don't remember, but I thought they meant the property doesn't have a phone/broadband connection so need to go through Openreach to get that sorted before they could get involved.

 

The house is listed on the post office database and comes up in most postcode searches now, I'm not sure if it did when we last tried to get the connection through BT. Is that what you mean by the address database?

[JohnnyB]

I went on the BT website last night to see if I could now request a new connection, and I can.  I didn't get as far as signing up and today I got a phone call from the sales team asking if I wanted to go ahead. I explained I was building a new house (so not ready for the connection yet) and was told that a new house wasn't a problem, I didn't need to go through Openreach and they will call back in 2 months time check if I'm ready for a connection. 

 

Thanks for the info @nod, it seems we don't need to spend £2k on a new connection

[nod]

3 minutes ago, JohnnyB said:

I went on the BT website last night to see if I could now request a new connection, and I can.  I didn't get as far as signing up and today I got a phone call from the sales team asking if I wanted to go ahead. I explained I was building a new house (so not ready for the connection yet) and was told that a new house wasn't a problem, I didn't need to go through Openreach and they will call back in 2 months time check if I'm ready for a connection. 

 

Thanks for the info @nod, it seems we don't need to spend £2k on a new connection

👍👍

[SBMS]

5 minutes ago, JohnnyB said:

I went on the BT website last night to see if I could now request a new connection, and I can.  I didn't get as far as signing up and today I got a phone call from the sales team asking if I wanted to go ahead. I explained I was building a new house (so not ready for the connection yet) and was told that a new house wasn't a problem, I didn't need to go through Openreach and they will call back in 2 months time check if I'm ready for a connection. 

 

Thanks for the info @nod, it seems we don't need to spend £2k on a new connection

You will (in England anyway) need to show gigabit ready connection for building control. 
 

It also depends on what you’ll be getting. You might get a free ‘fiber’ connection that isn’t really fiber and is 50 or 100 meg. Getting a fiber line directly from openreach will only be fttp (fiber to the property) 1 gigabit or more ready. For us, about 1/2 mile down a country lane away from nearest gigabit trunk, £2k is a pretty good deal. Literally no one else on the road has fiber (except us now) and the cost to openreach will have been much higher than 2k with all the civils, pre pulling, ducting and overhead work they are doing. 
 

Check what BT will be connecting as I would be suspicious if they were going to run a true fiber line into your property (only openreach, virgin media o2 and a few other providers are actually authorised to physically install this infrastructure). 
 

And to answer the OPs question, openreach connection is NOT zero rated. I had a lot of back and forth and pushed them before they conceded that only the onsite works is zero rateable (which amounted to £56 of the £2k cost). 

[JohnnyB]

18 minutes ago, SBMS said:

You will (in England anyway) need to show gigabit ready connection for building control. 
 

It also depends on what you’ll be getting. You might get a free ‘fiber’ connection that isn’t really fiber and is 50 or 100 meg. Getting a fiber line directly from openreach will only be fttp (fiber to the property) 1 gigabit or more ready. For us, about 1/2 mile down a country lane away from nearest gigabit trunk, £2k is a pretty good deal. Literally no one else on the road has fiber (except us now) and the cost to openreach will have been much higher than 2k with all the civils, pre pulling, ducting and overhead work they are doing. 
 

Check what BT will be connecting as I would be suspicious if they were going to run a true fiber line into your property (only openreach, virgin media o2 and a few other providers are actually authorised to physically install this infrastructure). 
 

And to answer the OPs question, openreach connection is NOT zero rated. I had a lot of back and forth and pushed them before they conceded that only the onsite works is zero rateable (which amounted to £56 of the £2k cost). 

 

The VAT is strange.  Nearly everything else is zero rated if it is supply and fit, it seems strange that a broadband connection isn't zero rated when it is now a requirement to fit fibre to the premises.  It seems that is an outdated policy.

 

 

But, it is a matter of where we book it and how much it costs.  Book with BT, zero upfront, book with Openreach and they want £2400. 

There is already fibre the other side of the road so it will be fibre to the premises if we book it through BT or Openreach.  

We can get 900Mbps if we wanted, not that we need it that fast.

 

The letter from building control say the connection needs to be capable of high speed communication, which is classed as at least 30Mbps on other documentation.  I can get that on the mobile sim we are currently using on a good day.

[SBMS]

23 hours ago, JohnnyB said:

 

The VAT is strange.  Nearly everything else is zero rated if it is supply and fit, it seems strange that a broadband connection isn't zero rated when it is now a requirement to fit fibre to the premises.  It seems that is an outdated policy.

 

 

But, it is a matter of where we book it and how much it costs.  Book with BT, zero upfront, book with Openreach and they want £2400. 

There is already fibre the other side of the road so it will be fibre to the premises if we book it through BT or Openreach.  

We can get 900Mbps if we wanted, not that we need it that fast.

 

The letter from building control say the connection needs to be capable of high speed communication, which is classed as at least 30Mbps on other documentation.  I can get that on the mobile sim we are currently using on a good day.

Not sure where you have got 30Mbps from.  Building regulations are pretty clear:

 

• Requirement RA2: Subject to a £2,000 cost cap per dwelling, install a functional gigabit-capable connection. Where a developer is unable to secure a gigabit-capable connection within the cost cap, developers must install the next fastest connection available, provided this can be done without that connection also exceeding the cost cap.

If openreach can supply you for 2k+vat you would struggle to explain to BC why you cant install fibre to the property. 
 

But if BT will do it for free go for it! Sounds like you’ve got fibre in the road so it’s a minimal connection/civils cost. We had to bring it a mile down the road as no fibre on the lane.