phone connection Northern Ireland

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Having had difficulty in getting someone to answer the phones at the NI branch of Openreach New Sites, I contacted a couple of phone service providers to see if they could arrange the (physical)

installation of a new line.

 

I spoke to BT (only because I was connected by choosing a different option in the menu system after calling Openreach) and Pop, who seem to be connected to Money Supermarket and were showing the best deal for what I wanted on a comparison site. I would not choose to go with TalkTalk again because their customer services can be very frustrating to deal with and they are totally ineffective at stopping the numerous scam calls we receive in a day from people alleging to be calling from TalkTalk security.

 

Anyway, BT said the new connection would cost £130, or £30 if we have BT supply broadband and Pop said it would cost £59.99 with them. In both cases I was asked for the house address and postcode and they could see that no line was currently registered (or had been).

 

BT said it would take about 2 weeks and Pop said 2-4 weeks, within which they would arrange for an engineer to call within a 5 hour window (but couldn't say what the engineer would be doing lol). Neither advisor mentioned anything about a survey or cable etc which struck me as odd, but nor did they direct me to Openreach either (and the BT advisor knew I was speaking to him because I couldn't get through to Openreach).

 

When I later did get talking to someone at Openreach, she said the survey is £96.11 and armoured cable is 78p/m or cable and duct is 78p/m. I received an email which only needs to be sent back to them to begin the process.

 

Does anyone know if going directly to a service provider means I don't have to get involved with Openreach, or does their new connection fee only cover connecting to their network once the cable is already physically installed? They said billing will start within 10 days of the connection being made, so I'm trying to avoid paying line rental etc before we've moved in, but also trying to avoid paying Openreach if it is not necessary.

 

Thanks in advance

Michael

[Stones]

BT Openreach have an obligation to provide you with a connection free of charge up to a value of around £3400.  

 

Register your site here:

 

http://www.newdevelopments-openreach.co.uk/developers-and-architects/RegisterYourSite.aspx

 

They will email back within a day or so giving you a local contact to make arrangements to survey and see what is required / for the on site work.  If it is going to costs more, this has to be agreed with you before work commences.

 

They will register the site which would thereafter allow you to contact and arrange service with your chosen supplier.

[Declan52]

Bt where looking near £500 to install mine. Talk talk done it for free. Whoever you go with you will only be stuck with for the first contact length, 12-18m. 

I argued the bit out with bt but it was some guy in India so was very frustrating with me loosing the rag a few times. I only needed approx 20m of cable as the pole is in my garden but they wouldn't budge. Open reach guy done the survey but I didn't pay anything for it. 

[Gone West]

I'm in England and Openreach have carried out three surveys for my new line. The first said they would mole under the 4m wide lane and connect to the nearest pole free of charge. The second said they couldn't mole but could dig up the road and connect it free of charge. The third said if it was undergound I would have to pay for the lot and to use their £3400 allowance it would have to be overhead and they would put a new pole in the corner of my garden. Like I want another pole!! They are still looking into it as my original application was six years ago and their policy may have changed!