how hard can it be to get a phone line installed?!!

[elster]

It seems it is actually a bit too challenging to get a phone line installed. i've been trying for 2 and a half months.

After another techie arriving today from BT to now tell me the site needs another survey as he is not flat roof trained. what the fk did they bother doing for the past couple of occasions kick their fking heels and toss it off some more!

All the techies job is to run a cable 15m into the new flat! If they are too incompetant I would quite happily run it for them if it is a bit too challenging for the fktards. After 3 site visits you would of thought someone would of used their bonce and passed a fking note on.

When will they realsie just becasue they have the monopoly it doesn't give them the right to bend you over and royally fk you in the arse!

All I want is a telephone line, how hard can it be'!!!

[Ken Sington]

Having just had a letter threatening me with disconnection for not paying a bill I have never received, probably due to the posties striking, and being completely unable to speak to a human being about this being offered only a choice of computer generated responses on the number you are given to call if there are bill problems, I'd say very hard. Not sure if I hate BT or Vodafone more at the moment

[TheCarpetCleaner]

My partner had a sky engineer round her parents house some time ago.

The engineer that turned up told us he was not allowed to seal the hole for the cable with any form of sealant, for health and safety reasons - nor was he allowed to tack it to the wall.

Fk it, if I had known he was only going to drill a hole through a wall causing people to wait in, I would have got some sat cable myself, and done the whole thing!

I don't know what installation engineers are / are not allowed to do now but they seem severely limited!

[GingerWizard]

Seriously i had BT line installed so i could get sky and it was the most protracted drawn out affair i have every known. It cost me a fortune (somewhere near 300.00) took 3 months to occur, and 5 days into phone line usage, they cut me off at the junction box, which took 3 more weeks to fix.

It is bloody stupid, the fact that BT has the monopoly on hard lines and thsi is the standard of service...... christ!

bear with it buddy, someone will eventually pull there arm out of there ass and get it sorted.

[gti tim]

Had a quote for moving the master socket / installing a new socket - £££stupid

Thought it cant be rocket science - £5 on cable and socket, £2.99 on a masonary drillbit, 30 minutes of time and i have a new socket in the lounge behind the sofa. I never realised the phone line is only two cables - had visions of 10+ wires, but no, it's only two.

[smack]

GingerWizard said:

Seriously i had BT line installed so i could get sky and it was the most protracted drawn out affair i have every known. It cost me a fortune (somewhere near 300.00) took 3 months to occur, and 5 days into phone line usage, they cut me off at the junction box, which took 3 more weeks to fix.

Cheap!
One of our customers had a quote of £25999 from BT to install a new line for ADSL in the middle of no where in Wiltshire. They had used up all the copper pairs from the exchange to the village (about 8 miles).

We thought this was a joke... No, BT was serious.

[GingerWizard]

smack said:

GingerWizard said:

Seriously i had BT line installed so i could get sky and it was the most protracted drawn out affair i have every known. It cost me a fortune (somewhere near 300.00) took 3 months to occur, and 5 days into phone line usage, they cut me off at the junction box, which took 3 more weeks to fix.

Cheap!
One of our customers had a quote of £25999 from BT to install a new line for ADSL in the middle of no where in Wiltshire. They had used up all the copper pairs from the exchange to the village (about 8 miles).

We thought this was a joke... No, BT was serious.

It would have been cheaper to buy a *shed* and ram the exchange control, forcing BT to put a new one in. 26k! Someones have a bubble! Did'nt labour just appoint some dopey bh to get Everyone on *tinternet* including the inbreeders/asbo unemployed lot who are all going to get a free puter* to do the porn*.......

[ooo000ooo]

smack said:

Cheap!
One of our customers had a quote of £25999 from BT to install a new line for ADSL in the middle of no where in Wiltshire. They had used up all the copper pairs from the exchange to the village (about 8 miles).

We thought this was a joke... No, BT was serious.

I've seen a quote for excess construction for an isdn2e of £500,000 Needless to say the customer changed their mind

[foreright]

gti tim said:

Had a quote for moving the master socket / installing a new socket - £££stupid

Thought it cant be rocket science - £5 on cable and socket, £2.99 on a masonary drillbit, 30 minutes of time and i have a new socket in the lounge behind the sofa. I never realised the phone line is only two cables - had visions of 10+ wires, but no, it's only two.

Just a thought - isn't moving the master socket illegal or is that just actually replacing it? I know you can get severely stung if you muck around with it

[ooo000ooo]

foreright said:

Just a thought - isn't moving the master socket illegal or is that just actually replacing it? I know you can get severely stung if you muck around with it

It is illegal although unless you do something daft i doubt anyone will ever know. If a maintenance engineer was called out it would cost you a couple of hundred if you've caused the fault. It's only 50V on the wires so not so much of a sting as a tingle unless you stick your tongue to it

[bertie]

TheCarpetCleaner said:

My partner had a sky engineer round her parents house some time ago.

The engineer that turned up told us he was not allowed to seal the hole for the cable with any form of sealant, for health and safety reasons - nor was he allowed to tack it to the wall.

Fk it, if I had known he was only going to drill a hole through a wall causing people to wait in, I would have got some sat cable myself, and done the whole thing!

I don't know what installation engineers are / are not allowed to do now but they seem severely limited!

I do believe he was yanking your chain there, what he meant to say was "look mate we a self employed subbies and we get £15 for a new install off SKY so I can't be shagged to finish the job properly, I'm off!"

[Nardies]

How about getting existing extensions wired to the BT master socket? I've just moved into a new build flat, there are about 10 phone line extension ports throughout the flat, none of them work though. The only working one is the BT master socket installed in a cupboard, with no power sockets, ace.

[bertie]

Nardies said:

How about getting existing extensions wired to the BT master socket? I've just moved into a new build flat, there are about 10 phone line extension ports throughout the flat, none of them work though. The only working one is the BT master socket installed in a cupboard, with no power sockets, ace.

Piece of piss fitting an extension, kits are next to nothing from B&Q*.

• other DIY shops are available.

[Superhoop]

smack said:

GingerWizard said:

Seriously i had BT line installed so i could get sky and it was the most protracted drawn out affair i have every known. It cost me a fortune (somewhere near 300.00) took 3 months to occur, and 5 days into phone line usage, they cut me off at the junction box, which took 3 more weeks to fix.

Cheap!
One of our customers had a quote of £25999 from BT to install a new line for ADSL in the middle of no where in Wiltshire. They had used up all the copper pairs from the exchange to the village (about 8 miles).

We thought this was a joke... No, BT was serious.

A mate of mine works for Open Reach, repairing cable faults. For the last three months, he has been working on a site where the local err, travelling community had stolen a BT cable extrator, fitted it in the back of a lorry with a hole in the floor, and removed about a mile of BT cable.....

This isn't the first time they've done it it either - So moral of the story, find these guys, and get them to remove the 8 miles of cable, forcing BT to replace the lot

[elster]

Nardies said:

How about getting existing extensions wired to the BT master socket? I've just moved into a new build flat, there are about 10 phone line extension ports throughout the flat, none of them work though. The only working one is the BT master socket installed in a cupboard, with no power sockets, ace.

at present there is no socket in the flat. It is a house that has been split into 3 cubicles, sorry flats. The cable has to come from a box at the back of the building round to the front and in the wall. All in all about an hours work if I was doing it. There is absolutely nothing technical needed. I would even make the techie a brew while I did his job as long as I got a damned phone line.

What are these pikeys mobile number?

As I work from home this is a royal pain in the arse haiving to go to a friends house to use their internet connection.

is there anyway I can complain to get something done? Would a business get priority? Or would that then be a new order.

[TheCarpetCleaner]

bertie said:

TheCarpetCleaner said:

My partner had a sky engineer round her parents house some time ago.

The engineer that turned up told us he was not allowed to seal the hole for the cable with any form of sealant, for health and safety reasons - nor was he allowed to tack it to the wall.

Fk it, if I had known he was only going to drill a hole through a wall causing people to wait in, I would have got some sat cable myself, and done the whole thing!

I don't know what installation engineers are / are not allowed to do now but they seem severely limited!

I do believe he was yanking your chain there, what he meant to say was "look mate we a self employed subbies and we get £15 for a new install off SKY so I can't be shagged to finish the job properly, I'm off!"

Highly likely.

[Dupont666]

They had issues connecting me at my flat... they tried to charge me line rental and they got told that they could F off until the line was reconnected properly...

2 months of fking about by them and a nasty red letter comes in and I ring them up and the manager was nasty and threatening becauseI refused to pay for a service i didnt have... They then threatened court, etc for 2 months of unpaid bills were I had been connected and they could prove it.

Was so close to telling them to go ahead and I would like to see them prove it working since the actual telephone cable had been cut and then wrapped round the drain pole by NTL engineer.

queue many sorrys and dropping of the 2 months of bills and an engineer the next day.

If only I didnt have to have them as supplier then I wouldnt and would have taken them to court.

[bertie]

TheCarpetCleaner said:

bertie said:

TheCarpetCleaner said:

My partner had a sky engineer round her parents house some time ago.

The engineer that turned up told us he was not allowed to seal the hole for the cable with any form of sealant, for health and safety reasons - nor was he allowed to tack it to the wall.

Fk it, if I had known he was only going to drill a hole through a wall causing people to wait in, I would have got some sat cable myself, and done the whole thing!

I don't know what installation engineers are / are not allowed to do now but they seem severely limited!

I do believe he was yanking your chain there, what he meant to say was "look mate we a self employed subbies and we get £15 for a new install off SKY so I can't be shagged to finish the job properly, I'm off!"

Highly likely.

Oh I know it to be true, £15 a pop, no wonder they want to get away! Guy I talked to reckoned they had to do 10 a day to make it worth while.

[AB]

IL_JDM said:

Stuff...

Almost right.

The stuff about the split in order to stop the monopolisation is correct but Openreach do not sell lines. Openreach are simply the engineers. BT Wholesale sell the lines. BT Retail, the face of BT that you consumers are in contact with and organising your lines with will in turn purchase from BT Wholesale, albeit adding a larger % on than I would.

For example, Bob Marley telecom order a line from BT Wholesale and organise for BT Openreach to go and install it.

BT Retail in theory are on the same level as Bob Marley telecom, they have no more weight when ordering the Openreach guys around than Mr. Marley himself.

So therefore no matter who you order your line through, you get the same level of service from Openreach, the same timescales and service level agreements etc. Openreach are a completely seperate entity, although they still have the 'trusted' BT brand name that people who are not in the know, assume are BT.

WLR3, well I won't go into that on here, suffice to say, it hasn't cost us anything extra as yet.

[elster]

Thank you for the email.

Hope he can kick something into touch.