New Customer / New Line / Fibre Question

I have a question for any plusnet reps on this forum.

In early March I'm moving into a house that currently does not have an Openreach line. The current occupants were recently quoted a two-month lead time for getting a line provided, not sure why it's this long but there currently isn't a drop-wire to the house from the DP on the other side of the road.

I want to signup with plusnet now so the line provisioning process starts now and should be complete by early March. At present only standard ADSL is available but according to Openreach an FTTC service should be available around March time (the fibre cab is in place and has power, just awaiting a duct clean and connection to the fibre spine).

Obviously my only option if ordering now is to sign up for standard ADSL but when I upgrade to fibre what happens with the new customer discount (currently half price std ADSL for 12 months)? Is there anyway of separating the line provision and broadband service? That way if I wait a little longer before ordering the broadband service I might be able to go straight to fibre.

Cheers.

Hi there,

I'm afraid if you do upgrade any existing discounts are removed from the account, and existing customers aren't available for the offers currently available on our site either so it might be worth waiting (if possible) until Fibre is available in all honesty - though our Customer Options team might be able to help with the account change if you do go for ADSL and call them closer to the time.

Unfortunately we can't provision a phone line without broadband either, so that's not really a route we could go down.

I suspect neither answer is what you were looking for and am sorry about that, though I hope it's answered your questions.

OK thanks for the reply - I'm just waiting on OR NGA enquiries to give me an update on when they expect the cab to be available for fibre and will decide what to do then.

IIRC the Post Office Phone service is only a monthly contract. So you could order that now. Get that all-important line going.

Just before you are going to move in you can assess the situation.

If FTTC is available you can order line transfer to and FTTC from Plusnet, though of course the deals may be different by then.

If it isn't available you could order ADSLx broadband from one of the other monthly-contract ISPs to use until it is. There are several that I and others can recommend. Then migrate phone and broadband to Plusnet as above.

Edit - PO T & Cs:-

23.2 After the Service starts
You may cancel Post Office HomePhone® at any time by telling Customer Services at least 15 days in advance of your chosen cancellation date.

If you cancel in this way, you will still have to pay for any calls you have made and call features you have received. However, we will refund any other Post Office HomePhone® Charges which you have paid in advance for the period after your chosen cancellation date provided you have given the required 15 days notice.

23.4 Your responsibility to arrange transfer.
If you cancel Post Office HomePhone®, you are responsible for transferring to another service provider. You may be left without telephone services and/or broadband services if you fail to do so.

Edited by RobertoS (Mon 07-Jan-13 21:46:04)

But only once the OP has exchanged contracts and completed....

I was assuming she had got that aspect covered. It shouldn't be impossible. She seems to be on good terms with the current occupants. I agree there is a slight risk.

ANother section.

35. Your rights to cancel.

You may cancel New Line Provision by contacting Customer Services at any time up until 4p.m. on the Working Day before the day on which the engineer is scheduled to undertake the New Line Provision. If you cancel in this way, we will refund any Charges you have paid for New Line Provision (except for any call-out costs we are entitled to recover under section 11 (Support and Maintenance Services)). If you cancel the Services at any time after this you will have to pay for the New Line Provision.

If you cancel Post Office HomePhone® within six months of any New Line Provision, we may charge you a cancellation fee to cover our reasonable costs. That cancellation fee is set out in the Price List.

I think that cancellation fee is to cover discounted provision prices being lower than the Openreach charge to the PO.