A month to connect a line up ? A MONTH ??

It's a bit of a long story but we are moving in the next couple of weeks. BT provide my phone line and Broadband and although we are only moving 2 miles, we are moving to a new exchange.

The house we are buying has been empty for about 17 months. The phone was disconnected but all the cabling is there so I believe it was done at the exchange end, not the house end.

I called BT on Sunday and spoke to a very helpful woman who advised she could waive the £130 connection fee if I took the 18 month contract. Suits me. However she then said she could get an engineer out on the 4th October.

Obviously I challenged this but was advised that due to resource shortages there was nothing that could be done to speed it up. So I will be without a phoneline or Broadband for somewhere between 4 and 6 weeks, depending on when we move in.

I know this is probably my fault for leaving it "too late" (personally I think 2 weeks notice is more than enough) but I do think it's a bit excessive to wait that long.

So... any thoughts on how I could speed this up ?

TIA

Matt

Took AAISP (BT) a month and a half when I ordered broadband (new line install) for my new flat at the start of last year. No idea why, but that's just the way it is sometimes.

It may be that they do the phone in the exchange and that you get that earlier. It is probably only the Infinity that needs the engineer out. It does seem a long time, though.

It is possible if you are doing the phone and broadband (and its Infinity) that getting an engineer who does both is harder to find.

I think a lot of the FTTC installs are done by lesser trained staff, i.e. trained for FTTC, but not all the line activation stuff. Willing to be wrong, but it seems feasible.

Sorry should have said, it's not infinity, I live in the middle of nowhere so it's just ADSL Max (at 3Mb speed).

Some of the installers are brilliant. But for some of the others .... maybe they know they need to allow a month for him to find your house.

Hi,

We ordered the new line for the house we have moved to on the 24th of July. The date we got back is the 7th of September.

This is for a phone and infinity connection though.

This seems to be the current standard of lead times for an install.

So, pretty much standard at the moment.

Matt

Oenreach resources are very stretched in many areas, particularly in those regions which were most severely affected by the spring/summer bad whether. Other regions may experience extended delivery dates due as resources are moved around the country to manage high repair volumes.
This is why there continues to be many contractors doing installs for Openreach.

For a standard phone line, it took 3 weeks for me last year.

...followed then by a week for the broadband activation. There was no chance of a SIM provide frustratingly (phone line supplier didn't want to help.)

Used often to be three months in GPO days.

Other ISPs may have been quicker.

With Sky it was 3 weeks for me. This was an engineer visit who put a new line in (well he didn't quite do that but that's what he came to do) and get the broadband done at the same time.

This was not for infinity / fibre which would delay things further.

So based on this it seems about right.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Sat 25-Aug-12 22:11:46)

Just as a side note and if you are out of contract.

Virginmedia (if in a virginmedia area) can usually connect you up in a few days. I got done in 4 days around a year ago.

In reply to a post by StephenTodd:

Used often to be three months in GPO days.

And the rest ... One of my relatives had to wait for about 15 months!

Met a very old punter, who told me that her parents had ordered a telephone line just before the outbreak of the war, and waited till well after VE day to have it put in !

You can almost imagine the letter they wrote: "You may recall that we have requested a phone line in August 1939..."

Openreach literally do invent new counties, the latest near me being the county of Caernarfon which actually resides in Gwynedd. So yes its feasible they may need time to find you!