Cease fee

Last month I migrated from old-school phone and broadband from Plusnet to Infinity 1 FTTP from BT. Plusnet have been charged a cease fee by BT Wholesale which they have passes on to me. Also the cease date on the broadband advised by BTW is a week after the switch - again Plusnet say they have been billed by BTW so I have to pay.

How do I get this sorted?

Not 100% sure on rules Ofcom as left FTTP out of its recent migration revamp. So its possible a cease was raised. Though would have expected Bt wholesale to not raise the cease as was to their fttp product

Has your phone also gone FTTP or is that still using the copper?

The phone is also on FTTP

I'm just theorising now, and let's see what anyone else thinks.

That might (probably wrongly) have caused it. If they ported the phone first, (before they "migrated" the broadband), then that would cease the Plusnet broadband immediately. Hence the broadband cease fee. Then whatever process is required to get the FTTP up followed on as a straight provide.

Where you still in any kin of contract?

See:

http://www.plus.net/support/customer_service/billing...

which says:


Cessation charges don't apply if:

You switch to a service that's part of the BT Wholesale network
You're a customer without a contract on any of the following products:
Plusnet Essentials
Unlimited
Unlimited Fibre
Unlimited Fibre Extra

I was on Plusnet Essentials. I was certainly a customer, but I don't understand their term 'without a contract' - I was outside the initial term of the contract having been with them for many years - I was only switching because BT had just completed installing FTTP in our village and Plusnet weren't offering an upgrade path.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I'm just theorising now, and let's see what anyone else thinks.

That might (probably wrongly) have caused it. If they ported the phone first, (before they "migrated" the broadband), then that would cease the Plusnet broadband immediately. Hence the broadband cease fee. Then whatever process is required to get the FTTP up followed on as a straight provide.

It all happened in one visit. The phone was working first. The broadband didn't work (apparently because the build on the server was wrong - according to the Openreach engineer), and it was another 30 mins before BTW got the build correct.

None of this explains why the BTW cease date is a week after the change (the phone cease date is correct having been notified by BT to Plusnet in advance).

If you have past the end of your contract then you should not have to pay the cessation charge.

Typically I would renew my Plusnet contract each year in order to get a better price or may be a new router. When I knew I was going to leave I did not renew my contract and was thus able to leave (not migrate in anyway) without paying the cessation charge. I am now a Gigaclear FTTP customer.

Problem is BTW has billed Plusnet who are passing the charge on to me. I'm trying to work out whether BTW have made a mistake about the cease charge (they certainly have the date wrong) and how to get it corrected.

Dispute charge and leave Plusnet to chase with BT Wholesale

In reply to a post by Michael_Chare:

If you have past the end of your contract then you should not have to pay the cessation charge.

Your contract, (i.e. your minimum term), expired or not is nothing to do with the cease fee. It is to do with complete cessation of broadband on the line.

The fact you were not charged a cease fee is surprising, but you may only have given us half the facts. It is very confusing when you say "able to leave (not migrate in anyway)", as that makes it very hard to work out what process was actually gone through on your line. You could only have either migrated away from Plusnet or ceased the broadband.

It's possible that with the current chaos in Plusnet admin systems the lack of a charge is a simple mistake in your favour. (A very rare occurrence LOL).

It's also possible that your move, if ordered later than June 20 2015, was a simple migration. Was your line rental also with Plusnet?

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In reply to a post by Michael_Chare:

If you have past the end of your contract then you should not have to pay the cessation charge.

Your contract, (i.e. your minimum term), expired or not is nothing to do with the cease fee. It is to do with complete cessation of broadband on the line.

No. Read the T&Cs in the link I posted.

I ceased my Plusnet broadband connection. In accordance with their T&Cs I did not have to pay a cessation charge. I did make sure that this would be the case.

My phone line was with BT Retail. The phone line was stopped when I ported the number to Voipfone.

BT introduced Cease Charges on 20th September but as you switched last month it shouldn't apply and even then it should only apply if you are moving away from BT unless switching from ADSL to FTTP counts as a cease. Link here.

Not a clear cut one this, first off the cease charge has always been in place, the amount has varied over the years that all.
As a rule, if using the prescribed migration procedures then a cease charge should not be raised, but in your case you have not migrated a service, you have gone from xDSL (including vdsl in that) to pure fibre.
There is currently no migration path to full fibre that same as if you moved from an FTTC service to Virgin Cable, all they are doing is porting the telephone number, so the old service is ceased not migrated.