Most insane ECC for a leased line?

Hello All,

We were on track to receive a 'leased line' service from Vodafone in the next few weeks for our rural office, with a 'small' amount of ECC's, we were talking £2-3k which i was happy to accept given our location and where i could foresee the route of the cable taking.

Fast-forward to this morning, i awake to have an email citing that this had been re-evaluated to £35,550 (Ex VAT), and that this needed to be paid near instantly for the project to continue. I'm not sure how they've come to the conclusion now 29 days down the line since i placed the order than it's going to cost 11x more.

Has anyone else got any suggestions on how to handle this? I'm in good mind just to sack it off now and just bond 2/3 FTTC lines together with A&A, rather than argue about ECC's with someone who clearly doesn't want our business.

Edit: I'd add that OR quoted us £13k for an FTTPoD quote at one point, but we ditched that option in favour of the leased line because it was 120 days vs 12-15 months difference.

Edited by Whitehall11 (Mon 01-Feb-21 11:49:43)

Go back to the original order and check what it says. Is there a "re-evaluation clause" and if not, remind them that you placed a valid order with defined charges and you expect it to be honoured.

If they refuse, ask for a breakdown of the charges and a detailed explanation of why they are now demanding the increase.

You may not succeed but tie them up in knots - asking for more and more details. And finally take the business elsewhere.

worth asking what driving that

you said rural exchange

Definitely high, but not insane.

I have paid just over £500k in ECCs for a line (that's one line, not a total for multiple lines) - so you have a long way to go to beat my record (and I am sure there are even higher examples).

It depends how much you need the service!

I'd go for bonded DSL.


That number is nuts.

In reply to a post by Whitehall11:

i awake to have an email citing that this had been re-evaluated to £35,550 (Ex VAT),

Were they asleep when they gave the initial quote? would be interested to hear from them why the costs have changed.

Sounds like a route they were possibly intending to use is no longer viable (or perhaps doesn't exist). That sum of money suggests a a large amount of civils works that they didn't foresee until they completed some level of detailed planning.

Is your order directly with Voda or have you gone via a reseller? You may be able to re-negotioate a better deal with another provider.

Just jumped off a call with AM asking for an explanation for the significant cost change - In their words: 'The survey information entered at the beginning of the order was not inputted correctly', with them citing 'major' civil engineering works needed to deliver the service.

When i pushed and asked for the detail on this, they declined to comment saying they didn't have that detail at hand to speculate.

They've escalated it up the chain to see what can be done, but it looks like they've got grounds to change this ECC until any money had been paid.

I've had quotes double that.
It was probably a sales agent that gave you the original figures was reading from a script.
I'd look into FTTPoD again

What bandwidth and bearer was the circuit? Three year deal presumably?

I'd get alternative quote from another wires provider. You never know what OR can pull out the bag (or SSE etc)

Alternatively get the leased line delivered to a more "cost effective" location,where there is potential to use another method, like for example private 60 GHz multi-gig full duplex radio link for the last mile or so.