Phone Line - Best advice

Hello,

I just wanted someones advise, and I apologise if this has been asked before. Feel free to point me in the direction of the relevent post.

Two friends of mine are wanting to get Broadband at their flat, however there maybe a stumbling block.

They are both on a budget (as we all are) and need to avoid any charges for the installation or that arise from the installation.

After having a brieft chat with someine from Orange he pointed out that if the line at the property was not connected it would cost them £60 to have it connected.

So my question is: How do you establish if it's connected or not? Just to point out when I say connected I mean to the exchange, there is NO service at this time, as they do not rent a line from anyone.

I did connect a corded phone to the master socket, and got what can only be described as the "unobtainable" tone after about 1-2 seconds of silence.

Would this indicate that though the line is not "live" it IS connected to the exchange?

I appreciate any help given, and I apologise for the long post.

As things stand most providers charge connection fee even if there is power on the line.

http://www.postoffice.co.uk/broadband-phone/home-pho...
Post Office is doing free connection until 31st March 2012 so worth a look

Thanks Mr Saffron,

I think they picked Orange as they have a mobile with them, so it works out cheaper in the long run.

Am still puzzled as to how we can establish if the line can just be swtiched on?

I don't think you can until someone in sales tells you whether or not they are going to charge. It's a black art.

How long do they intend to stay and what exchange is it? Will they want to use the landline phone?

Surely there is a balance between installation cost and line and broadband monthly charges. Free installation could cost considerably more than charged installation over the first year.

What do they intend to use the broadband for. Again, there is a huge variation in cost and the price can be considerably lowered by accepting either restrictions or quality/performance.

PostOffice have short monthly contracts on phone, but double check the situation if you take their free offer.

PostOffice line, still allows for broadband from most suppliers.

If there is a line there that can be switch on then the charge would be minimal (we charge £6.00 for a restart)
It can be found out when an order is checked, if it helps give our sales desk a call in the morning with the address details and they should be able to tell you (you wont have an obligation to go ahead with an order) but then you would at least know.

Thanks Vivaciti,

I think I will do that to start.

I am going to follow Vivciti's advise and call their Sales Team either tomorrow or sometime this week and asking them..

With regards to useage my friends picked Orange as they were advised they have "unlimited" useage - now I know it has some sort of limit. Plus they have Orange Mobile phones so they prefered that idea. TBH I am not going to rock the boat too much on that front, just provide the best advice I can.

They intend to use it for all manner of things over the next 12 months, surfing, iPlayer, maybe gaming via a PS3 or XBox in time. Plus some surfing via their mobiles when to are not on the PC (using the Wifi of course)

The exchange is: Hastings http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/NDHAS

Orange is unlimited. They do some traffic management of P2P & Newsgroups: http://help.orange.co.uk/orangeuk/com.instranet.Inst...

In reply to a post by CJT:

Hello,

I just wanted someones advise, and I apologise if this has been asked before. Feel free to point me in the direction of the relevent post.

Two friends of mine are wanting to get Broadband at their flat, however there maybe a stumbling block.

They are both on a budget (as we all are) and need to avoid any charges for the installation or that arise from the installation.

After having a brieft chat with someine from Orange he pointed out that if the line at the property was not connected it would cost them £60 to have it connected.

So my question is: How do you establish if it's connected or not? Just to point out when I say connected I mean to the exchange, there is NO service at this time, as they do not rent a line from anyone.

I did connect a corded phone to the master socket, and got what can only be described as the "unobtainable" tone after about 1-2 seconds of silence.

Would this indicate that though the line is not "live" it IS connected to the exchange?

I appreciate any help given, and I apologise for the long post.

1./ Does this line have a dial tone present?

2./ have you input the postal code of the premiss where the line is that you want adsl service onhere (samknows adsl checker) ?
If you would please let us know which LLU if any isp's are available to you we can further advise , anything BTW based 20/21cn does have some potential of being problematic as usually isn't the 12 st choice of someone who wishes to actually use the connection for some serious downloading or gaming if they have an llu service available to them, unless those are sky or talktalk llu , cheapest isn't necessarily the best, in the adsl service game

Edited by tommy45 (Sun 22-Jan-12 21:52:59)