In reply to a post by Andrue:

Here's some advice - don't go into Business.

You're about 6 years too late. I have been running a very profitable limited company since June 2003. I wouldn't put my money into anything which didn't show a profit for 3 years, and very little after that.

In reply to a post by zebedeee:

In reply to a post by Andrue:

Here's some advice - don't go into Business.

You're about 6 years too late. I have been running a very profitable limited company since June 2003. I wouldn't put my money into anything which didn't show a profit for 3 years, and very little after that.

Heh, well neither would an ISP - although I do wonder sometimes at their financial acumen. Several of the bigger ones seem happy to run at a loss just to help make up a bundle :-/

Anyway the OP will find out if they get charged or not. If not then congratulations to them. Maybe they can get their ISP to replace their telly

I think the reality is packages that are designed for light users. low priced and low usage, generate very little profit since there is no headroom. Even if the light user uses no traffic it is typically priced so low that the only real profit made on those type of accounts is when such customers order topups, so usage = profit.

Then we have the higher priced packages either aimed at people who want higher limits/unlimited or for people who want quality, these I expect have higher profit margins. I expect isps like zen, aaisp and ukonline make more profit per customer then isps such as plusnet, entanet (wbc packages) and BE (with quidco cashback).

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

I expect isps like zen, aaisp and ukonline make more profit per customer then isps such as plusnet, entanet (wbc packages) and BE (with quidco cashback).

Be and O2 are still on a land-grab. (I wonder if they will be in September?)

The free months and cash-back will be coming from Marketing budgets, so the service itself will be showing a healthy profit in the books.

In reply to a post by KevinR:

So basically they charge a full engineer call out

This "engineer" was a lone 17 year old female trainee who had to borrow my Krohn tool because she didn't have one in her toolkit. She was a very nice and well spoken young lady and, on chatting to some BTo engineer friends later, they said that she is a lovely girl and pretty bright too (Their words not mine).
To send a trainee out to a job unsupervised and without the necessary tools is crazy in itself. But, particularly given some of the nearby estates etc, it's sheer lunacy to send out a young, naive girl unaccompanied. On many of these estates, the Police won't attend a call unless they have backup and local authority, housing etc workers are always despatched in pairs at least and often accompanied by estate rangers and CPO's.
Within about a mile radius of where I live, there have been three vicious murders in the last five months, two of them young girls and one a company boss.

BTo simply don't have enough personnel locally to maintain a very aged network which traverses some very difficult terrain. Their answer to that problem appears to be to offer the staff who know these local systems inside out extremely favourable voluntary redundancy packages.

BT-Openreach have been passing on charges for "customer" broadband faults since last year and these usually get quoted at £188.

by who ? The SFI charge is £144 + VAT = £165.60. Simple as.

The £25+VAT is the charge to sort out the master socket to current standards. It is a specific charge for that activity. Similarly there are rates for moving an NTE5 which are £85 per visit plus £55 per hour or part thereof (all plus VAT). These rates apply when the work isn't covered by a specific fee in the price tables.

From October the visit charge becomes £105+VAT including the first hour, which is effectively a reduction from £140 for visit plus up to one hour.

The Openreach charge for a filtered faceplate is £5.88 +VAT.

it is, from a different place. I hadn't seen your post at the time.

AFAIK Be make a loss, as do Easynet (UKonline). You can't really say a service is profitable by hiding a load of associated costs elsewhere.

In reply to a post by KevinR:

Hmmm. I still wonder how that maps to the few bits of price lists we've found before but think of it like this...

BT-Openreach have been passing on charges for "customer" broadband faults since last year and these usually get quoted at £188. So if we take your £218 and subtract that we get £30. Now the previous £25+vat would equal £28.75 so if some bit of BT (BT-O, BTW, BTR in this case) have raised it or rounded it up we get the other £30.

So basically they charge a full engineer call out fee PLUS the (inflated) cost of the faceplate when the change is to the BT boundary on the connection because it is out of date.
Nice.

The price is crazy as adslnation has the faceplate/middle/surface mount backbox set for £5.86 and that's the NTE5a with the extra filtering built in just like the latest BT ones. And that's not the cheapest even with a quick google! Even the most expensive don't seem to charge more than £10. So they are even profiteering on the faceplate!

This suggests the first extension adaption like at the bottom of this Kitz pageis the most sensible for most people.

Maybe I am missing something, but WHY did the OP's ISP decide to replace the master socket? Had the previous master socket developed a defect - or did the ISP decide to send an engineer to upgrade the socket, merely to facilitate extension wiring?

BT Openreach are responsible for maintaining everything between the telephone exchange and the master socket on the subscriber's premises. Although BT Openreach should not charge for repairing faults in their equipment, they can (and will) charge the subscriber (or the subscriber's ISP) for voluntary upgrades.

In the case of an old-style star-wired installation, BT were responsible for the master socket in its entirety. Consequently, if an old-style master socket develops a fault, BT Openreach must replace the socket at no cost to the subscriber or to the subscriber's ISP.

However, the subscriber will be charged for any faults that can be attributed to the subscriber's own equipment or extension wiring. (i.e. Anything that is connected on the subscriber's side of the master socket.)

If a subscriber has a new style NTE5 master socket, BT Openreach own the linebox. Consequently, they are responsible for faults in the backplate. However, it is a moot point whether BT Openreach will bear the cost, if the NTE5 faceplate develops a fault. Again, the subscriber will be charged for faults that can be attributed to the subscriber's own equipment or extension wiring.

However, the NTE5 linebox does have a test socket in the backplate, which provides an opportunity for the subscriber to eliminate the possibility of faulty extension wiring - before requesting an engineer's visit which potentially, could be very expensive.

In reply to a post by yarwell:

AFAIK Be make a loss, as do Easynet (UKonline). You can't really say a service is profitable by hiding a load of associated costs elsewhere.

I didn't.