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.

Reminds me of the Dilbert cartoon where he gets reassigned to marketing. The lintel over their Grecian doorway reads 'Two drink minimum'

Well when the first rash of charges cropped up in late 2007 to late 2008, the figure usually quoted in posts was £188. eg. this post and this post (ADSL24 in Dec 08) and here
And as long ago as Aug 08.
The earliest I can find which talks about £160+vat (at 17.5%) = £188 in Nov 07. The current VAT reduction would only make this £184.
Even the elite RobertoS generally quotes this same figurebecause of that history. Unfortunately TB does not keep really old posts so I can't find many more in a hurry.

I think I'd also make the point that its not clear (to me) that normal Openreach visits are SFI visits - I think they are just normal visits. So the price may be a different one in the price list. Also the set charge for an NTE5 fit has been frequently quoted by both me and RobertoS and others in the past, but I did note a structural aspect of the pricelist some months ago which could be taken to mean that the price was only for the fitting and perhaps did not include the actual attendance of the OR engineer. Indeed if that aspect is ambiguous perhaps BT have changed how they interpret it. After all they changed the original definition of "charge if there is a customer side fault found" to "charge if a BT fault/fix cannot be spotted by the customer or isp" and "charge if the problem is intermittent and not found when we go".

I believe Entanet and resellers were marking up the SFI charge, which may be the source of the inflated number. The Entanet partner price list does not currently do that, but I can't comment on current reseller practice. BT have only ever charged £144+VAT when the SFI was introduced 01-04-2007

I agree that not all visits are SFI only those arranged via ISPs to resolve a problem. At least one of the callouts in this thread was only to resolve a telephony issue. The original price of the "regularisation" of master sockets was in fact 0.00 and this continued to be the case for disabled customers.

Either way, if someone is charged "£200" they should ask for an itemised invoice to allow comparison with BT's published and regulated price list. If they were told it was free at the point of ordering then they should stick to their guns and ask for the charge to be withdrawn.

Why would they want to compare it to BT's regulated list?

Openreach make the charges and it is up the the communications provider/isp what they charge the end user.

most ISPs claim to be simply passing on BT charges, in which case they should be able to justify the charge to the end user by reference to BT charges.

If the ISP is setting its own charges and rules then its down to them to justify what they are charging and why, especially if it was they who told the end user it was free.

I am reffering to operating profit (ongoing costs vs revenue) so investment costs written off. ukonline and even its parent company easynet seem to have no marketing activity whatsoever so the only significant costs would seem to be the costs in building the network.

I thnk robertos has a good point in regards to O2 as well, they are probably very willing to write off the cost of obtaining customers and only concerned with long term ongoing costs.

asking for an itemised invoice is just common sense really, I will never accept a engineer bill if that situation arises unless I get a written quote prior to the visit which I agree to and I then sign off any diagnosis and work done.

After having relatively trouble free internet connection on line for 5 years, problem began with frequent drops.
My ISP asked me to do quiet line test which I did with BT Technician at the other end.
Then my ISP asked if my second socket gets disabled or not when flap from the Main Socket is removed.
I found that second socket was not dying on flap removal from Main Socket.
Before calling BT Engineer I hired a private Technician who found that the Main Socket has only one wire coming in and not two, and located a junction inside my place from where two sockets were getting independently connected. Both these sockets were termed main by a BT Support on phone though clearly one socket had no flap.
I booked BT Engineer. I had to point it out to him of the existence of junction box. He disconnected the flapless socket and left.
As the problem continued, ISP has booked an SFI Engineer.
Obvious thing is that BT cable coming in from Street Box has become unstable, rusted over the decades.
Would BT do rewiring from the Street Box.
How else could the trouble be rectified

SFI Engineer found fault with the cable between Exchange and Street Box(Junction).
A week before BT Telephone Engineer removed second socket connection that I thought was an extension socket but a BT support on 0800 169 0643 told me subsequently that it was second main socket though without the FLAP on it.
I had carried out quiet line test with BT person at the other end and BT person said there is no noise on the line. The BT Telephone Engineer who removed second socket said noise is removed and yet SFI Engineer found noise and switched cable between Exchange and Socket.

You can have no audible noise (quiet line test) but masses of noise in the frequencies that ADSL uses, which is what the RFI engineer should have been looking at.