BT want how much for new socket and wiring 'update

Hi All

My sister in law currently is on PAYG FRIACO dialup and will sometime later this year go BB on the basic package.

Right her house has an old hardwired BT box near the front door and a previous owner added (not sure of the origins to the BT terminal box?) some extension wiring with sockets.

In planning ahead and logically thinking she should get BT into install the up to date BT socket and put one extension in she have been quoted £400 and £200 for just the new terminator box.

This to me seems outrageous!!!! She is on a pension and such a cost seems way high.

Has she been quoted correctly? If so are there any ways to get the costs reduced and if quoted wrongly who should she get in touch with to get it sorted at the right price???

Incidently, with her old PC and external modem she found her dial up was fine over the extension wiring but her new Dell laptop is very fussy ~ plugged in close to the BT terminal box it is fine but using the 'old' PC position or an extender cable the connection is intermittent so say the least, rather odd. Any thoughts???

TIA for any feedback.

PS For the record when she goes BB she might get the PlusNet phone service as well to keep her total costs to a minimum.

According to some recent posts that there should not be a large charge to replace the hard wired master box with a NTE5 box with a proper BT do your our extensions front plate.

According to a BT pricelist linked on here recently the charge for fixing a new backbox with h faceplate included is £25+vat. If there is a occupant of the house who is "disabled" by some classification - then they can have it done for free.

where there is someone in the household who is disabled as defined by the Disability Discrimination Act i.e. someone with a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day to day activities

Now if BT quote for doing the extensions or "regularising the wiring" that can get expensive.

BT pricelist look near the bottom - search for master.
Recent thread about this.

Thanks for the links.

Methinks its a case of finding out exactly what they are 'quoting' for and then asking for the more "specific" product/service and quote for that???

I'd have thought thats what you need. In practice they should just disconnect the other extensions or attach them to the extension links on the rear of the NTE5 face plate.

When they have gone you are quite entitled to connect the extensions either to the front of the face plate via a plug or to the rear of the faceplate on the extension connectors. So in that case they would not be being paid to "regularise wiring" or add/replace extensions. If you can see the colour of the cables, and use a 99p (max) cable inserter (from say maplins), you can run your own extensions at a fraction of the price. Do make sure you get proper cable though (for ADSL/broadband) as some shops/kits will supply any old tat. It must be phone type twisted pair. It will usually have 4 (or even 6 cores) you only need two. You can even run your cable under the floorboards if you choose something BT never do.

Indeed it might be simplest if the extensions came off in you hand (!) just before the BT man arrives then he cannot claim that he HAD TO regularise them. They are usually linked into the back of the faceplate on the old style box - but you wouldn't want the other main cable to come loose. NB: It should always be remembered that the BT circuit up to the NTE5 belongs to them, is always live and carries about 60 volts I think. Its not too friendly.

Hi there,

If that's the real price they apply you'd be cheaper getting a new line installed in all honesty (with us that'd cost you £105, with BT IIRC its £125).

Conversion of a master socket should not be that expensive. The base price is £25+VAT, then you've probably got 'Time-related charges' on there, which is £85 for the first hour plus call out, and £55 per hour after that.

The £25+VAT will cover fitting the new NTE5 at a location within probably 2 or 3 metres of cable entry to the property, any reconnection of extensions will increase the price.

As far as I am aware, people are not charged an extra labour fee if all they want is existing box made into an NTE5, it is then down to you to reconnect all the extensions. For people not confident in doing this Yellow Pages is worth a look, a good question to ask if using third party people is what sort of cable do they use, in an ideal world it would be twisted pair cable (round profile), the flatter cables look neater, but are good at picking up noise.

When no NTE5 is installed all the wiring is BT's domain, which is one reason fitting a NTE5 is relatively cheap (it was free at one time), i.e. BT like the idea of the NTE5 as they are then not responsible for the mess inside many properties.

Completely Agree.

I mentioned the strategy incase BT were hell bent on charging to "regularise" the extensions. It seemed possible that NTE5 installation had gone the way of engineers visits and there was considerable pressure to find something to charge for.

Hi All

Many thanks for the input & feedback.

Right, we were down there at the weekend so I had the chance to look at the current 'setup' and ask her about those prices.

As far as I was able to understand she rang BT and was 'quoted' £54 per socket & extension and a callout fee ~ do not recall what she said that was!

On the current wiring ~ she has an old style BT plug 'box' approx 2 inch square with the "T" symbol moulded into it. Into which the previous owner had used the commercially available "piggyback" extension cables i.e. the BT cabling is unadulterated (cable comes into house into a 'GPO' marked teminal box and from that approx 1m of cable to the BT plug box).

Now based on the above she should be able to use (eventually) BB but AFAIK this has the potential of ringwire issues & no way to use an iPlate or other face adaptor if needed!!!

So, further to that and on the presumption that I would 'install' fresh extension link(s) for her does she have a legitimate cause to request the fitting of an NTE5 for the minimal possible fee i.e. £25 , if so what is the best way to get that requested without BT causing more confusion by misunderstanding the request???

TIA for the added insight

I ran into a similar scenario recently. I could not get any sense out of BT as to how to actually order

"Conversion of hard-wired master socket to Linebox and Regularisation of illicit master socket: @£28.75 inc VAT".

I imagine that BT would see the demarcation point as the GPO marked junction box. I suggest that you just buy a new NTE5 box and use it to replace the downstream box marked with a "T" and leave the GPO box alone. Add to it a filtered faceplate if you wish. And wire any further downstrem connections from your new box. An NTE5 only has one pair of connections incoming so the bell wire issue goes away.

NB. NTE 5a with Openreach logo are on EBay. The Solwise is the same but has no logo.

Enceladus