Ordering SOGEA at a Silver Address

I'm helping out a friend who is trying to order Zen Unlimited Fibre 1 Home Broadband (with no voice service) at an address which has never had an Openreach/BT service so is classed as Silver rather than Gold.

The sales staff have said that it will need a phone line ordering first and once that is installed a broadband service can be ordered, so the rental will be £32.99/mo (£17 for the line rental + £15.99 for the broadband). Then after 12 months the line can be regraded to SOGEA dropping the unrequired voice service.

This seems like unnecessary expense and hassle, is it not possible to order SOGEA directly?

And how would this work if the exchange was one of those in the 'FTTP Priority Exchange Stop Sell' programme, although that isn't applicable in this case?

Edited by tdw42 (Thu 19-May-22 18:51:51)