I have a BT line coming into my property but have been using Bulldog Comms as my provider for internet and telephone for almost two years. I now want to re-activate the BT line as I want to join Be*. BT have said they will charge me £124 for a new line. Is this right? - Bulldog did not put in a new line - the wire coming into my house is the same one that was in place when we were with BT - even the socket inside the house has a BT logo on it. 

You're absolutely right the £124 charge is correct, or so bt retail say. They say bt openreach charge them every time a line is connected so they have to pass this cost onto the customer. This is mainly due to ofcom splitting up bt in last couple of years where bt openreach(the engineers who do the work at the customers end) are now a different operating company to bt retail who provide the home telephone service i.e phone,broadband bill. The reason for this being that every phone company talk talk, bulldog, tiscali etc should have the same access to the exchanges and to the engineers(if you order a new line from talk talk a "bt openreach engineer will turn up at your door to install it"). It is a huge cost to pay for a line that is already there though there may be work at the exchange to be done even although nobody comes to your house. If you haven't already guessed I work for bt retail and the staff manning the phones are amazed by the size of this charge which is at the same level of somebody wanting a new line installed. If I was you I'd wait a few months to change supplier for this relatively new charge to get reduced either by either bad press,bt retail managers getting fed up with having to justify the level of charge or they come up with a new contract where they can waive the fee absorbing into the time period of guaranteed revenue i.e a 24 month broadband contract. Bt broadband is good value but don't think its worth forking out £124 to get it started, hope this helps

Thank you very much Ians75 - now I know.

btw - I can't believe  you,ve ever manned the phones at BT - you can  speak  English!!   :-)

I have just switched back to BT ? BT broadband that is , but stayed with talk talk for line rental and calls , BT T & C now state "that you need a BT line or similar" . I just argued that my line is a BT line going to a BT exchange and serviced by BT engineers despite my paying line rental to Talk Talk for call package. They signed me up no problem and I'm going live on 18th April 08 no hesitation what so ever and the best bit ? the sales girl spoke english too .

After a whole week of arguing with talk talk about their not so free broadband i.e "get your free broadband now call us ??" " I'm sorry it s not in your area we cant give you it free but for £15 we can set it up? " mmmmmm if they can give me it if I pay they can give me it for free!! anyone agree? Has anyone anywhere actually got it for free ? no-one I know has its a bit like Sky free broadband at least thats only a tenner , still not free but cheaper .

Its a bit like all broadband packages and the main reson I left virgin media everyone offers "up to 8mb **++''

So pay us £24.99 and we can prob manage 64k after 6pm and still be within our remit of supplying the " up to " bit I had to install my modem again to get better speeds at night , and all Virgin Media would say is "it depends on distance from exchange and line quality " helllllooooooo my house does not move after 6 pm nor does someone replace my cables with inferior quality only to change it back at 8 am next morning and move my house back.

Talk Talk said my line would only take 2 mb and wanted to charge me £31 for priviedge.

Tiscali told me they offer unlimited broadband ( cept between 17:00 and 23:00) when most folk are home from work and want to surf the net they block ports too to stop P2P and games online ports?????