Hi PlusNet

Can one of you give me the minimum total cost (e.g. no excess usage charges) of signing up to Option 4 broadband, and then leaving after 3 months (i.e. connection, rental, subscription, disconnection etc). I have a wireless ADSL router already, and you can assume that the line is connected to the exchange but not the rest of the telephone network (i.e. I'll be getting line rental from you too)

Thanks

Caius

No-one can quote you for another company's product. BT offers one thing, others offer another. You will have to get a quote from BT for you to buy out the remainder of the contract and then shop around for quotes anywhere else - PlusNet included.

If you are expecting to get better performance from another ISP using BT's infrastructure, you will be sorely disappointed. As a general rule of thumb - if BT cannot provide it, nobody can.

SHARK!

Hi Cjard,

All of our products are on monthly contracts so you would just need to give us 30 days notice and we would take subscription payments up to that point.

If you are migrating to us, you can take advantage of our risk free 90 day trial, which would mean that you could migrate into us and if you choose to leave within 90 days, we would refund all of your subscription fees that you have paiud during this time.

If this is a new activation, we would need to take a £40 payment should you leave us within 12 months.  This is owing t the £40 activation charge that we have to pay BT.

If you have any qwuestion, or if you would like me to give you a ring, then by all means shout up or send me a message :)
 

Landshark:

No-one can quote you for another company's product. BT offers one thing, others offer another. You will have to get a quote from BT for you to buy out the remainder of the contract and then shop around for quotes anywhere else - PlusNet included.

I dont think you understand; I live in a property where the previous tenant had the line disconnected from the telephone network. The only number it will now dial is 17070 - the test number. ALl I know about the line is the circuit (phone)number. It basically needs plugging in at the exchange end. As such, it is a blank canvas; it should just be connected, my broadband switched on and away I go.

If you are expecting to get better performance from another ISP using BT's infrastructure, you will be sorely disappointed. As a general rule of thumb - if BT cannot provide it, nobody can.

BT own PlusNet, and I know if BT cant do it, noone can - but I'm not with BT for anything at the moment, no line renatal, no broadband, nothing. I dont want to go with BT simply because I spent an hour and 45 minutes going round in circles with them on the phones, trying to get the line sorted out. They also didnt know whether their minimum contract for line rental was 3 or 12 months, and I told them that I didnt want to pay for a line I wouldnt use, if I had to vacate the property in November

The idea of asking PN for a quote is that PN provide my phone and broadband, on a 1 month contract, with all fees so I know, if I leave the proeprty in 3 months, what broadband will have cost. I can then weigh this up against the cost of using 3G and see if the broadband option is worth doing.

When I said "disconnection fee" - this is what PN will quote me for disconnecting from them in November, not my existing provider (there is no existing provider)

jamesbailey:

Hi Cjard,

All of our products are on monthly contracts so you would just need to give us 30 days notice and we would take subscription payments up to that point.

If you are migrating to us, you can take advantage of our risk free 90 day trial, which would mean that you could migrate into us and if you choose to leave within 90 days, we would refund all of your subscription fees that you have paiud during this time.

I've jsut read about this. Embarrassingly, I didnt give a figure of 3 months in the first post because I was planning to defraud or abuse this guarantee; it's simply the remaining amount of time I am KNOWN to have in the property. Perhaps, if the new tenant or buyer that replaces me (if that even occurs in November) wants broadband, you could swap my contract onto them?

If this is a new activation, we would need to take a £40 payment should you leave us within 12 months.  This is owing t the £40 activation charge that we have to pay BT.

If you have any qwuestion, or if you would like me to give you a ring, then by all means shout up or send me a message :)
 

So, my costs would be:

Sign up for Option 4 plus line rental, no modem etc - 40.99

07 Sep - Billed 40.99 for 1 month subscription/line rental
07 Oct - Billed 40.99 for 1 month subscription/line rental
07 Nov - Billed 40.99 for 1 month subscription/line rental
30 Nov - Billed 40 connection fee becuse I leave within 12 months

Total: £163

Right. Like I said; the line ISNT WITH ANYONE, it rings the test number and it has a dial tone but thats it. Connected to the exchange, so I guess that means a BT goof at the exchange has to plug the wire from my socket, into a patch panel that conencts the line to the rest of the world - what;s the fee for that? THat's going to be billed on 07 Sep. This is what I want to know. What other costs are involved?

cjard

Right. Like I said; the line ISNT WITH ANYONE, it rings the test number
and it has a dial tone but thats it. Connected to the exchange, so I
guess that means a BT goof at the exchange has to plug the wire from my
socket, into a patch panel that conencts the line to the rest of the
world - what;s the fee for that? THat's going to be billed on 07 Sep.
This is what I want to know. What other costs are involved?

--

If you have a BT socket in your premises currently, then there shouldn't be any charge to get your telephone line activated, so charges would remain as you have surmised above.

However, we're not currently able to activate new telephone lines in home phone (there's currently work afoot to change this), so you would be looking at 3x£29.99 + £40 cancellation + youre charges to BT for phone rental.

Apologies for missing the point about the phone line. 

Hope this helps. 

What a shame; that isnt really the answer I was looking for.

You mean I have to pay those useless tosspots at BT for my line rental? They cant even tell me how long I'll pay it for!

I dont get it; youre an LLU provider.  Youre even part of BT. Customers switch their lines to you all the time, but you cant activate my dormant line yourselves? Why cant you have BT connect the line into your box (their box?) so I can have my line rental from someone who knows what the contract length is? Whether I buy my line rental from you or BT, i'm dealing with BT Retail who are dealing with BT wholesale; why would there even be a difference based on who gives the order to BTw to plug a wire between two holes in the exchange?

The phone line is not a new line. It is a very old line that has previously been in service but was taken out of service by the previous tenant when that tenant moved out.

Thousands of people must be in this situation; are you telling me that you must cut off a huge potential customer base because you can only take customers who are already actively receiving line service from someone else? That's not what your webpage implies duroing the signup process. Please, see if you can get me a deifnite answer to this question..

Hi,

I fully appreciate that you are not looking to pay BT for their telephone services (especially as they offer 12 month minimum contracts).  Whilst, yes, we are owned by BT Retail, we are an independant subsidiary of theirs.  Whilst we do resell a wholesale LLU product, we have not placed any orders since August of last year.

I do appreciate that your line is not a new one.  However, if we were to choose to activate it on your behalf, we would be  charged £105 for the pleasure of doing so by BT.  This is part of the reason why we do not currently offer new activation from a Wholesale Line Rental perspective.  I fully get and agree that this does alienate an area of the market, something that we are all more than aware of and looking to be able to provide a solution whereby we are able to offer new WLR activations.

I'm sorry that we're currently not able to offer what you are seeking, but as I mentioned earlier, we are currently looking into the possibility of providing new activations from a WLR perspective but are currently unable to do so. 

Hi

Well, given that BT will probably charge me £105 anyway, how about I give you £105, you get them to sort my line out, and then I get to deal with a responsive and informed customer service department instead of running the gauntlet with BT? Would PN be prepared to do this?

Regards

cjard

I'll have a word with Mand (she's our homephone guru here) and see what we can arrange for you.

Would you mind emailing me a phone number so that we can get in touch with you?

Hi there,

We'd be prepared to do that for you yes, although it would have to be a totally manual process, so we'd need to do things a little differently.

Firstly I'd like to see the status of the line in the BT Wholesale system, as it may be possible to activate the line without the £105 charge, I'd need your phone number to check this though.

If you could drop me an email Moderator - In profile only please. with the number of the line, and a daytime contact number for yourself I'd be happy to check this out and give you a call to discuss. :)

Mand Beckett

PlusNet Comms Team

What was the outcome of the connection charge?

I am in a similar situation. I have just moved into a 6 month rent.

The phone has dial tone, but no number when i ring 17070.
Is there anything you can do for me?

Regards,

James

Hi,

IIRC the outcome was a completely new install was required.

If you'd like to email me your address and postcode I'd certainly be happy to perform the same check and let you know what the provisioning costs would be with our service? It sounds to me like that's a stopped line though, which would incur a reconnection charge of £38.75.

Regards

Mand Beckett

PlusNet Comms Team

jamesbell4:

What was the outcome of the connection charge?

It's have been about £100 held by whomever I pay the line rental to as a deposit against not paying the bill - some kind of standard procedure if a phone line has been disconnected. Kinda harsh that I have to leave a deposit because someone else never paid the bill.

In the end I found it simpler to approach a neighbour who already had broadband and a wireless router, and just give him some cash in exchange for his WEP key; makes both our internets cheaper and neither of us are heavy users. If I worked from home I'd probably go for my own net off PlusNet because they were the only people who came back with sensible answers and attentiveness to looking into the situation for me; evidence of what customer service and support is like before signup is always good. At the other end of the scale you have sales departments like e.g. the Point of Sale Terminals guys at IBM; I want to give them £300,000 for 200 EPOS machines and they dont even bother phoning back..