Glad to hear you've found something you're happy with Sarewar

Just wanted to let everyone know that we now have the phone and broadband back and working HOORAY. DST have so far been completely fine. When you ring up you can actually speak to the same person you spoke to before ie if you call and say 'I spoke to Tim yesterday' they say 'Oh ok, I'll just put you through.' Unlike Talk Talk and BT who say 'I've never heard of someone called that.'

DST costs £116 to re-connect the phone. Cheaper than BT at £125. We waited a week and half to get a date with the engineer. It then took another 10 working days to get broadband up and running. We feel very happy to have re-joined the digital age!!! Connection to broadband cost £40 and there is a £50 disconnection fee in the first 12 months. However there is only a 28 rolling contract and you can give other people access to the account. This means that my flatmates can ring up and be able talk to them about the account.

So far we are happy customers.

I'm sorry to hear that Sarewar, keep plugging away is all I can suggest at the moment.

Hi, well coming back after being on holiday for a week we still have no phone and apparently now our phone line doesn't even exist.

According to DST they cannot activate the line because it doesn't exist. About 2 weeks ago when I signed up to them and they did a line test it did exist but when they tried the other day it doesn't any more.  BT confirm that the line does not belong to them and Talk Talk confirm that that line is not theirs either. So now we are in no mans land with telephone companies saying we do not even have a phone socket in our house - which is not true.

My flatmate was told by BT that they could send an engineer around the set up the line for £125 and that we have to sign a 12 month line rental contract with them for this priviledge. So we are back to looking at our options.

I'll let you know how we go. We are also looking at the Virgin route now too.  Plus after all this is looks like we might also lose our telephone number.. sigh.

Hi Sarewar

Please keep us in the loop with regards to getting your phone set up with DST.

Cheers

Jason

I have found 3 companies that say they can do it:

BT, the PhoneCoop and DST.

We're (trying) to go with DST at the moment... they said it would take 3 working days but we're up to 5 currently. They charge £100 and Phone Coop charge £116.

I think only people who could tell you what provider is on your phone line at the moment is to contact BT - once you know then come back and let us know the answer as well as your postcode and I can advise you of the best deals also.

Cheers

Jason

I had the same situation as you not long ago Rob,

I didn't even have a socket in the house, just a wire running from the telegraph pole to the outside of the house. The bloke came and fitted a socket to the end of the wire (after I drilled a hole to pull it indoors), plugged a phone in and we had a dial tone... No cost. Don't know whether it's depandant on if you get a jobsworth engineer or not....

My calls are through Sky but have a BT number and line, had to do this presumably because it's their gear we're using. I pay my line rental to BT, my monthly subscription to Sky (for TV and Broadband {which I'm still getting trouble free BTW}) and then my calls through Sky instead of BT. There is a code you can input to override the system and use BT for your calls (i.e if a non geographical number would be cheaper called through BT).

Hope this helps

JJ 

 

Hi there,

I'm in exactly the same position. I've moved into a new house which I know has a phone line (stuck a phone on the end and have a dial tone) and I wish to go with another provider other than BT. I'm totally confused as to how to proceed though. I contacted one provider who said I need a BT phone number before proceeding. I dont want to have to go through BT to do this though as it would appear I'd be tied into a 12 month contract. I'm also unsure if I would have to pay the £124.99 "installation fee" (bearing in mind there is no physical line to install) Does anyone have any ideas?

 Cheers

 Rob

Hi Kirstinjustin

If you send me your postcode I can advise you of the best deals for you - if you don't want to post it here pls email it to my email address - jason . lloyd @ moneysupermarket.com

Cheers

jason

Hi - I've just joined the forum after reading some of the advice etc.

Kirstinjustin... I'll see if I can help you.  Basically you need to have a phone line before you can change to lots of providers like Talk Talk, Tiscali etc etc. Talk Talk are unable to install a line themselves I believe.

If you don't have a phone line there are a couple companies that can get you up and running...

One is BT which costs £124.99 for activation, one is the Phone Coop that charge £116.30 and one is DST which charge £100 - this is for 're-activation' rather than installing a new line completely.

After having terrible problems with BT we changed to Talk Talk - who have just disconnected us because our flatmate moved and took the account with him. I didn't want to go back to BT so have signed up with DST to get the phone up and running.

There is £50 disconnection fee for DST but I believe that is only if you sign up with Broadband with them and not the phone. So you could potentially sign up to get the phone connected and then when you have a phone line change to Talk Talk or whomever you want, without the disconnection fee. But call them to make sure.

Yes BT will sign you up to a 12 month contract and I believe their disconnection fees (if you don't honour the 12 months) are more like £130.  You may be able to persuade the new provider to pay this for you but I doubt it.

So yes there are LOADS of companies out there that you can 'switch' to but not many unfortunately that you can start up with. :( 

Broadband seems to be the thing that companies lock you into contracts for. Most companies are 12 months, but some are 18 months. Read the fine print! Good luck. .

I'm baffled, new to this and hoping someone can help!
I want to set up broadband in a new home (and ideally a cheap rate phone service with international calls). I have spoken to Talk Talk and BT and am very confused as it appears my only option is to sign up with BT in order to get a line - therefore tying myself in with them for thier 12 month minimum contract?
Any help would be fantastic!
K