Phone line for Broadband

[Misc]

Evening,

I'm going to be moving soon but the area doesn't have the option for cable so i'm going down the Broadband through the phone line route. I'm a bit confused tho, is BT the ONLY option for a phone line? I just want a phone line with no contract.

Do Virgin install their own phone line?

What other options do i have?

Cheers

[ncrn]

Recently you could get a talk talk line cheaper than a BT line (basically a BT line) but you are tied down to a contract with talk talk for phone and broadband.

Personally I have a BT line, if you request online billing it only costs about £11 a month if you don't make any calls on it, which although isn't perfect its reasonable.
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[Misc]

[finpos]

No, you will get roped into a contract for the line rental at about 11 per month and you'll probably also find you will soon become incandescently angry when you are charged an enormous installation fee, despite being able to jump up and down and point at a fully functioning BT socket.

You can go to other providers for your line rental (e.g. I'm with plusnet, which is actually owned by BT...) but then you might have trouble swapping broadband providers in the future.

f.

[Misc]

Thanks,

If the house already has a BT phone line, would i still need to register it in my name & pay the monthly bill?

Also do Virgin Media install their own phone lines instead of BT as well then? If so, would this be an alternative to getting BT installed?

Basically i want to avoid anything with BT if it means signing up with them or giving them money in any way.

Thanks.

[GhostRider]

I was looking at this when I was moving a few months ago.

If I recall correctly, no matter what Internet provider you go with they will be using a BT line. The exception might be Virgin, because when they installed our cable there was no asking if there was a BT line or anything they just came and wired shit up.


Use this website to find out what's available in the area you are looking at, determine which junction box is closest etc it's got everything you could want to know

https://www.samknows.com/broadband/

Once you know what providers are in the area go to the respective providers and enter in the postcode to find out what the estimated speeds are and the pricing.

You might have to spend a few hours doing this to find out exactly what you want, bear in mind literally one street can mean the difference between fibre optic broadband and shitty ASDL connections. This might mean getting savvy with the royal mail postcode finder to get an exact postcode, and also the phone directory because some sites will ask you to enter your BT landline number to get an estimate, which of course you don have I you don't live there. The way around this is to use the directory enquiries with the postcode and try common surnames I.e smith, brown, White, green, Ali, Singh, muhammed, jones, Johnson, wallis, Williams, etc etc, get creative and eventually you will find a matching number so you can get the best estimates.

Bear in mind if you are on Orange or 02 mobile then you can get good discounts on their broadband packages.

Hope this helps!

GhostRider
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[Misc]

[finpos]

Yes, you'll need to take out contract with somebody in order that they will connect the other end of your phone line to their network. Then you are basically screwed - whoever you choose to take your line from need to go to openreach (who own the wires, bt was forced to spin it out as an arms-length company) and it is they who set the installation fee and monthly line rental. All that money goes to openreach, your provider has made nothing so far so will lock you in for a minimum of a year just to recoup their own costs .

Unless you live in hull, then you are really stuffed.

You can sometimes get discounts but that invariably means longer contracts.

f.

[Misc]

If that's the only way then i guess i'll have to do it, i don't mind being in a contract if it's not with BT directly. I'll phone around to get more info.

Cheers.