Moving home.

[#1]

If you move your BT line from one place to another, be it 100yds down the road or 100 miles down the road, they do it for free. Plus Net, it would appear, don't. This 'service' costs £38.85 as far as I can tell, even though if BT are doing it for free, then technically Plus net should be able to as well. Anyone care to comment?

[#2]

Presumably the charge comes from Openreach, who actually do the work.
BT choose to subsidise the cost and allow you to move for free, whereas PN pass the cost directly on to you.
This could be a way of boosting margins, although I suspect that the telecoms industry is already running at pretty low margins - BT on the other hand have size on their side - as well as many multiple profit streams from which to draw the subsidy.

[#3]

James_H: BT didn't have to do any work. The line was already installed and working, it was just a case of switching over the customer details.

[#4]

and that does not incur labour costs!!!
Actually work normally have to be done as a renumber is required and the majority of the time this is done by rejumpering on the MDF which takes 20 minutes of BT Openreach time.

[#5]

It's worth bearing in mind that as BT Retail may choose to absorb these costs, it would be very likely that this would result in your being tied into a 12 month contract with them, whereas with us you will remain on a monthly contract.
It's just what we are charged by Openreach.

[#6]

So why not offer a 12 month tie in instead?

[#7]

Would you prefer that?
I'm under the impression that our customers far prefer the flexibility of our monthly contracts.

[#8]

Option to defer available for a best-of-both worlds approach?

[#9]

Both would be better. In the case of this customer, she's going to want to stay if she gets it for free, whereas being charged means she's not so impressed.

[#10]

Thanks Guys.
I'll pass your feedback onto Mand as she'll understand the billing side of things better than I.  I imagine that the answer would be that it would be a possibility, but not in the short term due to development priorities.

[#11]

Pretty much.  With broadband relocation, you're looking at £40.
With Home Phone relocation, this is potentially £105+ which realistically, we would not see the benefit of offering in a deferred contract.  I think BT knock off half of the fee if you sign up to them for 18 months.

[#12]

I agree with PJ that it may or may not work, but there might the possibility of the numbers stacking up if on only deferred a percentage of the fee, perhaps 30% or 50% or something.
Alternatively, what about deferring half, and paying the other half on a monthly basis?
If its £105+ and we say £120 to make the maths easier to follow.
Defer £60 over 12mths - as per the current model for ADSL.
The other £60 could be perhaps paid up front, or spread over 12 mths at £5 per month.
Perhaps if you are looking at deferring over 12mths, you ought to also allow folks to sign up to a 12mth contract with a £5 saving each month for the first 6mths.
For those paying attention, they might see that you could then sign up for BB and Phone for 12mths, and the discount for signing a 12mth contract would pay half of your connection fee (£30 saving from ADSL 12mth contract + £30 saving for Phone 12mth contract), and the other half is deferred after 12mths.
The figures sound not too silly based upon the monthly cost of ADSL, and the current deferral offers and long contract bonuses. It all hangs on how the margins stack up for phone contracts compared with ADSL ones.
Just an extension of some of the ideas already mentioned.
/2p

[#13]

Guys,
You need to appreciate that the margins that we have on Home Phone are minimal.  Also the call charges are often cheaper than with other companies.
If we were to offer a special offer or deferred contracts on home phone, it would then make the product loss leading and would potentially need to be withdrawn, which I imagine you wouldn't want.

[#14]

I think that the original premise is slightly flawed in that it is not always the case that BT will move you 100 yards or 100 miles down the road for "free".
They will do if there is a "working BT line" where you are moving to. 
When I moved from Edinburgh to West Lothian (some 11 miles) they charged me the princely sum of £124.99 to activate the line.  There was already a BT socket in the house but it had "no dial tone" according to BT.
They were gracious enough, however, to allow me to spread the cost over three bills - still cost £124.99 though.
That's the only thing that I could see PN doing - allowing the £105 to be paid in three or four installments.

[#15]

No, fully appreciate what you're trying to do.
I like the idea of spreading the cost over a period of time.