£49.99 installation fee when switching from BT to Plusnet?

Firefly · a month ago

I'm considering switching from BT to Plusnet when my current BT Broadband contract expires in less than 2 months. However, when signing up to Plusnet, it tells me there is a £49.99 installation fee and I need to book an engineer! But I think Plusnet uses the same network, so if I have a working BT Broadband connection, why would I need an engineer?

Can I avoid this this fee and engineer visit? Just plug in the hub myself?

Townman · ‎22-08-2007

What’s your BT service and what service have you ordered from Plusnet.

A reasonable guess would be that this is a migration from copper ADSL / FTTC / SoGEA to FTTP on a fibre priority exchange (or you want higher speeds than the current service). A switch to FTTP requires an engineer.

If you are on FTTP already, then something is a tad odd.

In another browser tab, login into the Plusnet user portal BEFORE clicking the fault & ticket links

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

If this post helped, please click the Thumbs Up and if it fixed your issue, please click the This fixed my problem green button below.

jab1 · ‎24-02-2012

@Firefly What connection are you on with BT, and which service are you intending to get with Plusnet? I think you are quite correct though - the PN service is delivered over exactly the same infrastructure as BT, and it is, apart from some external 'button pushing' as you describe - when you are told the switch is complete, you plug the PN Hub in place of the BT one.

I thought the 'connection charge' no longer applied?

John

Firefly · a month ago

It's been solved! (somehow)

On the Plusnet website, I enter my address, then I get presented with a deal. Then when I went to checkout it told me about the engineer and installation fee.

But I just repeated these steps again and now it tells me explicitely that I don't need an engineer! So, apparently I did something wrong (?). But the problem is solved now. I can just register and set an activation date.

Thanks for your help guys!

Btw: with BT I have partly fibre. The last 50 metres or so is copper.

Townman · ‎22-08-2007

What product have you ordered from Plusnet?

In another browser tab, login into the Plusnet user portal BEFORE clicking the fault & ticket links

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

If this post helped, please click the Thumbs Up and if it fixed your issue, please click the This fixed my problem green button below.

Firefly · a month ago

@Townman wrote:

What product have you ordered from Plusnet?

That will be just broadband. I haven't completed the order yet, because it turns out I cannot put the date far enough into the future. My BT contract ends 27 Dec and I don't want to pay the termination charges. So I will continue with the order mid Dec.

bmc · ‎28-02-2017

@Firefly

Just to confirm - you are aware the move will cost you your landline if this matters?

Brian