Mobile broadband

Cromulent

Cromulent

Cromulent

Soldato
Joined
1 Nov 2007
Posts
7,646
Location
England
My Mum is moving into a new house in a week and has been told it'll cost £4,000 to get a BT line installed and that she couldn't get Virgin TV without one. So I told her she could get mobile broadband and stream as much as she wanted. I have an Amazon Fire TV stick I'm going to give her to use for streaming TV, but I was wondering what the best mobile broadband modem would be to get for her needs. She doesn't use the internet much, but it is essential.

What would you recommend?
 
Better idea first to check what network has the best coverage where she lives.

Also confused with your post, why would BT quote £4K to have a line installed, had the house never had an Openreach line?

Also why would VM say you need BT line to have their services? They’re a totally different operator and independent, they use their own DOCSIS network with coax cable into the home.
 
Sparx said:
Better idea first to check what network has the best coverage where she lives.

Also confused with your post, why would BT quote £4K to have a line installed, had the house never had an Openreach line?

Also why would VM say you need BT line to have their services? They’re a totally different operator and independent, they use their own DOCSIS network with coax cable into the home.
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No. It is a brand new house with nothing wired in. As for Virgin Media, I'm not sure. I was just going from what my Mum said. I imagine she also asked them to port the landline number, which is why they wanted a BT line. I haven't had a chance to check correctly, so your guess is as good as mine.
 
I find it hard to believe a new build home hasn't had a BT line installed (or at least any telecoms provider)... Also if VM have pre-installed then no reason they can't activate their services either.

I wouldn't waste your time looking at mobile broadband. Identify the actual issue (if there is one) at her home to get a proper line installed, and just get an order sorted with BT/VM or whoever.

Dependent on the area they might even have some altnet fibre installed as well. But the developer should've provided the information for that when she purchased.
 
BT has a USO to provide a line to a property, but only up to a cost of £3,400. So I'm assuming it would cost BT around £7,500 to install a line then, going by the quote of £4000.

I'm assuming it is a single plot build as well? As any larger sites would have gone via Openreach Newsites (normally the developer will contact Openreach) Sometimes single dwellings the developer doesn't always contact Openreach and then it's left up to the new owner to sort unfortunately.
 
I got some information. My Mum had to register the build with the local council as it was not showing up for that particular postal code. I guess that is why it is so expensive to get a BT line installed.
 
Huh? Do you just mean the builder hadn't registered the address with Royal Mail for it to populate on address databases? Which in turn would mean Openreach can't find the address for your mum to order broadband either. All the council care about is being able to put a property tax band and your address on their system so they can bill you for council tax lol.

Can you check outside your mum's home, does she have a cable/conduit entry point with a Openreach or Virgin Media branded cover plate? Or even an empty conduit or draw-rope, ready for an ISP to rod a cable to the home? Presumably there is no pre-installed fibre modem in the home on the wall anywhere? I'm still refusing to believe a new build has been built with no communications being laid :p

If it's a single new build by some random 2-bit developer and he hasn't even sorted the comms during the build, I'd be surprised if you had working electrics, water and sewage connections with that level of incompetence.
 
Sparx said:
I'm still refusing to believe a new build has been built with no communications being laid :p
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Believe me, it does happen! More so on single plots, although I've seen it happen on big developments too :eek:
 
ljt said:
Believe me, it does happen! More so on single plots, although I've seen it happen on big developments too :eek:
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Yeah my parents bought a new build home in 1998 from a chap who'd done 8-10 houses on a plot of land (still there now). They laid the conduit but forgot to get BT in during construction, they only realised when my parents moved in and they couldn't place an order with anyone! Doh. However BT later came out and installed the copper line at no charge.

It all depends on the circumstances and if the builder has actually put in place any kind of conduit or cabling already. I'd have ensured this sorta thing was sorted before even buying the house personally! But not everyone has the same thought process or priorities I know.
 
I used a mikrotik router not cheap but really good, as It will put two bands together, which is was good for me living in the sticks
 
Are you sure she doesn't have something like OFNL, which is fibre to the property (via the Openreach network I believe), installed? This is what our new build was installed with, and I think most developers in our town do as I've seen the GTC vans at most of them which is who installs all of the utilities. It won't show on the likes of BT/Virgin. Might be worth putting the postcode into some of the OFNL providers/contacting them to check.
 
I'd ask your Mum to query this with the developer, any new build property with an application submission date after 1st Jan 2017 must comply with Part R of the Building Regulations, that requires a property to have a high speed connection as part of the build (30mb plus is defined as high speed in the regs)
 
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