BT Wants To Charge Couple £37,000 To Install broadband

A couple that runs a bed and breakfast in a village in Cumbria has been quoted a staggering £45,000 by BT for getting broadband to their guest house to replace their dial up 56K line.

BT later said that it was prepared to pay up to £8,000 of the charge but would pass the remaining £37,000 to ISP Phone Coop, which then passed it over to the B&B owners, the Walkers.

A fuming Mr Walker said that ‘We just want the same crap broadband service as everybody else in the village but BT won’t even let us have that," before adding furiously that "‘They seem to be wanting us to pay for equipment which will upgrade the whole village and that’s what makes it more galling."

The detailed description of the quote seems to support his point. BT has included the cost of removing abox, 40 joint bosses, 1.34Km of mole ploughing cable (whatever that is) as well as 637m of copper cable.

Oh, and for the price, Mr and Mrs Walkers (and their guests) would only get a 512k connection. No wonder then that the couple accuses BT of abusing its position as wholesale provider as rivals Phone Coop were the chosen ones.

We checked with a number of mobile phone providers for a Cumbrian post code, LA22 0NS. Virgin Media and T-Mobile showed no coverage, not even in 2G, the rest of the mobile phone networks showed no 3G and mobile broadband coverage.