New Construction - Simple connection = $115?

[dixon]

Hi all,
My wife and I are closing on our first home(new construction) tomorrow and I've been told by the phone company that if I want a dialtone in my house, then I'm going to need to pay the phone company $115 to make some connection in the box on my house. I have no idea what they are talking about. Shouldn't my builder have already taken care of this?

I asked the woman how complicated this would be and she said that it's a very simple procedure...that somehow costs $115. She said that I could have my builder do it or do it myself. I'm obviously completely new to this.
Is anyone here familiar with what she's talking about? She said that the phone company is responsible for transferring from the pole to the house, but any service beyond that they will charge extra for.

Any help would be appreciated. Since we close tomorrow, I'll make sure to ask my builder if/what they would charge to do this for me. But I thought I'd ask the experts how hard this would be to do myself.

Thanks in advance for your help.
Chris Dixon

[Mr T]

Ahh, you must have Ameritech/sbc/at&t, or whatever they are called today...

Very simple... get a different phone company. PHone service has been unregulated for several years now. You can go with anyone who services your area. Often the smaller competitors will eat all connection charges to get your business....and their rates are often cheaper. They are just reselling your main company's service... Repair service is sub-contracted out to them even, but you never have to deal with em.

Somewhere on the FCC's site is a list of all local providers for your area code/prefix. If not search for "<area code> local service"

$115 is a JOKE

[dixon]

Thanks for your quick reply!

I'm currently in a 12 month contract with SBC and they have a hefty $200 penalty for breaking it. Also we're pretty happy with their long-distance and DSL plan.

Do you happen to know what simple connection they're talking about? and how to make it? I've looked through the the other threads and noticed a couple of them talking about "tailing out a wire" for the phone company to connect to. Is this it?

Yeah, $115 sounded a bit steep. :)

[Mr T]

Are you changin gphone numbers? You may be exiting teh contract by doing that. Read the fine print.

Also inquire at your local public utility council if you have one.

Your connection is probably in your Network interface box. Open up the phillips screw on it. There will be a phone jack. IF something is plugged in, unplug and plug a phone in.. if you have a dial tone...see if you can call someone. if so, your service is live. If not, the issue is on there end.....nothing you can do (and you shouldnt be charged....ha)

If nothing was plugged into that jack, look around in the box, there should be a 3" phone cord with a jack on the end.. follow it back to some terminals.. Are there wires there? Thats where your house wires go. (plug the jack in if you have wires and it wasnt) (red to red black to black..polarity is important here)

Once you are wired, plug that jack in. You should be good to go in the house.

[dixon]

Nope, we're moving locally and got to keep our number. I also asked about it and they said there's no penalty for moving within their network.

Thanks for all your help. I'll definitely print this out and take a look tomorrow when we're at the house. Unfortunately if it doesn't work, I won't have internet access to ask for more help. Doh!
Oh well. I guess the worst that can happen is that my father in-law can take a look at it when he comes to help us move this weekend. He built his current house and may know something about this. (I hope.) He's a veteran DIYer. I'm just starting...So we'll see if all my lego and constructs building comes in handy. :)

Thanks again.

Dixon.

[Mr T]

You should have a network interface on your current house too (provided it is a house). If you have one, take alook at yours before you head over.

[suemarkp]

To back up for a minute, many times it doesn't matter whether the house is new or old. If it has no active phone service, you have to pay to get connected. The builder should have run a wire from the neighborhood phone box to the box on your house. All the phone people are going to do is come to your house, go to the phone box in the street and connect your house wires to one of their lines. In an older house, those lines may or may not already be connected, so they'll come and make sure this is right. The builder can't do this because he doesn't know which of the phone company's lines in that street box are going to be the pair for you.

If things go well, then your phone should work. There may need to be a connection made in your house phone box to that wire which goes to the street (builder may or may not have done that, but the phone guy will do it if it wasn't done). He will then make sure the phone works from the phone box outside your house and then go home. If the phones in your house don't work, that is your builder's or your problem to fix (or the phone company will do it at a huge $$ per hour).

So yes, this is typically a 10 minute task for the phone guy plus the driving time. In older houses where there is only one telco carrier and they keep things connected and have good records, then no one would even have to show up, they would just enable your port at the local phone switch (a real money maker on those connections). If no wire was run from the house to the street box, then the $115 would be well worth it.

[Mr T]

Ive never paid over $40 for this through ameritech/sbc.

Make sure they arent padding in some other charge.