B.T. broadband...to stay or not to stay?

trkilliman · July 20, 2016, 11:50:58 AM

Last september I was hacked badly whilst with Talk-Talk. I'll not go into the nitty gritty but will say they must have lost my account details back in February 2015 when, as they put it, some details were "compromised"

I'm no fan of B.T. but took up their offer around 11 months back for half price broadband...for a Year. When the Year is up it doubles in price.

Now, in a shopping Mall I was approached by a chap from Sky. I told him about the B.T. situation and he said that B.T. contracts are now void, as they have increased the line rental beyond the maximum set by Ofcom. Sky he said, have an offer that would see me as a new customer have an internet connection free of charge for a year.

It's all very puzzling given the small print these companies have.

Anyone out there up to speed (no pun intended) on the best internet deals around, or specifically is the sky offer good, and indeed are Sky any good?

Thanks in advance guys, and I'm sure your replies will be of interest to many others out there.

rhysapthomas · July 20, 2016, 12:05:39 PM

Treat the salesman's comments with a very big pinch of salt I have heard nothings about BT's contracts being invalid. If you try to leave early they will want to charge you for doing so. Check very carefully first

Look at plusnet's offerings I have just switched to them and so far so good on the service but they are still owned by BT but on the couple of occasion's I needed to speak to customer services I got through quickly unlike BT. When moving form BT they tried to say that they had not been informed of the change but they suddenly they found the details after 30mins on the phone and chat line

Dorsetmike · July 20, 2016, 12:31:25 PM

I've been using ntlworld, part of Virgin media, for about 10 years, quite satisfied, also probably the fastest, I pay for "up to" 100M, just ran speed test showing 92 download, 6 upload. Scheduled to increase speed to "up to" 150M sometime between August and October.

Lost service for about an hour and a half earlier in the year. It took about 18 hours to get reconnected on moving last year, don't recall many other breaks in service. I'm mostly on line up to 10 hours a day.

Skyline2uk · July 20, 2016, 02:59:25 PM

Agree with taking the salesperson words with a pinch of salt, but I am a satisfied Sky Broadband customer.

The most stable connection I have had (been with Virgin and Tesco at other addresses) and I get the speeds I am paying for.

Also, after my year introductory offer I did my usual routine of shopping around and found a cheaper deal (Talk Talk) and so decided to do the old "I am thinking of leaving" routine.

Pleasantly surprised that with Sky you don't even need to call anybody to do this, just go onto your online account and click some links to be offered a new deal.

Some words of warning:

1) Sky being sky they will try very hard to sell you a bundle. They offer you all sorts of package deals on TV and Movies etc BUT they do do JUST phone and Broadband (not sure just broadband) so if that's all you want, stick to your guns.

2) It's not really good enough in 2016 but Broadband speed and reliability is very much a postcode lottery. Advice and recommendations from others is of limited value unless they are on the same exchange as you. Really it's only ratings on customer service that mean anything, and then you could always get someone on the other end of the phone who is rubbish!

Skyline2uk

lil chris · July 22, 2016, 12:11:08 AM

I was with Virgin Media from when it was Nynex/NTL etc, I kept having problems with the internet, my son was always complaining about the quality of the line. I changed to SKy with a TV package, the internet was not has fast but the signal was very stable and consistent, no complaints from my gaming son. Then we started to have problems every night for three months the internet went off, not for long but everynight which started to get annoying, I kept ringing up but nothing was done so I packed them in and now gone back to Virgin Media, faster and they now seem to have sorted things we do not have the line problems we had before. Sky keep ringing up, why have you left us ?, to be honest it is a bit of a lottery they are all has bad has each other.

GrahamB · July 22, 2016, 07:53:09 AM

I left BT for Plusnet a few years ago and I'm very happy with them. I don't have fibre and I get my Broadband for free.

When I've needed to call them I've got a prompt answer by a real person and a swift resolution to my question.

Be aware that the main difficulty I had when leaving BT was...........................BT!

port perran · July 22, 2016, 08:57:41 AM

I guess this is all horses for courses.
We left PlusNet (after appalling customer service when our service deteriorated). Up to that point PlusNet had been excellent but they seemed very unwilling to do anything about our problem.
Moved to BT and have since had superb reliability. I guess it will all go downhill again at some point however and we can move again.
Seems to be the way with huge companies. Only interested in one thing.....and it's not the customer !

GrahamB · July 22, 2016, 09:26:52 AM

Quote from: port perran on July 22, 2016, 08:57:41 AM
I guess this is all horses for courses.
We left PlusNet (after appalling customer service when our service deteriorated). Up to that point PlusNet had been excellent but they seemed very unwilling to do anything about our problem.
Moved to BT and have since had superb reliability. I guess it will all go downhill again at some point however and we can move again.
Seems to be the way with huge companies. Only interested in one thing.....and it's not the customer !

Be aware that most of the suppliers are ultimately at the mercy of BT Openreach.

Newportnobby · July 22, 2016, 10:05:10 AM

I've been with BT for 5 years now and can count any probs on the fingers of one hand. They were all sorted very quickly.
Recently they told me they have increased my Infinity speed to 52M but, checking this with the Ookla speed tester this is not so. However, I do live in a very poor area for Broadband and Mobile phones.
I also take their BT Sports so I can watch the MotoGP races in full

austinbob · July 22, 2016, 10:09:45 AM

I've been with BT ever since they first started broadband and have had very few problems. BUT!! when I have had a problem it has been, almost without exception, difficult to get the problem acknowledged let alone resolved. I don't know if other ISPs are the same?

Jack · July 22, 2016, 10:17:09 AM

Quote from: GrahamB on July 22, 2016, 07:53:09 AM
I left BT for Plusnet a few years ago and I'm very happy with them.

For those who are unaware.... Plus.net are part of the BT Group.

mojo · July 22, 2016, 10:21:24 AM

I have been with BT for just over a year and had no problems at all until in May the cost gradually increased from an initial £31 to £49 in July.
When I phoned to inquire and to cancel my contract I was given the reason for the price increase as "being out of contract".
I would have thought that they could have advised me at the time, so now looking to transfer to TalkTalk.
Maurice C.

GrahamB · July 22, 2016, 11:10:28 AM

Quote from: Jack on July 22, 2016, 10:17:09 AM
Quote from: GrahamB on July 22, 2016, 07:53:09 AM
I left BT for Plusnet a few years ago and I'm very happy with them.

For those who are unaware.... Plus.net are part of the BT Group.

Correct. But I've had excellent customer service from them - and they speak English (Well, Yorkshire, which is sort of English)

Thorpe Parva · July 22, 2016, 11:15:03 AM

I've been using BT Broadband for more than 20 years, starting initially with Dial-Up. Problems have been few & far between. I noticed recently that new subscribers were being offered a better deal so I phoned up & got mine reduced. Shouldn't need to do this but it seems to be the norm these days as I will shortly be having a similar conversation with my Car Insurer which has upped my policy renewal by around 40%.

Calnefoxile · July 22, 2016, 11:45:45 AM

Same here, been with BT for over 20 years since the days of dial-up.

Only had 1 major issue which took a few weeks to resolve and I had to get a BT Business contact I had to intervene, turned out to be a bit of hidden wire shorting my pair to another pair in the Krone block in the exchange.

I can't get Fibre as I'm directly connected to the exchange, although that didn't seem to stop BT trying to charge me more for my broadband than someone with Fibre, 1 phonecall later and I'm paying £15.99 a month for it.

Would I go anywhere else?? Probably not, mainly because I'm not going to get any increase in speed until they sort out those of us directly connected to the exchange with Fibre, and I can't get Virgin as we don't have Cable in Calne either.

Regards

Neal.