Broadband woes

[michael howarth 1Participant @michaelhowarth1]

On 2nd August I went into the EE/BT shop to renew my BT broadband/landline contract which expires on 17th August. Member of staff offers me EE broadband/landline subscription at £10 per month cheaper. Q.Exactly the same product? A "Oh Yes". Q.How come? A. "It's a competition thing." Q.Exactly the same? A."Oh yes, identical." I signed the order, got home and read the order and the package was not the same. Phoned the shop, "ignore the order, it's wrong". Can I have that in writing please? "Oh oh oh, I think i have made a mistake." Please cancel order. "do it yourself". So I did.

I then tried to resurrect my BT subscription to be met with just about every excuse and obfuscation as to why this can't be done. I have a manager from both EE and BT on the case but it would seem that my BT reinstatement is held up by something called an asset transfer cancellation. Both EE and BT say they are blameless but stuck in the middle of this nonsense I fear being cut off from telephone and broadband next week. I keep being told to wait 24 hours when it will be sorted but of course it doesn't happen. I have spoken to Ofcom but any complaint takes weeks to work through.

Any ideas please?

Mick

[michael howarth 1Participant @michaelhowarth1]

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

I don't understand what their problem is and why they can't sort it but contingency options exist depending on how much internet data and speeds you need. A temporary solution might be to use a mobile phone as a hotspot – assuming a decent local signal and realistic bandwidth rate. Otherwise perhaps look around for a whole new competitive package from a new supplier (zen intrenet) who will doubtless send you a new router – likely more modern and efficient than the one you have at the mo'
Another temporary (and officially illegal but no-one checks) is to ask a friendly close-enough neighbour if you can piggy-back off their system short term while things get sorted.

pgk

[michael howarth 1Participant @michaelhowarth1]

Thanks pgk. Unfortunately we do not get a decent signal or bandwidth, very rural. We are just on the right side of 80 years and have been forced to depend on broadband for medical/medication purposes not to mention the reliance we have to place on the service to buy anything other than basic foodstuffs. The only mobile we have is a little Nokia thing which my wife keeps in her handbag for emergency purposes. I just can't believe that some lying ********** can get away with plunging us into this situation.

Mick

[Chris CrewParticipant @chriscrew66644]

I didn't know you could go into shops and actually talk to a real person about BT phone/broadband contracts, I thought it was all done over the phone. However, I am a BT landline/broadband customer and have been since Post Office Telephones/BT had the landline monopoly and dial-up became obsolescent/obsolete all paid by DD every month. This monthly debit crept up annually until the latest rise was going to push the services up to £74.99 per month. This was the last straw because I was paying for services I never use like voicemail etc. (in fact my greeting said please don't leave a message because the line is not monitored and gave my mobile number).

As there is only one 'real' person and Mr. Patel from Microsoft who ever rings me on the landline, I called BT and stated I wanted to ditch the landline service altogether. After a short explanation from me about costs BT offered to ditch all the 'bells and whistles' associated with the landline, which they had previously told me were compulsory, and that I could have the exact same broadband service, including line rental, for £50.99 per month. However, if I wanted to keep the landline number and service this would be an additional £2 per month. It was a two year contract but I agreed to it because the VDSL broadband is pretty good, my elderly friend who resolutely refuses to call my mobile number from his landline could still ring me and it was £22 per month cheaper for exactly what I was using before. Now, the first month was indeed charged at £52.99 but for some reason this month was charged at £53.39, I don't know why this should be but I will continue to monitor the monthly DD.

There is a new fibre broadband provider that has recently arrived in the village in which I live and they can provide, apparently, a faster BB service for a lot less money and my same 'landline' service and number but this would entail the purchase of a VOIP phone. Obviously, I am obliged to comply with the 2-year contract I agreed to with BT but if they start pulling the same stunts on me they have been doing over the years I shall be moving to Quantum Fibre PDQ and hang the temporary hassle and disruption of leaving Post Office Telephones after over 50 years of being a loyal customer at various addresses.

I have just noticed that the OP says that his wife keeps a little Nokia mobile for emergency use. My elderly friend also has an old Nokia 3210 which he refuses to relinquish and refuses to believe it will no longer work soon. But please be aware that 3G services are being withdrawn progressively later this year I believe (please correct me if I am wrong) and the older phones will be useless unless they can also handle 4G. You should check whether your old mobile phone still works where you live as you may be caught out if an emergency arises and this emergency may not necessarily arise where you live but in an area with already no 3G service.

Edited By Chris Crew on 11/08/2022 07:46:46

Edited By Chris Crew on 11/08/2022 07:50:50

[lee websterParticipant @leewebster72680]

Beware the bt sales rep.

They are out for one thing only, and it isn't your satisfaction with the service. A 91 year old friend got a call from a sales woman who told my friend she could upgrade her broadband and phone line and it would save money. My friend signed up. When I checked the details for her it was obvious that she didn't need broadband as she didn't use it. It was a scam by bt. I phoned the bt helpline and spoke to a very helpful man who cancelled the broadband and refunded money my friend had been scammed for. My friends bill dropped from over £40 a month to just over £20.

Beware the bt sales rep.

[michael howarth 1Participant @michaelhowarth1]

Hallo Chris. I feel similarly let down by BT having been a loyal customer for nearly 60 years with never a missed payment. But as is often said, loyalty doesn't pay. Just hoping that a competent engineer can tell me how to get out of this impasse. The helplines do not seem to have anyone with the requisite technical knowledge. eg when the broadband "went down" a couple of weeks ago the helpline wanted to send me a PIN by email. Aaaaargh!

Mick

[Chris CrewParticipant @chriscrew66644]

Mick H, hello. If you have not already noticed it, please see my edited post regarding your wife's old emergency Nokia. If it cannot handle 4G service it will soon become useless and may already be so where you live. I should check that it still works and even if it still does I would suggest that you consider obtaining a 4G/5G phone asap, if only for emergency use, as you or your wife may get caught out when you most need it.

[michael howarth 1Participant @michaelhowarth1]

Thanks Chris. I will check it.

Mick

[vic neweyParticipant @vicnewey60017]

There are other providers that offer much cheaper options than directly with BT even though they use the same BT phone line to deliver it to you. Plusnet, Vodaphone etc all offer phone/broadband deals for £25 or less a month

Best phone/broadband deals

[EmgeeParticipant @emgee]

Chris

Over £50 a month sounds a bit pricy to me, what services are you getting for that amount of money ?

Emgee

[Chris CrewParticipant @chriscrew66644]

Posted by Emgee on 11/08/2022 08:42:04:

Chris

Over £50 a month sounds a bit pricy to me, what services are you getting for that amount of money ?

Emgee

Just basic landline service and LL rental and unlimited VDSL BB at about 55meg, I jumped at it when it was offered because it was going to be £22 cheaper than what they had originally wanted to charge me and I just couldn't face the hassle of changing provider at the time.

I had the same issue with Vodafone SIM only. They were going to increase the price to £19 per month for 500 minutes of calls, unlimited SMS and 5 gig of data. I had been paying £15 per month and rising for years. I went into a Vodafone shop, whinged about the price and walked out with a SIM only package of unlimited calls and text, 20 gig of data and EU roaming for £8.95 per month. This was with TalkMobile and guess what? This is a Vodafone company or brand that is sold in a Vodafone shop but not until it looks like you are going to withdraw your custom. You can buy TalkMobile SIM's online but not as cheap as they sell them in a Vodafone shop, evidently. It's the same with BT because PlusNet is the self same company under a different brand, only cheaper.

When my 2 year contract expires I will be looking to change. It's just the hassle of doing this that these rip-off merchants rely on. Anyway, I used the money saved to subscribe to YouTube's premium service to get rid of the adverts which is a lot better and makes all the difference.

Edited By Chris Crew on 11/08/2022 09:05:18

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

It's a messy system and huge numbers of people are being ripped off

One problem can be losing your email account, a Gmail account makes you independent from the system

I went mobile dongle with virgin, 60GB for 20 quid and have used a tesco prepay dumb phone for 5 years+

It's a real pain that BT are so rubbish, and they can be expensive

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

EE was acquired by BT in 2016 and are the same supplier. When companies merge it would be nice the process was instant, but it rarely is. The transfer of ME and MEW from MyTimeMedia to Mortons was pretty smooth, but there have been a few bumps especially with subscription renewals falling into the transfer period.

Sounds as if EE and BT are still operating as separate companies. Agreeing to a new contract for an EE package cancelled the original contract with BT and dropped Mick into a murky netherworld. Unfortunately, many suppliers put massive effort into attracting new customers and almost none into looking after leavers who hit a problem.

If it's any consolation, fixing this is likely to cost BT/EE a lot of money. Computer systems are a dirt cheap way of handling standard transactions, but horrible whenever anything non-standard has to be mended. The usual way of doing it is to manually delete the mess and start again. And this can be difficult if the computer has been programmed not to accept new sales of previous deals.

It's a mess! All I can suggest is reading the small print before signing anything. Have a check-list so the important features of old and new can be compared to be certain the new deal is sufficiently similar. (In my experience phone/network packages are all different in one way or another.)

Sometimes the easiest solution is to stay with the wrong package and upgrade it to fill the gap. Sadly the £10 saving is likely to disappear in a puff of smoke…

Real competition is a good way of keeping prices down. Manufactured competition resulting from political dogma creates a fair amount of trouble. Why are EE and BT competing with themselves? Who benefits? Certainly not Mick!

Dave

[Adam MaraParticipant @adammara]

We had a similar experience in June, our BT had gone up to £62 month, my son was paying £25 month for the basic service, But I could not have that deal! There was a new provider fitting out, offering £25 month plus various phone packages, so we signed up. The salesman failed to mention that it was not due to live until the end of this month, we would have been without any service for 3 months. My daughter suggested I tried Sky, and I have to say I was impressed, they sorted out some issues, and I got a 35Mb package for £25, plus £8 for unlimited phone calls, (Just had to plug the phone into the router, as simple as that) and they threw in 200 free satellite TV channels (but not the Sky channels, thy are extra!) Its running at 38Mb at the moment. Can't see me changing in 18 months time unless the price rockets.

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

Posted by mick H on 11/08/2022 07:32:54:

Thanks pgk. Unfortunately we do not get a decent signal or bandwidth, very rural. We are just on the right side of 80 years and have been forced to depend on broadband for medical/medication purposes not to mention the reliance we have to place on the service to buy anything other than basic foodstuffs. The only mobile we have is a little Nokia thing which my wife keeps in her handbag for emergency purposes. I just can't believe that some lying ********** can get away with plunging us into this situation.

Mick

I'm also very very rural so do understand. Not quite as old, just in my early 70's. No mobile signal here right by the house and only reliable if I cross the first field and go up the hill. As to broadband speed..well 5-6Mb is the max ever recorded but surprisingly still able to stream some movies. Here my nearest neighbour is 1/4 mile away so too far for any piggy-backing.

If you had a neighbour with a good service within 100yds then it'd likely be possible to set-up a cheap Powerline Adapter extension so long as they are on the same phase of electric supply. Even that couldn't work for me since we all have our own pole transformers off an 11K 3-phase service that crosses 200yds away from each property..

A modern smart phone is an almost must-have here as a back-up and for hose services that insist on call-backs or texts to check authorisations. My personal choice was a £200 Motorola on 1p mobile.. costs £10 a quarter and as I never use the full costs I have huge credit accumulated on the thing. But it allows me to use Internet calling indoors and act as a small screen computer within our own broadband signal area as well as being a contingency for when the landline goes down and also useful in the car – everything from being used as a sat-nav in my old jallopy to being used as a hotspot to the Tesla's computer screens. I have my wireless internet extended to both barn and hobby shed via powerline adapters (cheap enough) so that extends the wireless range outside the house quite a way..

As muttered above it’s also likely that you can get a better deal than your current BT prices if you shopped around, tell them and EE to pig-off and up and running as soon as a new router arrives by post. My choice on that was Zen Internet but another deal may suit you better.

pgk

[HowiParticipant @howi]

yes! Even at £50 it is very expensive for what you are getting, It's called a captive audiance I think.

Look around, compare prices, just because it is BT does not make it any more special than any other provider.

Having worked for BT for 33 years I was never impressed with there customer services and would choose NOT to use BT as a service provider.

Back in the good old days I signed up to Tiscali for internet services (dial up as it was then), they were taken over by TalkTalk many moons ago.

Yes! TalkTalk has had it's problems, poor customer service, data breaches etc but I decided to stuck with them when the then CEO said existing customers could have ANY new deal offered to new customers.

I have held them to it ever since, I have been paying less than £20 for fibre broadband for years, taking out a new 18month contract whenever a new deal came up, the only stipulation was that you had to have whatever deal you were on for 1 month minimum befor signing up to a new contract,

I have been on 65mb fibre broadband since it was available and paying less than £24, as soon as FTTP was available I signed up for it at 150mb for less than £30 with first 3 months free.

Their customer services has got better over the years and I have had no real service issues or problems.

The latest upgrade to FTTP @ 150mb came with a new EERO 6 router and is working really well, giving full wifi coverage over the whoile house. (I used the upgrade to FTTP to move the service access point from my entrance hallway to somewhere more central in the house).

There are lots of service providers that will offer you better deals than BT for a lot less money, it has always surprised me that people do not do their research to get the cheapest deals, service changeover for same to same is usually very quick, a change to FTTP may take a little longer but I was only without services for a very short time.

ANYONE paying over £40 should be looking at what deals are available through the comparison websites.

 

Edited By Howi on 11/08/2022 10:03:01

[Gary WoodingParticipant @garywooding25363]

I've been with TalkTalk for a number of years. I get a landline number and a 38Mb broadband service for less than £24/mth. But the landline calls are charged extra, not that I ever use the landline for making calls, its only for receiving calls, or emergencies. I use Lebara for my mobile stuff – it costs £4.99/mth and I've never managed to use up all my calls or data allowance.

I've had no problems with TalkTalk or Lebara. It pays to shop around.

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

Have been with Sky for a number of years, we get Tv, broadband and mobiles with them, problem free and when they offer new contracts they give you a choice of deals, all clearly explained, and sometimes surprisingly the price like for like comes out cheaper. The only problem we have had is intermittent poor signal for the mobiles when at home, their suggestion was to set the mobiles to use the broadband network when in the house, great solution and we now have no signal issues when at home. I realise that a lot of people recount tales of woe when dealing with Sky, but as a Sky Q customer you get priority service, our experience has only been good. Dave W

[Dave TParticipant @davet19446]

I have been with VM (and prior companies) for over 30 years – BB only is £48. The problem that I have is that all other companies can only supply less than an 1/8 of the D/L speed that VM provide, despite claims (lies) otherwise.

I'm not sure why this VM stitch-up is the case, but it is

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

You probably have a VM coax connection to your house carrying the broadband, originally installed for CATV. AFAIK VM do not have an obligation fo offer "unbundled access", i.e. to let other providers use their cable. So other providers will have to use the BT networks and ADSL/VDSL which limits the DL speed. However in some cases the other providers can use unbundled fibre access from Openreach so they base their maximum seeds on this.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

In 2017 my "old" (only about 15 years) Nokia portable phone, always on PAYG, was destroyed by water damage – only 3 years after I had replaced its battery.

Learning Orange had been taken over by EE I went to the EE shop. That talked me into a complete broadband landline and allegedly-PAYG portable contract, complete with a clumsy and basically unusable LG2017, so-called "smart", portable.

I did not realise at the time that EE was already BT-owned, pretending to be separate and probably managed separately, but one company in reality. (Like the many railway franchise badges hiding their First Group ownership.)

I began to have second thoughts, then BT Sales started saying how sorry they were to lose me as a long-term customer, which indeed I had been.

The upshot was my cancelling the EE contract and negotiating a new one with BT.

I had to pay off the 18 months left to EE; but off-set by £20: I sold the LG 'phone for £50 and replaced it with a simple Nokia one for £30, on PAYG with O2. Then had to give everyone my new number – the shops don't tell you that you can transfer it!

.

I refuse BT's blandishments to use their very expensive 'Halo' and similar. Those are for people rich enough but daft enough to watch single-issue subscription TV channels on-line at >£30/.month – while moaning about the stupidly-low £12/month TV "Licence" subscription to far greater TV + radio choice!

A measure of those services is BT's ads waffling about sports fixtures and films as if that is all anyone wants. Maybe they do, out there in We-Allsylvania.

BT did sign me to Halo, pretending it an "up-grade" or new default service, or some such lies. I managed to revert to a proper service.

'

I have BT's answering-service, but do not also pay for call-barring etc. I bought a BT 'phone that allows that, only then discovered it needs that subscribed extra and being powered from the household mains. I replaced it in its box, unused. I must try to sell it!

I think I bought it in Argos, of blessed memory.

.

Result?

– Roughly £35 / month for BT land-line telephone and Internet services that I both want and need,

– Well under £50 a year on PAYG portable 'phone calls.

As far as I can determine I would not gain anything cheaper or of better value elsewhere; and I have always found BT's sales people do care about what I want.

.

As for 3G ending, that remains to be seen. I have not received any official announcement from O2, and will not change unless and until necessary.

Post- EE and LG, I do not want a so-called "Smart"-'phone, whatever x-G. It is physically-clumsy, hard to operate, likely to have no instruction-manual, and may need a costly contract just to ring my sister (who has no land-line) one or twice a year, or send the 4 or 5 words typical of my few "txt msgs" .

Nor do I know if the number can be transferred, if it the network itself that is changing.

.

I do know 5G does not really irradiate you with Malhumours Of The Spleen and give you Cyan Molars; whatever it says on't 'Net. I am not totally technically ignorant, and can even do change-wheel sums.

Although software like CAD and MS 'Access' is largely beyond me, I used very sophisticated, computer- and manually- driven, electronic signal-analysers etc. at work. The computer programmes were all locally-written and not always very helpful. One, in BASIC, even needed you to change test-frequency by editing a command-line, not normal entry.

Of course you needed know what you were testing, including having to understand logarithms; but those instruments were easier to use than most modern domestic electronics like "smart"-'phones and many µ-wave ovens – and were even supplied with real instruction-manuals!

.

Progress is merely chronology; but are we really advancing as a society, or only in electronics and complexity?

[Ex contributorParticipant @mgnbuk]

EE are a company I had dealings with once and will not deal with again.

I got a 2 year data-only deal from EE for use with a tablet while away from home in the motorhome. The actual mobile data service was pretty good, but I was less than impressed when the monthly charge went up less than 3 months after the contract started (buried in the small print was an annual RPI + increase not mentioned by the EE sales person – until I complained in store ).

Getting out of the contract was a nightmare. The window to cancel and not have them roll the contract over was very tight – too early and after working through the interminable "press, this, press that – then wait" customer service number they would not do anything because I was "too early". Miss the window (only a week or so before the end of the initial contract IIRC ) & the contract would automatically be extended by a year. I am pretty certain that was before EE's involvement with BT, who are another shower I would not choose to deal with again.

I have been quite happy with Virgin (originally NTL World ) cable broadband & ended up with phone & TV as well, as all 3 services as a "bundle" worked out cheaper than internet only + BT landline. 2 coax cables into the property, one for broadband & the other for TV / phone. The TV recorder box is better than the stand-alone Freeview unit I had before & was added at no extra cost. Virgin support (on the odd occasion I have needed it ) via an Indian call centre has been straightforward & has always resolved the issue I got in touch about. I am too far from the exchange to get anything comparable via a phone line. Another cable provider dug up the neighbourhood (again ) a year or so ago to offer competition to Virgin, but their rates are higher for a slower service despite being "cable to you door".

I was a Virgin PAYG customer, but that service got canned last year after they merged with O2. Currently on a Lebara £5 a month rolling plan (no contract). £5 gets 3GB data, 1000 UK minutes, 100 International minutes & 1000 texts a month via Vodaphone & includes roaming at no extra charge.

Nigel B.

[Chris CrewParticipant @chriscrew66644]

I know what is it like 'falling between two stools' when a computer system cannot correct an obvious operator error. I have two Halifax credit card accounts, one that you earn cash back on (not a lot, but I would rather it be in my favour than theirs) and the other branded Clarity which does not incur transaction charges when travelling abroad, so each card has its own advantage. I have used these two cards appropriately for years. However, I was purchasing a ship load of railway tickets via Splitticketing.com when I noticed the Halifax card was expiring on that very day and no new replacement had been received. I called the Helpline and the operator told me a new card had been sent but that it must have been lost in the post or intercepted so he would just cancel the old card a/c number and send a new one out. However,……………

I explained that I needed the old card to remain active for the rest of the day so that I could collect the train tickets from the machine at the station as you need to insert the card you purchased them with to identify yourself, so would he please just hang fire while I collected the tickets and I would call back later when they were in my possession. Yes, I know you can have electronic tickets sent to your phone to print out or show the train conductor. I do this when it's only a simple journey that is involved, but when its multiple split journeys and for more than one person it is more convenient, to me at least, to have the paper tickets rather than endlessly scrolling through the phone to find the correct journey. So, I immediately set off on a 30 mile round trip to the nearest station with a ticket machine, because EMR has failed to install a machine at our nearest station, only 7 miles distant, despite it being in their franchise contract terms to do so. Anyway, I got the tickets and duly called the Halifax Helpline back and would they now cancel the card, please? Yes, certainly, no problem a new card will be in the post to you within a few working days. Great, so far so good, or so I thought.

When the new card arrived it was for the Clarity account which had also changed to a new account number, not the Halifax card, so back on to the Helpline with another long wait to explain what had happened. Ah! I see what you mean said the operator, perhaps you should just wait and see what arrives in the post? Well OK, if you say so, but nothing arrived. Back on to the Helpline with another long winded explanation but still nothing happened. So, let's go to the nearest Halifax branch, 10 miles away, and see if we can sort this out over the counter. Yes, of course we can help you! Ah! we see what you mean, sorry but you will have to call the Helpline. Grhhh!

No, I won't call again, I will write to them in the hope that the letter will be passed to their technical services people who will be able to identify this 'corruption' or bug in their software, but no contact email or address is showing on the Halifax banking website, it's all just phone numbers. Well, I managed to locate a prepaid Halifax Card Services envelope from the days when I sent a cheque to pay down the balance before I moved to bank transfer so if nothing happens between now and Monday I will post it off but I don't hold out much hope. Perhaps the best idea would be to settle the outstanding balance or transfer it to the Clarity card if this could be done FoC and close the original account. The trouble is I will lose my £20 cash-back balance and possibly a cash-back account may not be available to new customers, who can say. It is so frustrating as I needed the card this weekend to pay hotel and restaurant bills, I can still settle them with my other credit card but earn no cash back on several hundred pounds of usage.

I have tried the administrative services on both the online banking portal and the phone app, but it initially just defaulted to the Clarity account and now defaults to 'sorry, there is a problem'. Yes, I actually knew that already!

[Mark P.Participant @markp]

I changed from BT to Vodafone for my broadband and home phone mainly because there was no line rental with Vodafone, my monthly phone bill is around £36 I get unlimited download too. My mobile has been PAYG with Vodafone for 25+ years.

Regards Mark P.

[Author]

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