BT Broadband - any reason not to?

[Tim.]

We don't have broadband at home, nor do we have a fixed line at all, although there must have been one there once. We do have Sky but only for TV.

I'm thinking about getting BT's most basic broadband package - 10GB per month for £10 (+ £15.45 line rental) - plus £40 Sainsbury's gift card & BT Sport.

Going with another provider will likely incur a connection/re-connection charge of £130 to get the fixed line active, whereas BT will waive this fee if supplying broadband.

I'm aware BT's customer service is likely to be shocking, but I'd hazard a guess that's the same with all providers.

So, why would I not go with BT? Any advice most welcome.

Thanks

 

[JP83]

We've got their unlimited package, and have to say the service has been great. It's been in since March, having moved from a very poor previous service.
Not had to deal with customer services at all in that time, but the new routers are great. Plus BT sport is pretty good too (Also, ESPN).

 

[tanker]

We have bt from sky 2 months ago! Impressed, speed is good and bt don't throttle my connection. We r in a rural area.

 

[Thrill]

Don't go with BT because, they're overpriced and they have pathetic Indian customer support.. just like TalkTalk. With Sky, you get unlimited broadband for £7.50 a month. Sky have some good offers out at the minute. Moved to Sky around 4 months ago, recommend it to everyone.

 

[TTrev]

^^ as above, never had a lenthy stable connection in nearly 5 years ... they cant fix it .. its fine for 3 months then plays up

dealing with them is like pulling teeth and repeating yourself every 3 months is rather wearing , one of their engineers is one if my customers and Ive been advised
by him that changing to someone else wont solve the problem as its a line issue!

 

[Thrill]

It might not be a line issue, it could be a problem with some of that LLU equipment at the exchange. Move to Sky, they'll sort you a nice Openreach Engineer out. They're not reluctant to do so, as other providers are.

 

[The Boosh!]

We have just got BT Infinity, up to 75mb broadband. I was a bit worried to begin with as I read a lot about BT throttling speeds, however I've downloaded quite a lot of stuff and I've never personally had a problem with speeds. Everything is super quick. The times i've rang support to change account details etc, they've always been UK call centres. Can't complain really.

 

[Tim.]

Don't go with BT because, they're overpriced and they have pathetic Indian customer support.. just like TalkTalk. With Sky, you get unlimited broadband for £7.50 a month. Sky have some good offers out at the minute. Moved to Sky around 4 months ago, recommend it to everyone.

I appreciate what you're saying but BT Sport is swaying me, but the main consideration is the £130 fee I'd have to pay if I went with Sky.

I figure I'll go with BT and if it's not up to scratch then I can switch after 12 months.

 

[RTSportdTi]

I know this isn't a BT/Virgin Media comparison thread, but here goes.

We have the upto 75mb unlimited BT BB.
Here's the results

I knew we wouldn't reach the full 75mb, so I'm not bothered.

We used to have Virgin Media upto 60mb but the upload was only ever 1.5mb/3.0mb so no where near as good as the BT, and they'd throttle our speeds at peak times to 50% so we'd only see 30mb when we wanted to use it.

We've never had any problems with BT, the connection is much more stable than with Virgin and everything seems to run so much quicker.
The speeds seem so much faster than Virgin (even when Speed test was showing we were getting 60mb) but I think it's because Virgin kept cutting out and dropping speeds every couple of seconds! (this happened in 3 separate houses whilst with virgin, all in different areas with different equipment)

I can't fault BT at all, we've been with them since January, and we'll stay with them for a long time.

I will point out, that we never received our Sainsbury's gift card, even though it was advertised at the time.

 

[RTSportdTi]

just found this from our old Virgin

The BT ALWAYS feels faster even though it's indicated as being slower.

It's most noticable on youtube videos.
With BT, the video loads pretty quickly and uniformly along the whole video.
On Virgin, it used to stop and stutter at random points while the video needed time to load!

 

[Jamie86]

Went with BT Infinity about a month ago.. gone from 1mb with Sky to 30+MB with BT no complaints here especially as Sky said 1mb was as fast as we could get from anywhere!

Actually only complaint is the missus because of the extra sports now!

 

[botfch]

BT for 10 years here no problems to report

 

[Tim.]

Thanks all, appreciate the comments!

 

[Ed.200]

Got BT infinity at home. Internet has been fine, foods speeds at all times. Their TnC's do state that they can throttle your speeds during peak times if you are using to much. But usually they just seem to load balance than cut your speed to very low. If you download outside your limits they may cut your speed, but send a email warning you first.

Only issue we had with them is when our phone line in the exchange magically became 'unplugged'. I reported it using the online system on Wednesday evening. But they stated a 3 day SLA excluding weekends. Which meant we were without landline till the following
Monday, which is the only disappointing service I have experienced with them.

Others may have a cheaper line rental but a more expensive price so it all evens itself out.

 

[JonnyK]

Got BT infinity at home. Internet has been fine, foods speeds at all times. Their TnC's do state that they can throttle your speeds during peak times if you are using to much. But usually they just seem to load balance than cut your speed to very low. If you download outside your limits they may cut your speed, but send a email warning you first.

Only issue we had with them is when our phone line in the exchange magically became 'unplugged'. I reported it using the online system on Wednesday evening. But they stated a 3 day SLA excluding weekends. Which meant we were without landline till the following
Monday, which is the only disappointing service I have experienced with them.

Others may have a cheaper line rental but a more expensive price so it all evens itself out.

do you have the totally unlimited infinity package? shouldnt be any throttling during peak times or when using p2p at all!

 

[Sam]

I have BT unlimited in my flat and its fantastic.

Plenty of juice to stream on the Xbox whilst surfing the net and downloading at the same time.

Really good and worth the money in my opinion.

 

[The Fatty]

switch from virgin to BT. BT is far better than virgin on price/speed/reliability and I get the free wifi usage

 

[Ben]

I know BT and TalkTalk and pretty similar. Does anyone use TalkTalk's fibre package? Should be picking up the keys to the new place this week and want to get a decent internet in place.

 

[seb]

Had sky tv phone and broadband. Moved to bt infintiy as sky wouldn't budge on their price, plus would only be 40mb. It worked out we would pay almost £70 a mth.

Moved to bt for tv, broadband and phone. Tbh, the whole move and since has been superb. Get a rock solid over 60mb d/l and 15mb upload.

Plus paid line rental all upfront so saved an extra £3 a mth there too.

Bt was vastly cheaper (paying about £35 a mth all in including line rental. Almost half of sky) and for me the service so far is miles better.

Sky have been f**king moronic for years. Took 2 mths to get my £25 they owed me too since they annoyingly over charged me for the last month, even though they said they wouldn't.

Would always avoid sky now as i think they are basically crooks. f**k sky.

Bt ftw!

I stream hd football and can still use the internet however i like.

 

[car.crash]

I've tried most broadband providers and they all had issues and the crap phone line was the cause yet none would sort it.
went with bt and got infinity and not had to call them once and the speed is great. I'm very happy with them.

 

[JonnyK]

I know BT and TalkTalk and pretty similar. Does anyone use TalkTalk's fibre package? Should be picking up the keys to the new place this week and want to get a decent internet in place.

lol BT and talktalk are FAR from similar.

 

[Ben]

lol BT and talktalk are FAR from similar.

Explain? I was always under the impression TalkTalk was part of BT?

 

[ThomasBrentnall]

Explain? I was always under the impression TalkTalk was part of BT?

Talktalk is part of AOL

 

[Timmsy]

Another BT Unlimited user here, get a constant 74mb (pretty close to local box) never had an issue at all with the fibre. I would recommend highly for a home user.
Had a disconnect on the phone line a little while back fixed within the 3 day SLA, barely use the phone though so not much of a problem.

I work for a business telecommunications company so the grade is totally different but still would recommend BT for home use.

 

[Gally]

Go with Plusnet, BT coverage and speeds but you get a decent bit of customer service. 5 years i've been with them and they are by far the best company i've dealt with in regards to BB or phone etc.

 

[cava83]

Go with Plusnet, BT coverage and speeds but you get a decent bit of customer service. 5 years i've been with them and they are by far the best company i've dealt with in regards to BB or phone etc.

+1

 

[-J-]

Bit of a bump.

Had BT Infinity installed today and getting reasonable speeds that should improve a little more over next few days according to the engineer as the connection stabilises.

 

[The Boosh!]

Yeh ours got much quicker after a week or so.

 

[Chapperz]

Ha mine actually slowed down!

 

[dk]

Yeh ours got much quicker after a week or so.

How have you got infinity into that building?

 

[The Boosh!]

How have you got infinity into that building?

I've got no idea - I think maybe there was a demand from everyone in our block to have it installed. We're on the 50mb package. Admittedly it is rare I see 50mb through wireless, but it's a consistent 35 mb which is quick enough!

Can't you get it in your block then? Who are you with?

 

[Advikaz]

Currently got BT, it's pretty good to be honest. Moving house in the next few months though, not really sure what to go with :/

 

[Tom]

Talktalk is part of AOL

No it isn't. Talktalk used to be part of carphonewarehouse, it's now on its own.

they bought AOL uk. Fibre wise they don't do bad deals and it's an identical service to BT.

but they are hideously bad at customer service.

 

[Tom]

How have you got infinity into that building?

its all all about the cabinet. Most infinity installs are FTTC not FTTP.

 

[ThomasBrentnall]

No it isn't. Talktalk used to be part of carphonewarehouse, it's now on its own.

they bought AOL uk. Fibre wise they don't do bad deals and it's an identical service to BT.

but they are hideously bad at customer service.

My bad, wrong way round.

 

[Adam]

No it isn't. Talktalk used to be part of carphonewarehouse, it's now on its own.

they bought AOL uk. Fibre wise they don't do bad deals and it's an identical service to BT.

but they are hideously bad at customer service.

I'll think you will find BT won the Daily Mail Wooden Spoon award for Customer Service in 2013... TT weren't even in the nomination list

 

[Adam]

Sky were also in there.

 

[Wilkeh]

BT are billiant for gamers. If you call them they will turn interleaving off which not many other ISP's will. It basically gives you better pings etc.

 

[Tom]

I'll think you will find BT won the Daily Mail Wooden Spoon award for Customer Service in 2013... TT weren't even in the nomination list

I didn't say BT were good. Took me nearly 3 months to get my line working with BT, but it wouldn't have ever happened with talktalk.

Presumably you work at the old Opal office? is it the TalkTalk business team now?

 

[Adam]

Yeah... I work for TTB, which once was Opal as a brand but was re-alligned with the TalkTalk name so it was a complete group covering Consumer, B2B and the Network as a whole!