BT Vision and Infinity package - activation charges.

[PaulSB]

I'm not in a position to discuss the ins and outs if different providers but can help with BT. We live in the sticks and don't have many options. We have BT Total Broadband and BT Vision. I'm very pleased with both and happy with the service. Had broadband for years and Vision for two

Initially I signed for up for one year Vision at £14.99 including the box and three subscription packages. After the year I switched to a £4 / month on demand package. I rarely used the £14.99 package so on demand is the way to go and we now pay for the very few films we watch.

Basically we now own the box and use that for recording and iPlayer etc for all the web based TV. I suspect I'm paying for something I don't need and must investigate that but the point is the BT Vision works very well and that was your query.

Regarding charges I don't know the score but you mention your equipment is very old. Initially we had problems with speed and image freezing. As we had a modern socket with everything plugged into it I assumed the equipment was OK. I did get frustrated with this until I realised the modern socket was wired to another socket with GPO embossed on the casing!!!!

I called BT and was told if the problem was in the house the call out would be £100. My argument was my line was coming in on a GPO socket designed when broadband was a dream and BT should not sell product unless sure the customer's equipment was fit for purpose

The Open reach guy arrived, I showed him the socket. He smiled and then replaced all the house sockets free if charge.

If your equipment is old you could argue they need to supply incoming services to the correct standard to match the package you are buying

We occasionally get speed issues, usually if the laptop and two iPhones are on the web at the same time as trying to watch iPlayer. Speed will always be an issue in our area

 

[derrick]

BT will rip you of.

 

[MacB]

if you're not expecting to save anything and are already with Virgin, may I ask why the switch?

 

[mchunt]

We live in the sticks and don't have many options.

All ISP's can offer service everywhere that BT Retail can so there are always other options. In rural areas the equipment in the exchange may be provided by BT Wholesale but it has to legally be shared on an equal basis with BT Retail and all other ISP's - however the links to the internet, traffic management and support will be different and that can make a huge difference to the service.

 

[PaulSB]

mchunt thanks I shall look into that

 

[Over The Hill]

I'm not in a position to discuss the ins and outs if different providers but can help with BT. We live in the sticks and don't have many options. We have BT Total Broadband and BT Vision. I'm very pleased with both and happy with the service. Had broadband for years and Vision for two

I am also out of town and can only get a service via the existing phone line, but how does that restrict your options within that range? Surely you can choose who the line is connected to at the other end?

I am careful with money but you can buy something too cheapo - and I see BT and their service as that. Had nothing but problems with them (5 call outs and no line for 2 weeks). I just think they are too big and dont care.

With everything relying on a bit of copper wire I want a decent service looking after it. Perhaps £10 a month more is worth it.

 

[PaulSB]

I am also out of town and can only get a service via the existing phone line, but how does that restrict your options within that range? Surely you can choose who the line is connected to at the other end?

First I'm sure plenty can contradict me on this and I freely admit to being very inexperienced in this area.

We do get the occasional, very occasional offer, to switch providers. My position is I don't know much about it, the companies making the offers always seen a bit iffy and don't fill me with confidence.

I've read of numerous examples where BT is the line provider with another company being the service provider. The difficulty with this arrangement is the user often seems to find the providers blame each other when things go wrong - I don't need that hassle so it's a string influence in my decision to remain with. BT.

I am careful with money but you can buy something too cheapo - and I see BT and their service as that. Had nothing but problems with them (5 call outs and no line for 2 weeks). I just think they are too big and dont care.

With everything relying on a bit of copper wire I want a decent service looking after it. Perhaps £10 a month more is worth it.

I'm quite sure why you've commented to me on that. I fully agree it is always worth paying for service and didn't comment in cost. Other than £4 / month for Vision I dont know what we are charged. I've no idea if BT is cheap of expensive it just works very satisfactorily for our house.

I feel the other thing which discourages me from changing provider is contained in your post. 5 call outs and no line for 2 weeks is the sort if horror story I read about from other providers.

What does get my goat though is having to pay BT line rental that I feel is iniquitous. Probably irrational on my part but hey ho. I'd love a solution where we could dump the landline and rely on mobile for broadband and calls. Perhaps 4g could do that? Unsure really.

I suspect all phone companies rely on customers like me who lack the knowledge to move away with confidence.

 

[PaulSB]

First I'm sure plenty can contradict me on this and I freely admit to being very inexperienced in this area.

We do get the occasional, very occasional offer, to switch providers. My position is I don't know much about it, the companies making the offers always seen a bit iffy and don't fill me with confidence.

I've read of numerous examples where BT is the line provider with another company being the service provider. The difficulty with this arrangement is the user often seems to find the providers blame each other when things go wrong - I don't need that hassle so it's a strong influence in my decision to remain with. BT.



I'm not quite sure why you've commented to me on that. I fully agree it is always worth paying for service and didn't comment on cost. I don't know how much we pay for the service other than the £4 Vision charge. I've no idea if BT is cheap of expensive it just works very satisfactorily for our house.

I feel the other thing which discourages me from changing provider is contained in your post. 5 call outs and no line for 2 weeks is the sort if horror story I read about from other providers.

 

[mchunt]

I've read of numerous examples where BT is the line provider with another company being the service provider. The difficulty with this arrangement is the user often seems to find the providers blame each other when things go wrong - I don't need that hassle so it's a string influence in my decision to remain with. BT.

You can get both the phone and broadband provided by people other than BT Retail and this prevents one blaming the other, if you get your phone line from your broadband provider it also gives the provider a wider range of tools to fix your problem quickly.

BT Retail has to deal with Openreach in the same was as any other provider so there is no advantage staying with BT Retail for line rental, at work we have an uphill struggle trying to get people to realise this.
One of our biggest problem with solving faults is getting different offices within BT Wholesale or Openreach to pick up the phone and speak to each other, their individual offices & divisions do not have a hotline between themselves.

If worried about reliability of phone line make sure you get at least Care Level 2 (sometimes marketed as Premium or Business lines), the basic care level doesn't guarantee a quick fix although in most cases which are exchange based the fix is within a few hours. With broadband you can get a higher level care level which means BT Wholesale will look at the fault out of hours (and within 20 hours) rather than just during the working day (and within 40 hours).

It is annoying that ISP's can't provide people with broadband only without having to have the line rental charge.

 

[Over The Hill]

First I'm sure plenty can contradict me on this and I freely admit to being very inexperienced in this area.

We do get the occasional, very occasional offer, to switch providers. My position is I don't know much about it, the companies making the offers always seen a bit iffy and don't fill me with confidence.

I've read of numerous examples where BT is the line provider with another company being the service provider. The difficulty with this arrangement is the user often seems to find the providers blame each other when things go wrong - I don't need that hassle so it's a string influence in my decision to remain with. BT.

I'm quite sure why you've commented to me on that. I fully agree it is always worth paying for service and didn't comment in cost. Other than £4 / month for Vision I dont know what we are charged. I've no idea if BT is cheap of expensive it just works very satisfactorily for our house.

I feel the other thing which discourages me from changing provider is contained in your post. 5 call outs and no line for 2 weeks is the sort if horror story I read about from other providers.

What does get my goat though is having to pay BT line rental that I feel is iniquitous. Probably irrational on my part but hey ho. I'd love a solution where we could dump the landline and rely on mobile for broadband and calls. Perhaps 4g could do that? Unsure really.

I suspect all phone companies rely on customers like me who lack the knowledge to move away with confidence.

McHunt makes the point that BT as phone service provider is a separate company from the line (which is Openreach - which is a BT company). The regulator has separated them.
Much then gets down to the deal between the service provider and openreach.
BT don't bother and give a really bad service. I suspect the bulk cheapo alternatives also are on a cheapo service with Openreach.
Now if you have a business line then you get a better service, with priority call out etc. I suspect the quality end of the market have a higher level of service from Openreach on a different deal. That is what I want from them.

My feeling is that I will find an alternative to BT because BT do not deserve my business, it actually costs me a bit more but the service has been better. With Zen I get a phone line, really cheap calls and broadband in a package (business package). The broadband is fairly expensive but the phone is very cheap to make up for it. Broadband has been really fast and 100% reliable for 12 months I have been on since switching. Perhaps it costs me £100 more per year than Talk Talk or whatever but for various tecy reasons it is a better and more reliable service.
I work from home and need a good line to link up to my office. I have my home phone, home internet (sometimes with three computers logged on), work link up (vsdn or something) and even my work phone line all running great on 2 miles of copper wire. Before it used to stop working once a week and slow down sometimes. Now it is 100% reliable and copes very well.
It is the same bit of wire and all I see is a different name on top of the bill but somehow it just is a million times better!

 

[MrJamie]

I stick with BT because their actual connection available has always been great. I'm currently on the full fibre version of Infinity (doesn't use phone line at all), on a profile of 320Mb. The download speed is amazingly fast from big servers, where most updates take just a few seconds to download. The peering and latency is awesome for gaming and was decent on their ADSL too. TV is being streamed all the time, im watching Sky F1 online while typing this and I can stream the youtube quad HD demo easily. No limits and the peak time p2p shaping don't seem particularly harsh.

The issue I have is that they ruin it with awful support and the inability to communicate between departments. When something does go wrong you have to push your way through various levels of support, only to be passed around and fobbed off, or promised a call back or visit that never happens. Apparently because their call centre staff have time targets, so they dont bother logging your call or following it up properly and they have too many different order systems that seem to clash. My neighbour's currently on my wifi because the BT engineer didnt show up for his infinity install for the 2nd time in a row and he needs it for work. If you do have problems with BT and can get online look up the BT forums, you can quite quickly get to a UK support team that fixes things in a reasonable timescale.