BT Broadband / telephone dilemma

frivolous_fay

Hello, I've got a bit of a mixed-up question. Here's our situation:

We're currently paying £29.99 p/m for some souped-up speed BT broadband. (I'm not much of a techie)
Along with that, we pay £31.50 per quarter for BT line rental (the bill says BT Together Option 1, but I'm not really sure if that's a good option or not)
We pay a few quid a quarter for the handful of calls we make from the landline. (we try to use the free calls allowance on our mobiles where possible)

Here are my questions:

- As a BT broadband customer, am I stuck with BT's line rental? If not, can I get a better deal? I feel like we're paying through the nose for no reason.
- Am I on the right tariff for low users? A typical quarterly call charge is about £3.50.

Thanks in advance for any help.

lofty_2

If your in a bulldog or cable area then you can move from bt over to them, I believe their cheaper, Im not in a cable zone or bulldog so dont know what service is like but i hear from people that its usually very good.

headcovers

I'm pretty sure that you if you want ADSL Broadband (what you're currently using) with any provider then you will need to retain your BT line (and hence the BT line rental).

The other ways to receive Broadband is via cable or via satellite. Check here to see what is available in your area.

I'm a low telephone user and I am on BT Option 1 and my monthly bill (minus BT Broadband) is about £20, so your seems a little high if your calls are as low as you say.

Do you need to be on the highest BT Broadband Option? Do you download a lot of media files? I only ask because I was on the highest option for BT Broadband and when I checked I saw that my usage was under 6GB per month and hence Option 2 at £24.99 was a better option.

Many on here will advise you that BT is not the best option as they cap your downloading. There are a number of other cheaper options for Broadband and you will find a lot of advice on the Techie forums, if you decide to look into it.

headcovers

lofty wrote:

If your in a bulldog or cable area then you can move from bt over to them, I believe their cheaper, Im not in a cable zone or bulldog so dont know what service is like but i hear from people that its usually very good.

They used to be good until they got bought out by Cable & Wireless.

They got so bad that Watchdog investigated the problem last year. See this report

frivolous_fay

We've been pretty satisfied with the BT broadband service and don't really have much inclination to switch... ntl, for example, wasn't available in our street when we moved in, and I don't really want to go through the hassle of switching to them now just because they've started putting crawly flyers through our door 4 years later!

On the basis that we're fairly happy with BT broadband (and we're planning to move house during the next year) I feel like switching broadband would be more aggro than doing something about the phone bill. For example... we have an adsl line put in by BT. What happens to that? We have a BT frog modem that doesn't belong to us. We'd have to return that.

I think it's the speed rather than the download limits that the b/f likes about the current deal. (It's for gaming rather than downloading.) We've never had a prblem with download limits.

Perhaps I'll take a gander at BT's site and see if they have any nifty bill-cutting ideas.

headcovers

If you're happy with BT, then stick with them. I'm the same. Been with them for ages and very happy.

However, if its just the speed your BF requires and not necessarily the download limit of 20GB (that's what you've got now with BT BB Option 3) then you could shave a fiver off straight away.

If you did move then all you would need from BT would be your MAC code (which you can apply to BT for and they are obliged to give you). There's no need to remove your installation at all, the new provider will take over and if BT gave you a free router with your deal when you signed up that is yours as well.

But if you're happy as you are, just reconsider which BT option is best for you to see if you can save a little money.