can i claim compensation?

leelee1981

my biz broadband isnt working, apparently it may take 24-48 hrs to get up and running again. without the net we cannot work. bt told me that i cannot get compensation for loss of earnings....is that true?

thanks for all advice

mrJ_5

Look through the terms and conditions and see what they say

Nilrem

If you're using a residential package, the most compensation you'll normally get is pro rata based on the cost of the package (so if you're paying £15 a month and it's out for two days you might get £1 refunded), unless they are feeling generous and give a bit more (maybe a tenner of the next bill for example).

If you are using it for business and your business depends on it, you should be on a business package which will cost more, but usually have much better compensation and quite often fall back options to keep you connected (for example one common fall back used to be an 0800 dial up account for if the BB went down).
However the amount of compensation will depend on the package and SLA stated in it - the cheaper the package the lower the SLA*.

Basically with ISP's (and almost anything service related) you get what you pay for, and a basic business package might not be much better than a good residential one in terms of compensation (if the business is reliant on the internet connection the package should reflect that - but it will cost)



*It's a bit like web hosting, you can get a cheap package for pennies with almost no SLA, a better one for a few hundred a year with an SLA that might call for problems to be fixed within 12 hours, or a fully managed all in with strict SLA (redudant servers and <1 hour limit for downtime etc) but it'll cost many thousands a year.

mrJ_5

OP says he has "biz broadband" - business broadband, so he should look in the terms or contact the supplier to find what he's entitled to