BE technical support - any good?

esuhl

I'm thinking about subscribing to BE's 24Mb/s Unlimited service, but can't decide whether to tie myself in to a 12 month contract.... or whether to pay extra for a 3 months contract instead (£24 setup + £2.55/month).

BE get some pretty good reviews generally, but the real test of an ISP is when something goes wrong!

So... can I ask whether anyone has had to get their technical team to resolve a problem? Were they technically competent and helpful? Did they keep you up-to-date and make sure that the problem had been fixed?

Any comments would be really appreciated!

kwikbreaks

Have you ever seen a post where someone is berating Be and bewailing the fact that they can't leave without penalty?

Check their T&C carefully - I'm sure that at one time it was possible to "buy out" for £50 but by the time they'd unbundled my exchange O2 had bought them out and were virtually giving away what amounts to almost the same product so I went with them instead.

GetRealBabe

Bearable. (Minor delays, having to chase up, etc.)

Hi

I've been with Be a couple of years and have contacted technical support about 8 times (this can by done via a freephone number or submitting a support ticket. My problems have been resolved efficiently and within a reasonable time. There is also a brilliant user forum full of knowledgeable members and a member of Be staff.

You might find this useful: http://beusergroup.co.uk/


GRB

esuhl

kwikbreaks wrote: »

Have you ever seen a post where someone is berating Be and bewailing the fact that they can't leave without penalty?

Oh dear! I haven't seen any "how do I void a Be contract" threads, but I have read their T&Cs. Apparently it costs £40 to cancel their 3-month contract, but you have to pay the full subscription fees to cancel a 12-month contract.

Thanks for your comments, GetRealBabe - I hope the fact that you've had to contact them so many times doesn't mean that the service itself has been a bit iffy!

Woby_Tide

Great. (Competent, helpful and speedy!)

been with them for 3 years now and had to ring them a couple of times, mostly because I preferred using my own router originally so hadn't set theirs up. If you really can't decide go for 3 months initially. The cashback or referral bonus should cover most of the startup costs i.e. £40 Quidco

kwikbreaks

esuhl wrote: »

Oh dear! I haven't seen any "how do I void a Be contract" threads, but I have read their T&Cs. Apparently it costs £40 to cancel their 3-month contract, but you have to pay the full subscription fees to cancel a 12-month contract.

I clearly didn't remember the buy out conditions correctly - sorry.

I didn't expect you to have seen any "how do I get out of this contract" threads because in the main the Be service is spot on from what I've read.

O2 had a short sticky patch after I'd been with them a few months and as the network is the same I assume Be suffered too. O2 had been getting spectacular growth so the network was running pretty warm. Then 3 weekends on the trot there were fibre breaks in London which caused quite widespread slowdowns - my own almost ran as slowly as the service it had replaced managed at its best. They added capacity and there has been no repeat.

A 12 month contract is always a risk with any ISP but I risked it with O2 and I would with Be too based on what I've seen in a number of forums.

GetRealBabe

Bearable. (Minor delays, having to chase up, etc.)

esuhl wrote: »

Oh dear! I haven't seen any "how do I void a Be contract" threads, but I have read their T&Cs. Apparently it costs £40 to cancel their 3-month contract, but you have to pay the full subscription fees to cancel a 12-month contract.

Thanks for your comments, GetRealBabe - I hope the fact that you've had to contact them so many times doesn't mean that the service itself has been a bit iffy!

Hi

I contacted them about my router continually restarting and received a replacement. It's a lot better. Couple of times had problems with my network adapter and once about my exchange Albert Dock.

Compared to the stuff I've read on the ThinkBroadband ISP forum I've not had many problems.

GRB

esuhl

Thanks all - I'm relieved to see that no one (yet!) has said that the technical support was awful. I think I've been psychologically scarred from my experience with Tiscali and couldn't bear to go through the same experience again!

So... I've gone for the money-saving option of the 12 month contract (saving £24 setup and £30.60 subscription in the first year), and nabbed the £40 cashback from Quidco too (thanks, Woby_Tide!)

kwikbreaks

I seriously doubt that you'll regret that choice. ADSL is remarkably reliable anyway.