Baffled changing Internet and home phone

cepheus

I currently have my home telephone line rental with Pipex and am thinking of changing my Internet supplier (Fast) to a Internet Telephone bundle possibly O2 or Plusnet without interruption.

Will I need be able to change straight over without involving BT first or paying re-connection charges?

My understanding is that when I swapped to Pipex from BT it was more than just Bill changing. For example if I have a line problem it is Pipex engineers not BT I phone up.

However I phoned Plusnet today and they say my line is already registered with BT and there will be no problem swapping over.

Pipex say

"I understand from your email that you are looking to leave us and move to (xyz) To do this you will need to contact our cancellation dept and you will need to obtain a new Line from BT as you currently are paying us for the Line Rental. Once cancelled the account will automatically credit for part month payment."

johnnyblount

Hi ,

I havent had a problem moving any of family to Plusnet from any ISP so far Plusnet being BT tend to be pretty good at checking all this out for you so you could do a trial sign up and it will tell you.

Dont forget they are doing a 3 month free internet deal still if you are refered by an existing member and use the liknk and details , at least if there is a sign up cost that covers it but none of my family and friends have been charged yet for a deal

macman

If your line is already LLU'd by Pipex then you can't switch direct to another LLU service such as O2, you will have to take your line rental back to BT first on a 12m 'return to donor' contract, but there is no charge for this. Once you are back on BT, you can take your broadband with your preferred supplier. You do not neeed a 'new line'.
This does not apply with Plusnet, as the service is not LLU.
Neither Pipex nor any other iSP have local telephone engineers, all work on the local loop is done by BT Openreach regardless of the company you take your service from.

cepheus

Thanks Macman, I don't think my telephone line is anything to do with LLU, but I could be wrong. Why do you think it is? Internet with Fast certainly isn't.

I did have Internet with Pipex at one time but changed about 3 years ago, too slow. After going to Fast, my speed increased from about 1Mps to 2Mps, but now about 1.6Mps and reasonably constant, no shaping. My telephone rental was with another company, but Pipex took them over.

My options are

1. Stay with Fast (the company) Internet and pay over £23 a month for this slow line +£10 to Pipex telephone. Fast are supposed to be one of the best in the business but they rely on unreliable BT retail with some outages, and are only staffed during day.
2. Change to Fast's Internet fibre option, at 30Mb/s at around the same monthly cost, but almost £100 upfront costs for Router and connection. This should be straighforward though.
3. Change to Plusnet. They say they can get 3Mps . I could bundle with telephone for less than £20 a month total and Plusnet will pay everything. Their service rating is not highly rated though.
4. Change to Plusnet's 30 Mps Fibre option, which is only slightly less expensive than Fast's fibre, but without the upfront costs. I'm worried about problems during changeover though, especially with the service.
5. Change to O2. They have 3Mps speed on LLU and lowest cost with line and bundle (about £16 all in), but there is some confusion whether there is a connection fee. O2 service rating is quite good. O2 LLU system is the only one which gets me away from BT lines which I suspect are less reliable.

Note the fibre options above are not direct to the house. This is something to do with changing something in the 5 mile remote exchange I think (hence the slow speeds), and are fully reliant on BT.

macman

All the FTTC options you are looking at are just resold BT Infinity services.
If the line problem is on the local loop or down to exchange distance, then switching to an LLU provider will make no difference.
If you have O2 LLU as an option then that is probably your most economic alternative to FTTC-there is no connection fee if you are not on LLU at present-just put your number into the 02 checker and it will tell you.
Suggest you do an exchange search on https://www.samknows to see what your other LLU options are.

deklan99

Just a minor correction since I'm just passing through. "Infinity" is BT Retail's name for their FTTC product. BT Wholesale supply the basic FTTC product, other ISPs can configure and name it as they please. No-one resells "BT Infinity".
Please do some research before spouting more nonsense.
Oh, and O2 are partial LLU so moving to them from full LLU is simple, they charge about £40 - no new line required "For some existing landlines, we'll need to convert the line to the right kind of technology - if this is required, there'll be a charge of £45.96"

macman

I'm well aware that Infinity is BT's pet name for FTTC, it's a little tedious to describe it as a 'resold BT Fibre To The Cabinet' service, especially as the OP is not fully aware of the distinction between FTTC and FTTH.
Your point about O2 LLU is more helpful.