BT Infinity Estimates and tied contracts

jeff_mcf

Anyone know when an estimate is an estimate and when it just becomes sham marketing?

I signed up with BT for 'unlimited' broadband on an 18 month contract in June 2011 - at £28 per month. Expensive, but I did so because I wanted superfast broadband (BT Infinity) which was listed under 'When can I have it?' as 30th September 2011. In very small writing at the end of the terms it did state that this was an estimate and subject to change.

However, come the week before the 30th September and it slipped to 31st December. Then 31st March. Then June, then September 2012 and now 31st December 2012. Always slips a week or so before the 'estimate'! I now know this has been happening for atleast 2 1/2 years.

In this time, as a Sky customer, I could have had unlimited Sky broadband for £7 per month. Infact, had the estimate for BT Infinity said '2013 at the earliest' I would never have signed up and saved over £378 during the length of the contract (I can't move until after December 2012).

I suspect BT has never scheduled the work for my road (and a few neighbouring ones) so can this really be counted as an estimate? The exchange itself has been done years and people 1/4 mile away are enjoying 40Mb Broadband as I type.

Has anyone else been fooled by false promises from BT for superfast broadband?

clausbrown

Its not the road where the work takes place, Its the green cabnit that the line are fed to from the exchange, somewhere close to this they install a new green cabnit, just alot higher. That is the fibre cabnit, so the fibre is run from the exchange to this cabnit. No work is done down all your streets, as the firbe is the linked to the smaller green cabnit and then the engineer will link you up to this in the cabnit

curchep

I've had exactly the same issue - BT said the Infinity service would be available on a certain date, and 3 or 4 days before its gets pushed back 3 months to the end of the next quarter.

I complained to BT and received the following (standard?) response:

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Hello Mr XXXX,

Thank you for your email.

I am very sorry that the date has changed for the installation of infinity.

Sadly we cannot provide a confirmed date for when this service will be available to you.

We are trying to roll out fibre to as much of the country as we can. As a public company we are obliged to firstly focus on the areas where we can make an economic return and we do announce new phases of this work every four months or so.

In addition to that, we work with the government and local authorities to enable areas that otherwise would not be possible and we would hope to be able to provide Infinity to more than 90% of the UK.

We cannot control the obstacles that are part of us providing this service. Installing new cabinets for Infinity require planning permission and this is outside of our control.

The cabinets required for the Infinity are provided and maintained by Openreach. New cabinets require planning permission and we are working with local councils and planning authorities towards having as many cabinets as possible installed and upgraded to allow Infinity to be provided.

Planning applications can take time to go through and there is an element of cost involved also.

I assume you have registered your interest on Infinity availability on our website so that you can be made aware of the availability for your area as soon as it happens.

You can register you interest for Infinity on our website at https://www.bt.com/infinity

By registering your interest on the website, this ensures you will be contacted once the service is confirmed as available for you.

Best Wishes

BT Digital Care Advisor

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I'm not hopeful! Unfortunately I'm not in a cable area otherwise I would leave BT in an instant.

jeff_mcf

I'm aware the work doesn't happen down our road, but a road 500m away has 40Mb broadband and has had for a couple of years or more.

Our road, and a couple around us have not been linked up. I think significantly there are no business premises on any of these roads. A business park - 30 meters from my house, but serviced by a different road - does have high speed internet. That's how close this has got to us.

However, BT 'advertise' the date that we can get it which fooled me into signing up. I'm now stuffed paying £21 more per month than I need to when clearly they have never had any intention of meeting their 'estimated' dates.

Can this be regarded as false advertising or should 'estimate' be allowed as an advertising mechanism no matter if there is no attempt to ever meet that estimate as long as you state it might be subject to change.

Gordon_Hose

BT haven't been upgrading all cabinets within a town. It all depends on projected uptake of Infinity. If they deem those cabinets to be low uptake then they won't get upgraded unfortunately. Now the government have told them they need to concentrate more on rural areas, so you'll be in for a long wait probably.

BT didn't FOOL you into signing up with them, you did that of your own accord. There is no pre-requisite to be with BT when they enable Inifinity at the cabinet as you can just move over to BT just as easily when the time comes.

I am with Sky, my Infinity date has been pushed out until Dec 2012 from March to June and onwards. When (if) my cabinet is eventually upgraded for FTTC, Sky will begin offering their own fibre product. So I'll stick with Sky until then and make a decision.