BT Infinity Broadband - stay away!

aneesh04

Just switched to BT Infinity broadband. Unfortunately, I took the limited option as we do not download a lot but wanted the faster speeds. A big mistake. Regret going to BT. Issues that we have faced so far:

1) Installation could not be done on the first day the engineer turned up. After sending an email and text every day for a week prior to the engineers visit to make sure that we had things ready it turned out that BT did not have their house in order and couldn't install it on the day. They had issued a notice to my previous broadband provider to disconnect, so ended up without internet for a week. BT provided a BT wifi-voucher but that was a world of pain as well with expiring vouchers, dropped connections, etc.

2) Once the broadband was installed, we stopped getting signal in parts of the house. Never had a problem with my sky router. Called BT only to be told that we should go wired. Wifi has a limited range. I would like to think that my house is massive and wifi doesn't reach all places but unfortunately not. With the previous sky router, we would get wifi 3 houses away. Now - not even within the house. Tried to play around with channels but no luck. Finally ended by buying an extender!

:eek:

3) Usage cap: We used up 70% of our monthly limit in 2 days without downloading any movie, any video. Just normal browsing. Called BT and they said that they can't provide details of usage. If it says 70% then it is 70%. If it crosses the 40GB limit, then we have to pay £5/5GB. At this rate, potentially looking at a bill of about £200/month for normal browsing. This can't be right!!

4) Tried to upgrade to unlimited only to find out that it means taking out a new 18 month contract without any offers. I had signed up to BT Infinity 1 with a 12 month contract at £15/month (£3 off regular price). If I switch to any one of the unlimited packages, then the £3 discount will not be available and it will have to be a fresh 18 month contract. HOW ABSURD! Never had that problem with any other provider. They always had an option to upgrade to a higher package for the remainder of the contract.

Over the last month, I have spent over 12 hours on the phone to BT, have spoken to at least 10 different departments and still an unhappy customer. So regret going to BT. Counting the days when the contract will end and I can move away.

Regards
Aneesh :mad:

cajef

aneesh04 wrote: »

3) Usage cap: We used up 70% of our monthly limit in 2 days without downloading any movie, any video. Just normal browsing. Called BT and they said that they can't provide details of usage. If it says 70% then it is 70%. If it crosses the 40GB limit, then we have to pay £5/5GB. At this rate, potentially looking at a bill of about £200/month for normal browsing. This can't be right!!


Aneesh :mad:

You have used 28GB in two days someone is downloading large amounts to use that and that is more or less impossible to do just normal browsing.

I have unlimited fibre and only use approx. 50GB a month and that includes browsing and downloading from BBC iPlayer and some other sources.

Sooler

Is it per calendar month? So your monthly allowance starts again today?

Was the 70% the total for last month, including broadband and infinity?

brewerdave

There have been many threads on here about BT's "doubtful" usage figures - seems to be an underhand tactic to get customers to upgrade to "unlimited".
As an example of "normal" usage I'm going to use ~ 35GB in total this month with my ISP.Plusnet,on ADSL Max, BUT I've watched about 10 hours of live Sky Sports via SkyGo on my connection plus I've downloaded a couple of programmes on BBC i-player!!
When I was on a limited tariff of 10GB I never exceeded it with normal browsing including using i-player and a bit of You tube!

kwikbreaks

For the sake of an extra £5 imo it makes no sense to go for the limited service. Doubly so when going over can cost a lot more than £5 and the limit is low if you intend to do any streaming/large downloads.

BT_company_representative

Hi aneesh04,

This doesn't sound good at all. I'll be happy to take a look for you. Drop me an email with the details. Contact details in my profile.

Cheers

David

aneesh04

brewerdave wrote: »

There have been many threads on here about BT's "doubtful" usage figures - seems to be an underhand tactic to get customers to upgrade to "unlimited".
As an example of "normal" usage I'm going to use ~ 35GB in total this month with my ISP.Plusnet,on ADSL Max, BUT I've watched about 10 hours of live Sky Sports via SkyGo on my connection plus I've downloaded a couple of programmes on BBC i-player!!
When I was on a limited tariff of 10GB I never exceeded it with normal browsing including using i-player and a bit of You tube!

Brewerdave: BT need to provide details of usage by day and type so that the customer can do something with it rather than just a pretty bar saying that you are about to contribute to their massive profits.

Sooler wrote: »

Is it per calendar month? So your monthly allowance starts again today?

Was the 70% the total for last month, including broadband and infinity?

Sooler: Luckily it is by month. Our broadband was installed on 19 July. We are now in to a new month and I am checking usage twice a day. Great use of my time.

cajef wrote: »

You have used 28GB in two days someone is downloading large amounts to use that and that is more or less impossible to do just normal browsing.

I have unlimited fibre and only use approx. 50GB a month and that includes browsing and downloading from BBC iPlayer and some other sources.

Cajef: I agree but have no way of finding out what is going on. The router is new and doubt someone has hacked in to it that quickly. Had never happened to anyone in the neighbourhood. In our house, I am the one who downloads if anything. My son watches videos on youtube and wife just does normal browsing. We download iPlayer about twice a month, which would be about 5GB. Last month - not even that. Just doesn't make sense.

aneesh04

kwikbreaks wrote: »

For the sake of an extra £5 imo it makes no sense to go for the limited service. Doubly so when going over can cost a lot more than £5 and the limit is low if you intend to do any streaming/large downloads.

kwikbreaks: Agree but was put off by the 18 month contract. I had thought that if it happens, I will upgrade my current contract and pay the difference just like Sky or Plusnet or Virgin. BT want a fresh contract for 18 months. Not going to stay with them that long.

aneesh04

BT_company_representative wrote: »

Hi aneesh04,

This doesn't sound good at all. I'll be happy to take a look for you. Drop me an email with the details. Contact details in my profile.

Cheers

David

David: I have posted it on the BT website. Had sent BT an email about a week ago asking for details of usage but haven't heard back. The lovely staff in the call centre just say that is the way it is and I can either upgrade or pay extra. Since this was the first month, the billing department agreed to waive off any excess charges. However, after seeing what happened, I have limited the amount of browsing we do in the house. Family not happy about it and I am stuck between a rock and a hard place.

kwikbreaks

You aren't going to use 40GB by browsing. In the past I've browsed most of the day for 5 days a week on a 3GB 3G dongle contract - average use for 20 days browsing was in the order of 2GB. What chews up the bandwidth is video - either streaming or downloading. Long term music would add up but not to 40GB a month.

Strider590

I'm with BT, have been for many years.

Some of your issues are BT's fault, some of them are not.
The range issue is because of people sharing broadband with neighbours to save money, many ISPs have secretly started cracking down on this by reducing the range of the routers, is that their fault? or is it the fault of other people?

I "upgraded" to infinity about 9 months after they installed it to my area (it's just like with mobile phones, NEVER jump to the newest thing without giving them time to pick out all the bugs and teething problems).

WiFi has always been a problem for me, mostly because my neighbours are idiots who switch off their routers every day, causing them to change WiFi channels and mess up my own connection on a daily basis. Made worse by some of my hardware hating certain channels.
I ended up going with a wired connection as an alternative to sending a snotty letter to my entire street.

New router would be a good bet, you should never use the router supplied by any ISP, certainly not if you value your privacy and data security.
It's like buying a house and not having the locks changed.

I'm fully wired through a top end Asus gaming router, no port blocking, no cheeky open ports (Hello BT i'm talking about 161 and 1024) and no security holes.