BT Infinity & Anytime Calls package - cold call

J2010

Hi folks, I was just wondering if anyone might have some advice or information on the following please as I'm not sure if I should go for this or not, it's a pretty good deal I think, but lots of people have bad reviews about BT Infinity including a family member.

Basically, BT rang me today about this package, I currently have my broadband with Virgin Media at £26.00 per month for 33MB, It's fairly steady with few problems, the odd buffering issue but it's never ever capped.

Now, my parents pay BT approx. £180 per quarter for their phone line which gets used regularly but I wouldn't say overly used.

BT rang us up and offered us the following;
Unlimited / Uncapped 79-80MB Broadband
Unlimited Anytime Calls to UK Landlines, 0845 & 0870 Numbers
Half Price Mobile calls at 5p per min, with a 15p set up fee?
BT Sports 1, 2 and ESPN through our Sky Box
All for £46.99 per month (line rental & VAT included), with free installation and a new router for £6.95

My worry is the fact that BT's broadband is fibre optic to the street box, but it's copper from the box to my home, I did ask about this and was told by their employee that 79-80MB is what I will get in my home even with the copper wire. Whereas Virgin is fibre-optic to the router I believe? I've read many reviews about people supposed to be getting 40MB and more, but they only ever get 0.9MB! I've read many people having issues and having to pay extortionate call out fees to get their "new" services up and running? I have however checked it on the Infinity Checker and my phone number does state and estimate of 79-80MB... estimate!?

I'm also wondering about their bills, at the moment my parents pay quarterly via the Giro slip at the bottom as they don't have direct debits set up... to me looking at the bill, there are loads of little BT add ons, some of which I now cancelled like Caller Display, 1571, but there are some other fees, I have asked and was told there would be NO additional fees or hidden extra payments required.

I'm just curious to know if anyone else has this deal, particularly in Northern Ireland and what their thoughts might be?

Or if any broadband experts might be on here, is there a maximum speed a copper wire can transfer Internet data? They may well tell me on the phone 80MB, but the site states it's an estimate, so legally they could just give me a few MB's, or could they?

Any help on this would be great, as I would hate to leave Virgin and then have constant issues with BT or just downright not get what they've promised.

Thanks
J

TadleyBaggie

I have BT Infinity 2 and they estimated I would get 78Mbps and I get....78Mbps. So if the estimate says 79-80 it's a good bet that's what you will get.

VisionMan

I also have BT Infinity 2 and they estimated I would get 54Mbps and I get 54Mbps. It rocks.

Pincher

I have tried both the Virgin SuperHub, which is co-ax "to the router", and BT Infinity FTTC.


There are too many stupid things that can happen, to both ways of getting broadband. Virgin Media put in a splitter for the co-ax in the drop box outside the house, because I had one wall socket for the cable TV, and another wall socket in a different room for the SuperHub. The broadband would stop working every afternoon for longer and longer durations, but the cable TV still worked perfectly. Long story short, and it was a long story, the engineer found the splitter was at fault, and it was because the afternoon sun heated it! The TV data stream had better error correction, so the TV set top box kept working, whereas the broadband transmissions just got corrupted.


So, yes, the co-ax is better if you are miles from the nearest BT cabinet, but if the Indian customer service won't pass you to a real technical person when there's a genuine problem, you are still stuck.

iniltous

VM isn't fibre to your router, it's similar to Inifinity (FTTC) in the last leg from the street cabinet is not fibre but copper cable

J2010

Thanks for the replies, are any of you in N.Ireland? I'm not sure what way the lines are in England but where I live it's all fibre optic to the exchange boxes, and then copper wire from those boxes to each house, which I believe is what causes the problem.

My brother said a BT technician told him he couldn't possibly get anymore than 32MB or so on a copper cable, and had to downgrade again as a result?

anyone know if there's any truth in this, I just don't like sales people telling me what I want to hear, let's face it they have targets and don't really care much about what speed we get.

Pincher

J2010 wrote: »

My brother said a BT technician told him he couldn't possibly get anymore than 32MB or so on a copper cable, and had to downgrade again as a result?

I am on BT Infinity up to 40Mbps, but actually get 35~37Mbps, and I am less than 100 meters away from the BT cabinet. If your brother is a long way away, 32Mbps doesn't sound bad.

forgotmyname

Im with plusnet. BT under another name and UK call centres.

Estimated 68mb, Actually getting 73mb. Max on ADSL 4.5mb on a good day.

Very happy with my speeds.

littlereddevil

How can you check your speed?

J2010

littlereddevil wrote: »

How can you check your speed?

You can use BT's own speed checker at;
http://speedtest.btwholesale.com/

or http://www.speedtest.net

J2010

Just an update, I went ahead and got the BT Infinity 2 package in, I'm in Northern Ireland and they quoted me 79-80MB, I'm getting roughly 75MB which is not bad... the technician checked it with his own BT Handheld computer and he said it was coming through on that wired at 80MB.

It can take 10 days to level out so I'll post again later with an update to see if it changes dramatically.