Great Hunt: What stops you switching broadband?

esuhl

Mountain_Man wrote: »

If we can transfer phone companies and keep the same number, why doesn't this work for email addresses?

Email providers could implement it if they wanted to, but it would be unbelievably complicated and costly, requiring international co-operation between companies operating on tight margins. In practise, it will never happen.

Most people who are "stuck" with an email address are not large businesses, they're individuals, so there isn't a significant financial incentive to allow this.

Also, anyone wanting to keep their email address could have registered their own domain, so this isn't a significant problem for businesses.

The best thing you can do is register a domain now, and spend the next year reminding everyone you know of your new address. Eventually you'll be able to leave your ISP and will never be in the same position again.

Devonian_Rodders

Inconvenience of notifying all contacts of mail; changes.
The uncertainty of actual speeds, since providers use the phrase "UP TO" which bears no relation to actual.
Currently with BT who advertise crazy prices for Infinity often with "9 month contracts" none of which is available to me. Typical example is 38 mps Infinity at £10 oe less monthly, against my basic broadband which manages arounds 9 mps (on a good day) if I am lucky.
Changing to infinity may not produce the "up to" speed, since the lines are partially copper which reduce the speed.
The regulator needs to look at the promised speeds quoted by ISP's to see if they are fairly quoted.

druss_the_axeman

What stops me switching is lack of choice, we've no fibre to choose from and every deal available is always for fibre, no discounts if you can only access a 4mb ADSL line. Even the Giganet people couldn't drum up enough interest to put in fibre round our way. Despite the Government giving millions of pounds to BT to pay for them to install fibre it appears that all BT did was declare extra big profits and pay extra big dividends to push up it's "notional" value in the stock market and increase their own pay checks. Why doesn't the government actually check what BT spends the money on. We were promised fibre at the start 2013 then it was the start of this year now it's back beyond 2016 and it'll never get done because there's no pressure to make them spend the money they were given on what they are meant to.

onomatopoeia99

Mountain_Man wrote: »

If we can transfer phone companies and keep the same number, why doesn't this work for email addresses?

There is no mechanism in SMTP that would allow this to work in a standard way, there are no similarities between email and voice telephony.

Individual providers could configure forwarding to your new address (would you pay your old provider for this on an ongoing monthly basis in this case?) but it would be at their discretion.

Chino

esuhl wrote: »

Registering a .co.uk domain costs about £4 a year and 1&1 offer the first year for 99p, so it's not expensive.

What about the cost of paying someone to run a mail server?

SnowTiger

Chino wrote: »

What about the cost of paying someone to run a mail server?

Some registrars offer free mail forwarding. And some hosts offer free hosting, including POP3, IMAP and SMTP.

I pay £3.30 a month for unlimited web hosting a email.

honeyrich

I am just about to switch broadband providers however have just been informed by BT that despite only using 6 months of the 12 month upfront line rental deal that I won't get a refund of the unused 6 months payment(some £85+).When I rejoined BT I had to sign up for an 18 month contract,plus pay 12 month's upfront line rental.After 12 months in order to continue receiving reduced line rental charges I had to pay a further 12 months up front.Now my 18 month contract is about to expire I am switching supplier in order to gain a better deal(just like Martin keeps telling us to do!)but now learn I will not get an £85 rebate.In effect I have been conned into a 24 month contract.BT are a very devious operator.BT tell me I won't receive a rebate because the reduced line rental is for a 12 month contract.......this despite paying upfront in good faith.Do I have any chance of getting what I believe is a genuine expectation of a rebate?

honeyrich

Totally agree with you.
I am in a similar position and what makes it worse is that the road which runs parallel to me has had fibre connections for the last 6 months.
When I contacted BT to enquire when fibre will be available to me I was told,"don't know and can't give you any firm date".
It is far too easy for BT to fob us off with these types of replies,but who can we turn to to put any pressure on the money grabbers otherwise known as BT.

jenniewb

I don't really have an issue preventing me from switching so do switch with the end of every contract unless the service is especially good for me to stay around and pay extra.

But I don't switch with ease- I worry when I do that I'll be cut off for a few days between services if a date is wrong and as I have no mobile signal where I am, a call or using a dongle for internet access isn't an option. I have no neighbours whom I am on close enough speaking terms who have internet access (the ones I am on speaking terms with either rent their flat out and are never there, or are eldery and have only a landline). I would be pretty stuck if my internet/phone connection was cut and as with Talktalk in the past it was frequently cut for reasons even they did not seem to understand. I just don't want a repeat of this.


I have also tried to sort out my fathers ISP and phone line provider. Even when I've done all the leg work, he wont switch. Its really strange and I'm not really 100% why this is after talking things through- I wonder if it's that frame of mind where older people just don't tolerate any change and certain types of people can be very stubborn or if it's for a reason I don't fully understand, eitherway I had managed to sort out my father's ISP with Talktalk which he selected because at the time they were the cheapest, only for them to be too difficult to communicate with and he also struggled with poor connection and regular cut outs of services without reason.
It then took me about a year to convince him to move services elsewhere to a more reliable service where if there was a problem there was a UK call center to talk to as he struggled with the Indian accented call staff at Talktalk. I have no idea why it was so difficult for him to switch- he went from complaining about Talktalk without being asked first, yet on being suggested another company to move to, it was a flat 'no' before he'd even given it any consideration, on being asked 'why' he would just say "because." Really baffled me, I did manage to switch things with his agreement and still don't really understand how I managed that!

apski

I'm with VM and so BB is linked to TV and phone. Our TIVO box has lots of stuff recorded that would be a pain to lose, so that means I'd need a large saving to make switching worthwhile.

As it is I just call VM every time my "promotional offer" ends, quote the best alternative I've found and they match or better it.

All these messages about losing my email address just make me glad I've always used internet based address - previously hotmail, now gmail.