Locked into higher price with BT fibre?

rozevans

Hi there

We have started a contract with BT a few months ago for broadband, but since we started fibre has become available.

They want £49.99 a month for this (even though we will still only get 10mb mind) . We are currently paying £24.99 for 1mb which is mad, but Plusnet and other providers will also offer this fibre service for £24.99 a month instead of the BT one at twice the price.

If we were a NEW customer with BT signing up to fibre today it would only be £29.99 a month.

This seems totally unfair?

Thanks for any advice anyone has

Neil_Jones

Where abouts in the country are you and what BT package are you on to be paying £25 a month for 1Mb? Are you sure about that speed, 1Mb isn't a typo on your part?

rozevans

Hi Neil, we are in Cornwall. We get guaranteed speeds of 1-4mb, we generally get 1.5-2.5. At one point we were getting 0.5 but they did something to fix it apparently. Still, we can barely get 2 computers online at once.

£24.99 per month was the price of their 'standard' broadband package at the time. It was a bit more than other packages for our area, but as we knew the speeds would be low we wanted to have good customer service and for some reason BT seemed good... we had a bad experience with PlusNet last year but I think we should have gone with them.

Now we find out (I'm sure they weren't the ones to tell us, but maybe we missed the email) that fibre has been enabled at our cabinet, but its a way away so we will still only get 10-15mbs. However, this would be a big change for us so it's what we need.

However they are insisting there is nothing they can do about the £48.99 price for this fibre service, even though if we signed up as new customers today it would be £29.99 from them. Bearing in mind fibre wasn't available when we originally signed up this seems very unfair, we're locked into a contract with them. Of course we could cancel but would have to pay 8 months contract plus cancellation fees which would be around £250!

poppasmurf_bewdley

I'm in exactly the same position as you with BT. I renewed my basic broadband in February, when I was lucky to get 1mb speed in my rural location.

But since then I've moved back into town, with both normal and fibre cabinets just around the corner. I now get 17-18mb speed at all times, but as I've just got Netflix, Amazon Prime and NowTv instead of the full Sky bundle, together with a brand new 4k 55 inch TV, I thought fibre would be a better bet.

I rang BT last week and tried to do a deal which including upping my BB to fibre AND getting my son a fibre connection at his new home, as one package on a good deal.

BT wouldn't budge on the standard £49.99 for mine, or the £29.99 for my son's, so I did a deal with Sky for my son, and I've told them I'll be looking elsewhere when my contract is up.

BT did say, however, that if I contacted them when my contract had less than 3 months to run, they should be able to offer a much better deal. I'll not hold my breath!

rozevans

poppasmurf, I keep seeing people saying customer retention isn't important to them anymore, I have to agree!

If it helps you, Sky seem to be offering a £100 credit to people switching before their contracts are up.

It still doesn't work out cost effective for us I don't think, but thought it might help you!

macman

It's not intended to be 'fair'. Since you are still in minimum term, they have no incentive to discount the price at all. Wait until you are out of minimum term and give your notice-then the price will tumble. Or just switch to Plusnet, who are invariably cheaper, for the same service on the same network.

onomatopoeia99

macman wrote: »

Or just switch to Plusnet, who are invariably cheaper, for the same service on the same network.

Plusnet FTTC connections are usually 40/2 rather than 55/10, but they do use the same backhaul (BT 21CN). I don't know if they share external links and peering with BT Internet these days (they never used to, but that may have changed in recent years).

rozevans

Our update is that we experienced below minimum guaranteed speeds again so coupled with an official complaint about the upgrade price we asked to leave without fees and were eventually told that we could. We signed up with NOW TV as there is no contract, BT rang two days later from the 'resolutions' department offering to waive our cancellation fees again and finally offered us the faster broadband (10-15mb) for £1 cheaper than NOW TV. Shame it has to get to this stage for someone to take you seriously

We're sticking with NOW TV as there's no contract and you get TV Entertainment pass thrown in with the £29.99 price.

poppasmurf_bewdley

poppasmurf_bewdley wrote: »

I'm in exactly the same position as you with BT. I renewed my basic broadband in February, when I was lucky to get 1mb speed in my rural location.

But since then I've moved back into town, with both normal and fibre cabinets just around the corner. I now get 17-18mb speed at all times, but as I've just got Netflix, Amazon Prime and NowTv instead of the full Sky bundle, together with a brand new 4k 55 inch TV, I thought fibre would be a better bet.

I rang BT last week and tried to do a deal which including upping my BB to fibre AND getting my son a fibre connection at his new home, as one package on a good deal.

BT wouldn't budge on the standard £49.99 for mine, or the £29.99 for my son's, so I did a deal with Sky for my son, and I've told them I'll be looking elsewhere when my contract is up.

BT did say, however, that if I contacted them when my contract had less than 3 months to run, they should be able to offer a much better deal. I'll not hold my breath!

Further to my post above. Since writing this, I had an 'offer' on my BT Home Page as a thank you for being with them. They were offering Infinity 2 Fibre Broadband for £31.99 for 18 months with a £25 connection fee. I've taken them up on their offer and it's being installed on Friday.

I'm not worried about the length of contract as I'm sure they will have a price increase within that time so I'll be able to get out of it should needs be.