Post Office Broadband & Home Phone

jeremygiles

Ypaymore wrote: »

BT Landline with vitually free caller display. £10.50 + 2 off peak calls 9p= £10.59p a month.

PO Landline with Caller Display £9.99p + £1.75p= £11.73p a month.
.

mmm....or alternatively

BT landline £10.50 + 1000 off peak calls = £55.50
PO Landline £9.95 + 1000 off peak calls = £9.95

You're making a massive assumption that one would actually want to have caller display... I personally know just one person who has it on their home phone, so it's hardly a reasonable comparison to make. The example I gave is for the basic line rental, which I believe is what the vast majority of people would take.

jeremygiles

billsavings wrote: »

Surely to get the cheap O2 Broadband you have to have a O2 Contract which will cost you at least £15 a month on top of the £17.45p.

I do have an O2 broadband contract but I got 12 moths free line rental on a 12 month contract for that. Prior to that I had UK Online broadband at £9.95 a month which still made my phone & BB under £20 a month.

If you don't have an O2 contract, I still think there is no comparison to be made between the BT line rental/broadband combo and PO line rental/broadband combo. They are exactly the same product, just sold under different banners, it's just that one of the two costs a lot less and offers a lot more than the other.

Hungerdunger

exprog wrote: »

It comes with a free modem. Does anyone know whether this is okay, or should I be thinking about getting one of those router thingies?

If you have just the one computer, and you can easily run a cable from your main phone socket to the modem, and then from the modem to your pc, then you should be fine.

The main reasons for a router are to connect two or more machines to the internet, to make a connection where it is impractical to use a cable,or if you had a lap top, to allow you to access the internet from anywhere in the house.

exprog

Hungerdunger:

Thanks for that, I've read a lot of posts talking about routers but that's the first time I've seen an explanation of what a router is actually for!
:beer:


Actually, my main socket is in the wrong room for the pc. When BT installed the phones they ran a line back out from the main socket and along the outside wall where it (i.e. the line) splits in two to access two other rooms. I've dialled the sound test thing, which sounded fine, and the line speed test gave 5.5. So I think I'll just try the modem and hope it works ok. I only use it for email and surfing.

exprog

Well that didn't last long. I have now cancelled.

When I phoned on the 5th I spoke to Person A. All my details were spoken, repeated and read back.

Today the welcome pack arrived. My surname was misspelt. Consequently the same mistake existed in the email address they had set up for me.

So I phoned the customer support 0845 number. I got a menu option and chose the option for raising queries about an account. I spoke to Person B. First she told me nothing could be done until the 'go live' date; then she checked and decided she could amend my surname and then told me she had amended it. She then said she could not change the email name but would transfer me to tech support who would be able to do it.

After being put into a queue for about 20 minutes or more I spoke to Person C, who sounded exactly like Person A. He told me it seemed my surname had not been altered. So he then changed it, or so he claimed. He also said that he could do nothing about the email address as I was speaking to the wrong department. All he did with queries was to take details and arrange for someone to call back. He further said that I needed the Broadband department and that he would transfer me directly i.e. not put me in a queue.

He then transferred me back to the menu option I had started with. :mad: I chose the same option as before and got through to Person D. He said my name had not been changed. He said he would put me on hold for 'one minute'. Four or five minutes later he reappeared and said he had 'refreshed' his screen and my surname had actually been changed. He also said that there was no way that the email address could be corrected - I would just have to keep it but I could set up the other four addresses myself.

He said he could not suggest anything else. I was able to make an alternative suggestion so I cancelled the order.

So, I will have to pay for a call that lasted about 45 minutes and have found that they cannot rectify a basic mistake made by them and their only suggestion is that I just put up with it. :doh:

Somehow this reminds me of the postings about TalkTalk i.e. okay if it works but watch out if anything goes wrong. :wall:

Itchy_Niagras

I recently signed up with the Post Office's Telephone/Broadband Plus package online, which seemed initially to be fine. I received written confirmation almost immediately, stating that my services would switch on December 4th - even BT wrote to me confirming the same thing.

Since then however ... nothing! My broadband remains on its present connection, my telephone is the same, I've not been sent my wireless router kit, customer service ignores e-mails, and the telephone support just asks the nature of the problem, then places you in a queue - and never responds again.

Presumably they've gone the same way as Talk Talk did at the beginning and have been so inundated with new subscribers, that they simply can't keep up. But now I have no idea where I stand.

Is anybody else experiencing this with Post Office?:(

amcluesent

Ironically the Post Office 'service' is based on a branding of BT Wholesale, which is the same infrastructure BT Retail relies on so fundamentally nothing has changed Pop along to your nearest picket-line, perhaps someone from the post office there can help.

creditcardshuffler

I signed up with the PO broadband and Phone Package (I get a staff discount) The service has been live since the 13th of November and I have only had one evening of disruption to my service (my neighbour who has BT broadband was also off at the same time) Speeds are above their original estimate of my line speed and on the only occaision that I had to call the support (when my line was down) I received a call back from a support person who talked me through many tests etc. All to no avail but at least I was speaking to someone and attempting to resolve my connection problem. When I found out that my neighbour was also off I decided it was something to do with their authentication protocol thingies and just re-tried later.So all in all pretty good service so far.

My main bugbear with the PO service is their online customer account service. It is absolutely useless. I can access my emails and upload files to my personal webspace but that is about all everything else is not working I cannot even access my personal webspace. I have emailed their support many times and they have only replied to two and they took over a week to be answered.

So my Verdict is

• Yes its a good deal :rotfl:
• UK based support
• Good line speeds
• Easy setup (the router comes preconfigured with your username and password)

• Poor Online support :mad:

exprog

I now seem to be having some difficulty with BT!

BT wrote to me about my changing to the Post Office. The letter said that if I cancelled the order I should phone BT before 4.00 pm on the 17th to ensure my phone service continued. I phoned yesterday and they told me I would have to phone back!

They said my cancellation should appear on the BT computer and they had to give that time to happen. They said I could check with the Post Office to make sure the order was cancelled. Then I could phone BT on the 17th before 3.00 pm (!) and, if notification had still not appeared, they would then intervene to maintain my service. I did phone the Post Office yesterday (another five minutes on their 0845 number) and they eventually said the order was definitely cancelled but they appeared to know nothing about cancellations appearing on the BT system.

I feel a complaint to Ofcom brewing. :mad:

Guess what? A package from the Post Office has today arrived by special delivery (via the Post Office) presumably containing the modem for the order "definitely cancelled' a week ago. :doh:

(And in the meantime my Geoisp dialup has gone back to be completely hopeless!!!)

:wall: :wall: :wall:

exprog

creditcardshuffler wrote: »

• UK based support

Yes, but Irish. Nice people on the phone, but the accents?. A bit better than struggling with Indian people who speak English as a fifth language but not much.