BT Monopoly on my Postcode

iniltous

rnem170 wrote: »

I'm in the same boat with my mother (in her 70s). She lives in a new estate in Amesbury (been there 2 years). All the properties only have FTTP.

BT want to hike the price to £51pm (inc calls). The best I could negotiate is £46pm for an 18 month contract. This is taking the p***. The person at BT practically said it's her own fault for moving to a property with FTTP. She can only have Fibre.

The Sky checker seems to say they can fit a line for £20. Maybe I'll go for that since it will probably cost them £200,000 to lay it.

Update: Might get her to dump her landline and switch to a mobile only. Can get 20gb per month on a sim only deal for £13 ish with unlimited calls/texts too. I have an old 4G phone she can use....

I think you will find that if the address is FTTP only ( a new build with no pre existing copper pair service ) then the Sky checker is wrong, and they will not be able to 'insist' on a copper pair service,.
TBH , your mother has what the entire industry winged at Openreach for not providing more of, a full fibre connection, but you area good example of you cannot please everybody , as you obviously want a copper pair and the 'cheapest' deals that can be had on a copper pair, do you think Openreach should have the expense of providing 2 networks , copper for the cost conscious and fibre for those that want speed, do you think you should get all that for 30p a day ( that's what OR get for a copper local loop)
If it did cost £200,000 to get a copper pair, that cost would be Openreach's expense , not 'BT'
If you are upset at the lack of choice on FTTP, then you need to look at the cheap providers you want to use ( like TT, Vodafone etc) as the product is available for them to sell, they chose not to offer it.
Sky who previously were not interested, have said they intend to start selling OR FTTP , but no date or prices yet

Marvel1

PixelPixxie wrote: »

The switching sites don't recognise my postcode or say broadband isn't available in my area.

Instead of using the website, phone them.

littleboo

iniltous wrote: »

I think you will find that if the address is FTTP only ( a new build with no pre existing copper pair service ) then the Sky checker is wrong, and they will not be able to 'insist' on a copper pair service,.
TBH , your mother has what the entire industry winged at Openreach for not providing more of, a full fibre connection, but you area good example of you cannot please everybody , as you obviously want a copper pair and the 'cheapest' deals that can be had on a copper pair, do you think Openreach should have the expense of providing 2 networks , copper for the cost conscious and fibre for those that want speed, do you think you should get all that for 30p a day ( that's what OR get for a copper local loop)
If it did cost £200,000 to get a copper pair, that cost would be Openreach's expense , not 'BT'
If you are upset at the lack of choice on FTTP, then you need to look at the cheap providers you want to use ( like TT, Vodafone etc) as the product is available for them to sell, they chose not to offer it.
Sky who previously were not interested, have said they intend to start selling OR FTTP , but no date or prices yet

BIB, under the USO then I think that anything > £3400 would be charged to the customer. Its an interesting point though, should/does the USO still apply to fibre only new builds? It's counter productive to encouraging OR to invest in FTTC if it does.

iniltous

littleboo wrote: »

BIB, under the USO then I think that anything > £3400 would be charged to the customer. Its an interesting point though, should/does the USO still apply to fibre only new builds? It's counter productive to encouraging OR to invest in FTTC if it does.

I would think , given the current BT/OR USO for anyone who reasonably requests 'phone service ' that if you wanted a phone service under the current USO, but lived in a FTTP only area , then the phone service would be FVA ( fibre voice access) delivered over the fibre , similarly if you wanted and qualified for BT Basic Broadband , that would also be over 'fibre' just that the ' basic' restrictions on speed and data use would still be applied by BT.

waamo

gsmlnx wrote: »

Well I can get IDNet, Freeola, BT, ZEN and AA to produce quotes from my postcode (and address when prompted).
Cerberus show pricing straight away but want a lot of details if you check availability, so I haven't.
Specturm Internet wanted a phone call but I believe they only support customers in South Wales or the South West so not on my radar.
The other 2 on the Ultrafast list were much too expensive last time I looked as they are primarily business ISPs.
Must be something else about your address that throws them. (Maybe the copper phone line on your property causing the sites to object)

After a couple of days trying I got a couple of them to work only to find I would be going from paying an arm and a leg to both arms and both legs.

I like FTTP but not at the current price so it looks like investigating going back to copper wire when the contract ends.