BT Yahoo! Broadband "temporary discount" available for 2nd bite

mk-donald

As some will recall from the mid February 2005 discussions here, BT Yahoo! Broadband announced then that current 512KB customers paying c£27pm would be upgraded to 1MB, and/or offered 2MB.... over the next n months.

Meanwhile I and others phoned to cancel as plenty of competition offering 512 for a LOT less and to keep us BT offered a temporary discount for 4 months at 25% off to c£20.

That 4 month discount being due to expire in just over the 8 days contract cancellation period... and no sign of any upgrade from my 4yr old 512 speed... it was time to cancel today...

I phoned up to be offered not one but two sops...
- a further 4 month temporary discount at 25% off - ie to my late October billing date
- my line w/be upgraded to 1MB within day or days (to be confirmed tomorrow, not unreasonable as I ended up phoning about 10 mins before close of play for their Indian sounding call centre).

1MB for £20 will keep me until October... by which time prices should have fallen still further for me to take my business elsewhere. If no 1MB then I will be cancelling by Friday as Tiscali offer it for that price NOW (I'm too far from the exchange to stand any chance of 2MB it appears).

So if you're in the same boat of having stuck with BT Yahoo! on the promise of more cake within 4 months, don't overlook the need to either jump ship to cheaper alternatives NOW 8days+ before you're put back to the original c£27/pm, or else potentially getting them to offer you enough concessions on price/performance to keep you content.

djohn2002uk

mk-donald wrote:

1MB for £20 will keep me until October... by which time prices should have fallen still further for me to take my business elsewhere. If no 1MB then I will be cancelling by Friday as Tiscali offer it for that price NOW (I'm too far from the exchange to stand any chance of 2MB it appears).

That sounds a bit like out of the frying pan into the fire to me.
You need to read other threads here to find out more about Tiscali first.
If you are looking for GOOD service and reasonable price, take a look at Plusnet.

mk-donald

Sorry but I wasn't posting this to discuss merits of particular broadband providers, but just to provide a MONEY SAVING TIP to other existing BT Yahoo! Broadband users who were similiarly impatient with the SLOW progress in providing anything other than a 512Kb link for more than other peoples 1MB/2MB prices. Paying £27 for a 512Kb link - which I would have otherwise been paying next week - would have been truly obscene in today's broadband marketplace!

Meanwhile guess what - six days later and BT did NOT get back to me by email or phone with anything about the promised 1MB upgrade within a day or two. So I have finally CANCELLED them.

You may find they come out with some "7-10 days to cancel you" stuff, which in my case meant going into next billing period. However the terms and conditions clearly state "12. Once we have provided the service, you may end this agreement at any time by giving us eight days notice." so don't let them get away with that - ie they may disconnect in 7-10 days, but can only bill you for 8 days maximum.

Oh and when I got the confirmation email through they had magically upped the disconnect timetable from the 8 days to 9 days - just epitomises why I'm leaving them as a provider.

One bit of good news : their mailed confirmation of disconnection states I'll be downgraded to a PAYG a/c so my email remains alive - as long as I use the PAYG within 90 days (presumably a rolling 90 days). They USED to say everything and explicitly email a/cs got killed at the same time if you ditched their ADSL - good to know they aren't complete b*****ds anyway.

lytefantastic

I called BT to downgrade my service from the maximum £29.99 BT Yahoo service to the basic as my teenage son has now gone to university and the lower service would do us fine. My contract with BT still runs until early January 2006.

They offered to reduce the fees for the service I currently enjoy to only £22.99 until February. So I made a monthly saving of £7.

I was told that there will be special offers and discounts over the Christmas period so I shall review the situation then.

BT would not have been my ISP of choice but since we were migrating from the Home Highway service any other ISP would have incurred a line change charge of £50. Of course BT did charge me it anyway and I had to get a refund from them.

So if your contract with BT is drawing to a close just ask for a downgrade and get money knocked off what you already get.