Cost of ceasing Post Office Broadband and line rental after end of contract?

johnniegif

Hi, I'm asking for a young pensioner friend about this. Her broadband speed is 2-4Mbps download depending on the weather & P.O. throttling. She lives in the wilds of Norfolk and Better Broadband for Norfolk have confirmed that she can get FTTC at 2-5 Mbps, but there are no plans for FTTP. She probably wouldn't want to pay for that anyway. I took my Huawei B525s-25a router to hers yesterday and we got a healthy 25.6 Mbps download on the 3G signal she can receive with my 3 mobile SIM in the router. 4G is a long way off!  I appreciate the speed will vary over time, so I'm lending her my router for a month and we've ordered her an unlimited Smarty SIM - because she likes to stream video, but is often disappointed by the buffering caused by her slow  line. She uses 1p Mobile for calls, and rarely receives any calls on her landline. If her month's trial of mobile broadband is successful, it is time to get rid of her landline and slooow broadband.

I've looked online and cannot find if Post Office Broadband (now run by Shell Broadband) will charge her a fee for ceasing her broadband and line at the end of her contract in August. I know that she'll have to give them 15 days notice to do this, but that is all I could find out. As I'm not a PO broadband customer, I can't call them to check any extra costs, so I'd be really grateful if someone with recent personal experience would comment about any additional costs.

Thanks for your help.

LindsayT

I'm a Post Office customer for broadband and phone. My contract ends 23rd July and I didn't want to go to Shell. I spoke to PO by online chat, they said I would need to leave at the end of my contract to avoid charges. So, in theory there should be no charge if she leaves at the end of her contract. However, I don't know if she's had a letter yet from Shell. In there it says they will start to move people over in August and hope to have everyone on board by the end of the year. Do you know what date in August her contract ends?

Jenni_D

If she stops all aspects of her current broadband (landline / phone / broadband) then she'll lose her landline and phone number. Just so you/she is aware.  

johnniegif

LindsayT, thanks for your help. My friend got confused by the PO letter about switchover date to Shell. That is on 2nd August. She has since found out her 18 month contract with PO Broadband ends on 6th October. She called PO BB yesterday & they told her that currently they'd charge £30 if she left them today. My friend thinks it is worth every penny because she is stuck with terrible broadband speed in her location for many years to come. 5 years at least, and there are just no plans for upgrades. Sure, eventually Openreach might sell her an EE Mobile Broadband solution to tick the universal service obligation of 10 Mbps for £50/month or so  ... but she is a newly christened pensioner, and in the true MSE way, I want to help her get save those £££s for better results.  In the meantime, she has no consistently working iPlayer and forget All4  
So we're forging ahead with a parallel one month mobile broadband test tomorrow to see how consistent and reliable it is for her. We haven't yet found out if PO Broadband will charge for ceasing the line instead of allowing her to movie to a new landline-based ISP. This is my main outstanding question, if anyone has experience.

johnniegif

Jenni_D Thanks for your help. Indeed she is seriously considering dumping her landline, landline broadband and landline phone number. She rarely receives calls on her landline, and moved to making mobile calls only about 2 years ago. Her friends and family call her mobile, so she won't miss not having a landline. But, I don't want her to cease her landline, then find that mobile broadband is similarly frustrating for her desired use. If the trial works, she is committed to ceasing her landline and derisory broadband. She'd do it today, but I won't allow that as landline reconnection would likely cost £100+. The issue is that she is just under 2 miles from the local exchange, perhaps further when it comes to the route her line takes. Same goes for her Fibre to the Cabinet box, which sits outside the same exchange.
If all goes well with her trial, I'm not concerned about her not being able to contact emergency services/help in the event of a 3 Mobile/Smarty outage, because her mobile phone with 1P Mobile runs on the EE network, on a different mobile transmitter tower. So she'd not miss her landline, or the dire 'broadband' speeds at all.
Once we've tested reliability/viability, it comes down to the cost of how much the Post Office will charge her to fully cease the telephone line & broadband. And I can't find an answer for that on Post Office Broadband's website. Tut!

Jenni_D

Regarding the contract position ... if she leaves before the end of the minimum contractual term then they are permitted to charge her the remaining contractual balance as an early termination charge (ETC), or some other reasonable charge if it is less. This will be detailed in her contract T&Cs.