Looking to get cheaper/better than BT (& poss do away with landline?). Help/advice?

BUFF

Neil_Jones said:

Plusnet - owned by BT and run at arms length, but to all intents and purposes a separate company.  Billing system is atrocious though.

I don't have any problems with it?
CS on the rare occasion that was needed has always been decent.
Supplied router tends to be derived from BT's but usually a year or 2 behind BT adoption. BT I would say is better overall but you do tend to pay a premium over Plusnet & whether that is worth it is a subjective decision for the OP..

£24.13 for Fibre 2 seems reasonable/good to me assuming that your line actually can support the additional speed (my line supposedly is likely to only support about an extra 9Mbps over the ~36 that I get currently on standard fibre), that you need/want the extra speed & especially if you could time the change to become effective just after BT have increased their existing prices by ~10% on 31st March ...

JustAnotherSaver

I'm just at work and having a look on my break real quick says Fibre 2 is quicker than 1 but when I was at home on the PC I could swear it said my speeds are the same for both 1 & 2.

Also having a look quick here on my phone (not logged in) it says if I add phone then that's an extra £5 a month. Unsure if this is for a specific package or whether it applies to the PAYG setup I'm currently on. If so then the phone may as well go too. I don't want to be paying £60 a year just to make the 1 or 2 phone calls I make per year off the house phone. 

Will need to log in at home though and check whether that also tells me I'll be aging £5 on top of broadband. 

neilmcl

JustAnotherSaver said:

I'm just at work and having a look on my break real quick says Fibre 2 is quicker than 1 but when I was at home on the PC I could swear it said my speeds are the same for both 1 & 2.

Also having a look quick here on my phone (not logged in) it says if I add phone then that's an extra £5 a month. Unsure if this is for a specific package or whether it applies to the PAYG setup I'm currently on. If so then the phone may as well go too. I don't want to be paying £60 a year just to make the 1 or 2 phone calls I make per year off the house phone. 

Will need to log in at home though and check whether that also tells me I'll be aging £5 on top of broadband. 

That's entirely down to the distance between your house and the cabinet if it's an FTTC service you're talking about, it's possible that your property can't support the up to 80Mbps speed of Fibre 2.

Put your details in here: https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL

JJ_Egan

As above my old connection maxed out at 40 meg .

[Deleted User]

Don't underestimate the utility of the wifi router in terms of getting the best from your broadband connection and value for money. 

FTTC is really poor value to start with when in comparison you can get 7-10 times the speed for less than double the price with FTTP or cable.

greyteam1959

BT PAYG is now charged at £2 a month even if you don't make any calls.
It used to be no calls no charge.
😡😡

neilmcl

[Deleted User] said:

Don't underestimate the utility of the wifi router in terms of getting the best from your broadband connection and value for money. 

FTTC is really poor value to start with when in comparison you can get 7-10 times the speed for less than double the price with FTTP or cable.

Only if you need to have 7-10 times the speed.

[Deleted User]

neilmcl said:

Deleted_User said:

Don't underestimate the utility of the wifi router in terms of getting the best from your broadband connection and value for money. 

FTTC is really poor value to start with when in comparison you can get 7-10 times the speed for less than double the price with FTTP or cable.

Only if you need to have 7-10 times the speed.

That is exactly my point that most people don't understand until they have experienced proper internet speeds because they are faffing around with deals in the decade old 30-70mbps zone. Consumers are thinking they are on to a winner because they have saved a few quid a month but in reality are all fighting over the cheapest cold pasty on the high street when then could be eating a fresh 8oz steak for little more if it was widely available.

All the marketing bull about "superfast" draws people in and the think they are getting good quality internet and are satisfied because that is what they signed up for but the reality is they are getting the bare minimum and just don't know any better.

The whole internet market in the UK is based on fluff, "fibre" deals are not fibre, "superfast" classification is actually very slow and just 3% of the gigabit speeds available with fibre to premise.

The deals on MSE and everywhere else are just a race to the bottom and justify the poor average speed available.

It also justifies the poor quality "free" ISP wifi routers supplied that are incapable of providing coverage for the full house and so the ISP sells extras to cover their inadequacies like BT halo / virgin booster pods etc when in reality a proper Wifi router will easily cover a 30 metre radius around your house (mine does) 

The UK is vastly behind the times with internet speed and it is a disgrace, the likes of Portugal have 90% gigabit connectivity, the UK is the bottom of the pile and people like yourself are justifying that.

4G is capable of 90mpbs and we are now entering into a 5G era of gigabit to mobile phones yet people are paying more for their home broadband than an average mobile contract for slower speeds.

Don't put up with this any longer and demand proper home broadband speeds.

wild666

JustAnotherSaver said:

Ok so with the price of absolutely everything shooting through the roof quicker than ever, we're having to have a serious look at where if necessary, we can save some cash.

So on to Broadband/TV/Phone.

My current deal with BT is up in April. Having a look at my account right now

Broadband: Fibre 1 (£24.13)

Landline: PAYG

TV: Entertainment package (£10.45)

Netflix (Add-On): £9.99

I got on the Live Chat to BT on Friday night & Adrish offered me Fibre 2 broadband @ £25.99/month 24 month £0 activation.

I'm a bit weary about jumping ship. Sure enough it's real simple to find something cheaper. All I have to do is hop on some comparison site, find the most dirt cheap internet provider and job done. Sign up ....... then get annoyed at how my connection keeps dropping and wishing I'd stayed with BT. There's a bit more to it than just going cheapest. Been there & regretted that in the past.

I read that PlusNet are owned by BT and are cheaper. Anyone reading this can comment on their quality/reliability?

To be perfectly honest with you, I don't actually have an issue with BT. I've been with them for a number of years now (4-5), was with Sky before them (also didn't have an issue with) and was with BT again before Sky. The only reason I switched between them was cost. They never let me down as far as service goes.

If it turns out that there's not much quality for a cheaper price then I'll stay with BT. I'm just asking the question.

Regards the TV .... we're actually considering ditching this altogether. I can't remember the last time I watched TV other than Netflix / Prime (when we have it) / Disney (when we had it). My wife said she isn't fussed by the TV side of things to warrant the cost. Most of what we watch would be on the free channels or Netflix.

Regards the phone - I remember way back when, you HAD to have a phone with the internet. It's my understanding now that you don't? Although looking at my package, since we already have the physical phone in the house, it doesn't seem to cost us anything on a PAYG deal other than any call we make - which is none.

I see no mention of line rental in my bill. Again this is something else i remember from years ago. How come this isn't listed on my bill? I was looking to do away with the landline to 1) avoid charge for it (but there doesn't seem to be one) and 2) avoid the line rental cost (but again, there doesn't seem to be one??).

For anyone reading this who ditched their TV package, what setup did you go with as your option? Wife has mentioned Freesat but I haven't really looked in to it properly yet.

All in all just looking to see if we can save money while still having a service we're happy with (Netflix will be staying).

One provider, at least, if it's available in your area is Hyperoptic they do a BB only option they have an offer on at the moment  for £17.99 for 50 Mb up to £35 per month for 1 Gb on a 24 month deal. Without the deal the prices range from £25 to £60.

wild666

When I cancelled BT in August 2016 I was paying £73 per month this dropped to £24.99, presently £27.99, per month. I dropped the BB, TV package and TV licence, at the time £12.25 a month. I now pay £26.04 per month with Origin for an up to 76 Mb service and receive a steady 44 Mb download speed but lose about 4Mb due to my VPN so 40 Mb which is fast enough for all I need to do.