BT Broadband

TroiBoy

I've been with Virgin for years but I moved house 18 months ago and had a number of problems so I need to move on. My neighbours and I have noted constant connection drops and outages. I also hear similar for Sky.

BT Seems to get good reviews (in my area) but comparing them, they seem relatively expensive when I think I can get Virgin M100 at approximately £20 P/M.

Has anyone had any experience in haggling with them or achieving a better price than what's listed o the price comparison sites?

Neil_Jones

All BT line based providers (which include Sky) use the same network.  So if there was a fault when you were with Sky (for example) it would remain if you were with Talktalk or BT.

iniltous

The current new customer  deal for m100 is £27/ month for 18 months then £44/ month ( so it’s £44 with a discount) have VM confirmed the offer of £20/month 
quick look at BT using my address shows BT at £33 for the roughly same speed ( 80Mb ) but has a £110 reward card so equivalent of around £28, but 24 month deal, obviously you may not get that speed , and if the potential speed was such it may be worthwhile considering fibre essentials or F1 which are cheaper ( but slower )

TroiBoy

The retention team called me yesterday they can offer me £22.00. Honestly, I'm not overly concerned by their offer unless it provides leverage in getting a contract with someone else. There's no point in me staying with Virgin if the signal isn't consistent.
It's a fairly standard 3 bedroom terraced house. and BT  claim they use better equipment, and the comments of my neighbours that moved from sky/virgin to them would suggest this is true.

I'd rather try an alternative supplier for the 14 days and see how it compares, but i'd like to get it down from the standard £33/£28(with voucher) if it's possible, I literally just wanted to see if anyone has managed to haggle with them, but judging by the lack of comments i guess not.

Speed is good but only if it works consistently, I'm only gaming on an Xbox and streaming tv via 2 fire sticks, so my consumption shouldn't be that heavy. It's a 2 person household.

I'll look at F1 though, thanks

iniltous

Many providers use Openreach , the service that they provide  ( if comparing the same speed tiers , 40,55,80Mb ) should be broadly similar, the only difference being the quality of the supplied router and possibly the amount of backhaul capacity they have available …
Plusnet  ( for example ) is a BT brand ( even uses a rebadged BT router )  but tends to be a little cheaper than BT, some ISPs are even cheaper , using a comparison site may get you closer to the price VM retention have offered , but personally I tend to think some are cheap for a reason.

QrizB

TroiBoy said:

It's a fairly standard 3 bedroom terraced house. and BT  claim they use better equipment, and the comments of my neighbours that moved from sky/virgin to them would suggest this is true.

Are you on good enough terms with your immediate neighbours that they'd let you have their wifi password? You could leech from their connection for a couple of weeks and see how it compares.

TroiBoy

iniltous said:

Many providers use Openreach , the service that they provide  ( if comparing the same speed tiers , 40,55,80Mb ) should be broadly similar, the only difference being the quality of the supplied router and possibly the amount of backhaul capacity they have available …
Plusnet  ( for example ) is a BT brand ( even uses a rebadged BT router )  but tends to be a little cheaper than BT, some ISPs are even cheaper , using a comparison site may get you closer to the price VM retention have offered , but personally I tend to think some are cheap for a reason.

I thought I replied to you but apparently not. This is really helpful thank you I've been on the plus net website and you can see the rebounded equipment at a better price so they're now under serious consideration. Any experience with their customer service team?

TroiBoy

QrizB said:

TroiBoy said:

It's a fairly standard 3 bedroom terraced house. and BT  claim they use better equipment, and the comments of my neighbours that moved from sky/virgin to them would suggest this is true.

Are you on good enough terms with your immediate neighbours that they'd let you have their wifi password? You could leech from their connection for a couple of weeks and see how it compares.

I wish, we have a facebook group for the street and I asked the question, I've only been here 18 months and with covid, being neighbourly hasn't been an option. :'\

TroiBoy

Just an update for anyone interested.

Just had a second Virgin retention person contact me. The level of customer service was clearly superior.
He offered me M200 for £25.00 Per month, including 1 Virgin intelligent Wife pod, which usually cost £5.00 p/m, essentially offering me a deal of £20.00 Per month + extra equipment.
He'll also book an engineer to come and take a look at my signal issues, but if nothing else he suggests M200 will double the speed to compensate for any outages. Worth a try I guess.

Two days ago the offer was M100 for £22.00 Per month. Pod not included.

I can't say no to that. Don't panic, they'll contact you.

QrizB

TroiBoy said:

... including 1 Virgin intelligent Wife pod ...

That's a remarkably generous offer but I think Mrs QrizB might object.

TroiBoy

QrizB said:

TroiBoy said:

... including 1 Virgin intelligent Wife pod ...

That's a remarkably generous offer but I think Mrs QrizB might object.

 LOL! Mrs TroiBoy will be over the moon to be rid of me
Each to their own I guess