BT : are they pulling my chain?

Oldernowiser

Email from them today:  (apologies for spacings, can't get rid of 'em)

Hi,

We want to let you know your following contract with us is ending soon: You're currently paying:

£31.95 a month for Fibre 1 including Call Plan and that will change to £38.95 on 12 October 2022

We always want you to get the right package at the best price. So we've pulled together the options you now have and the best available offers for you. Keep your current contract If you’re happy with your package, you won’t have to do a thing. Renew or upgrade with us It's really simple to stay with us. You can upgrade to one of our new offers or renew your current contract. Just get in touch and we'll take care of everything.

Our best deal for your current Broadband package - Fibre 1 & Pay As You Go £32.17 / month for 24 months

Speed guarantee - Speeds you can rely on day and night, and a personal speed guarantee

Unlimited usage - endless monthly data, so you can stream, browse and download as much as you like

I've deleted the prev. options - they are basically the same Fibre 1 deal with wifi extra bits (halo etc). Clicked on link to renew now WITHIN 10 MINUTES OF RECEIVING EMAIL (not shouting, just emphasizing .... and..... Sorry Xxxxx, that offer’s not available anymore. The good news is we’ve got more personalised deals just for you.  okay must be good! lets see: (just the first one - others get sillier!) Less than new customer price 146Mb Download speed Fibre 100 Halo 3 £8.04* extra a month New monthly price: £39.99 Smart Hub 2 146Mb download speed with 100Mb guaranteed minimum speed 27Mb upload speed Stream video on up to 14 devices at once 24 month contract See your 4 benefits Checkout now Add TV from £16 So, speed i don't need. Plus i think at those speeds its going to be FFTP ?  Ah well, be a good MSEr and check out the competition. EE and Plusnet.  both good ratings. deals end tonight/tomorrow.... both say 'Sorry no deal' .  Why not? 'There's no opportunity in the cabinet' (Openreach street cabinet - opposite my house). Why can't you just use the same connection i'm on?  'That's BT' And your parent company is?  Vodafone? Nope. Not in your area.  Others? Sky get silly on prices, Shell are a no-no according to you guys (genuine thanks for the tip to avoid), and i wouldn't touch SSE with a bargepole ( still owe me money from 8 years ago... written off but i don't like being robbed). Guess i'll have to try a bit of diplomatic negotiation - in the full and certain knowledge that BT KNOWS i have no real alternative...  wish me luck

flashg67

Good luck - is it worth looking at a 4g router and unlimited sim? My rural BB is 2mb, so I went this route with Lebara unlimited @ £22.50 for 12 months and a £50 Huawei router from ebay.. I WFH , stream in HD and run several smart devices with no issues. Very occasional router reboot but I've had to do that on fibre in the past too

MalMonroe

Hi, it's not so bad, haggling with BT. I usually end up being quite satisfied at the end of it. They're not pulling your chain. They just want to chat with you. 

BT is not perfect, by any means. But it's better than other providers - have a look at the troubles people have been having with Virgin.

I live in a rural area and BT is fine. Because the two of us living here work from home, we need to have good connections every day - including weekends - and other providers just haven't been able to give us that consistently.

I'd stick with BT, haggle like crazy, let them know when you are not happy and don't settle for things you don't want.

Our package includes landline with no restriction on phone call time, broadband and TV with Netflix, Amazon prime and Now TV added. And we pay £55 pcm for it all. Which I don't think is bad. Considering that when we first moved to this property15 years ago we were paying £71 per month just for landline and broadband. Before I got on the phone to haggle. If you can get a better deal, please let me know! It's nearly time for my contract to change. (PS Plusnet is part of BT and it's rubbish. In my experience.)

in_my_wellies

I had more or less the same email
I looked at the deal but couldn't find the pricing for calls, I'm on 700 minutes for about £7.50 and wanted that
So I phoned and the very helpful person said they don't put all the info on the website as they like people to ring them 
I got BB and calls for cheaper than in the initial email 

JohnReese

Oldernowiser said:

Email from them today:  (apologies for spacings, can't get rid of 'em)

Hi,

We want to let you know your following contract with us is ending soon: You're currently paying:

£31.95 a month for Fibre 1 including Call Plan and that will change to £38.95 on 12 October 2022

We always want you to get the right package at the best price. So we've pulled together the options you now have and the best available offers for you. Keep your current contract If you’re happy with your package, you won’t have to do a thing. Renew or upgrade with us It's really simple to stay with us. You can upgrade to one of our new offers or renew your current contract. Just get in touch and we'll take care of everything.

Our best deal for your current Broadband package - Fibre 1 & Pay As You Go £32.17 / month for 24 months

Speed guarantee - Speeds you can rely on day and night, and a personal speed guarantee

Unlimited usage - endless monthly data, so you can stream, browse and download as much as you like

I've deleted the prev. options - they are basically the same Fibre 1 deal with wifi extra bits (halo etc). Clicked on link to renew now WITHIN 10 MINUTES OF RECEIVING EMAIL (not shouting, just emphasizing .... and..... Sorry Xxxxx, that offer’s not available anymore. The good news is we’ve got more personalised deals just for you.  okay must be good! lets see: (just the first one - others get sillier!) Less than new customer price 146Mb Download speed Fibre 100 Halo 3 £8.04* extra a month New monthly price: £39.99 Smart Hub 2 146Mb download speed with 100Mb guaranteed minimum speed 27Mb upload speed Stream video on up to 14 devices at once 24 month contract See your 4 benefits Checkout now Add TV from £16 So, speed i don't need. Plus i think at those speeds its going to be FFTP ?  Ah well, be a good MSEr and check out the competition. EE and Plusnet.  both good ratings. deals end tonight/tomorrow.... both say 'Sorry no deal' .  Why not? 'There's no opportunity in the cabinet' (Openreach street cabinet - opposite my house). Why can't you just use the same connection i'm on?  'That's BT' And your parent company is?  Vodafone? Nope. Not in your area.  Others? Sky get silly on prices, Shell are a no-no according to you guys (genuine thanks for the tip to avoid), and i wouldn't touch SSE with a bargepole ( still owe me money from 8 years ago... written off but i don't like being robbed). Guess i'll have to try a bit of diplomatic negotiation - in the full and certain knowledge that BT KNOWS i have no real alternative...  wish me luck

It sounds like Openreach are trying to encourage migration to Full Fibre services. From what I understand, the copper phone network for phone calls is being retired by 2025 in any case.

As far as Broadband goes, a Full Fibre service (FTTP) all the way to your house will be far more reliable, higher speeds and consistent speeds as well.

As for price, the BT price seems a little high though given they want you on a long contract and increase their price every March/April.

However, there are other Openreach based providers (e.g. Sky, Cuckoo) who may offer the package for either the same price, or less and at a fixed price and shorter contract. Those two examples are 18 months or 12 months (or 30 day rolling) respectively. I think Sky offers phone as well via "Digital voice", though a Mobile SIM deal for phone would likely work out better value for money.

If you didn't want to spend £39 for broadband, or were happy with 4G speeds, you could go for a Mobile SIM as well in a little Mifi device (or place the SIM in a SIM compatible Router). Depending on the mobile network in your area, those tend to range between £15 to £35 a month for Unlimited Data varying between various contract lengths.