BT broadband - when towards end of contract can you leave without penalty?

locky123

My 2 year Fibre 1 contract with BT is coming to end on 22 Feb 2023 and I'm regularly getting BT emails trying to get me to sign up again.

Is there a period towards end of the contract that you can leave without any penalty, similar to energy suppliers?

I believe the t&cs say ‘early termination fee’ if you cancel your service before the end of your ‘minimum contract period’.

Also is it worth waiting til close to the contract end date and then try to haggle over phone?

Not changed broadband provider for years so wondering how long the typical switch over takes.

Neil_Jones

Early exit fees apply up to the date you agreed to, in your case Feb 22 next year, pro-rated so the closer you are to them, the lower the fees will be.

There is no penality free "switching window" like you see in energy.

Timescale to switch - typically 17 days.

iniltous

To avoid ETC , you will have to see out your minimum term , apparently 22nd Feb 2023 , you can instruct a new provider ( assuming that you are going to switch to another company that uses Openreach infrastructure ) around 10-14 days before , so around 8-10th Feb, if you are leaving entirely or using a different network provider then it’s 30 days notice …the last month of a 24 month contract can also be the notice period, so in this case ( leaving Openreach network entirely ) you would service notice around 22nd Jan 2023.
IMHO , it’s not worth trying to engineer the changeover ( assuming you are switching but still using OR ) for the exact anniversary date , a few days before or after 22nd Feb will be a small amount of £’s , either as ETC if done a day or two early or a day or two later and paying an out of contract price for those days.
Closer to the end of the minimum term date , you could obviously  get ‘prices’ from other ISP’s and use that info to negotiate a renewal offer with BT

Archie_Duke

Glad you brought this topic up, just had a look and my Fibre 1 contract ends on 26 Jan 2023 - 92 days remaining. 

Time to start shopping around. My options for broadband were almost nil when this contract started, hoping I can do better this time.

locky123

Thanks for responses. I'll wait nearer the time towards end of Jan before comparing deals and ringing BT. Open Reach are threatening to install fibre to the property before end of year, as they knocked on the door for permission to dig up our access road. Whether I need the faster speeds from fibre or can afford it, is another matter,

southsidergs

locky123 said:

Thanks for responses. I'll wait nearer the time towards end of Jan before comparing deals and ringing BT. Open Reach are threatening to install fibre to the property before end of year, as they knocked on the door for permission to dig up our access road. Whether I need the faster speeds from fibre or can afford it, is another matter,

Hardly "threatening" to install a better broadband service!! Costs are the same whatever service it is by the way (for up to 80mb speeds(

locky123

Just found out about stop sell when Open Reach install fibre to properties. Found out that our exchange will introduce their “stop sell” from 8th February 2023 according to https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2022/01/openreach-name-98-new-uk-areas-for-copper-phone-to-fibre-switch-tranche-7.html.

So does this mean if I renew or want to switch provider after 8 Feb 23 that I wont be able to continue with FTTC and will be forced to have fibre at probably a higher price from fewer providers?

iniltous

If your area does get a copper stop sell ( because 75% of the area will have access to FTTP ) then if you attempt to move provider , then the new provider will have to use FTTP .
BT as an example have no difference in the price , for example 80Mb on FTTP is the same price as FTTC, so switching to FTTP with BT doesn’t  increase the price.

You could always stay with who you are currently with , obviously they may encourage you to switch to FTTP ( Openreach incentivises ISPs to get customers to switch to FTTP if it’s available ) but ultimately you could stay on FTTC after copper stop sell ( for a while at least ) by remaining with your current provider , and if remaining on FTTC is the priority you would have to accept the price they offer .
You can still negotiate with them ,after all they don’t know you don’t want to switch to another provider albeit with FTTP ,  but if they say best price is if you take FTTP but you can remain on FTTC ( the copper stop sell doesn’t affect this ) but the price is worse , then that’s your choice.
There will potentially be fewer ISPs  on FTTP than FTTC , but that would be a decision for those ISP’s , there is nothing stopping them from offering FTTP and TBH , FTTP is the future, if they don’t want to offer FTTP  , presumably they are preparing to fail, so would you want to be with a company like that anyway ?