Why I ( and others ? ) don’t switch.

Monanore

I pay BT 65 a month for broadband and landline phone.  Martin urges me to switch or haggle. Here’s why I don’t.

A reliable, continuous service is these days as important as power and water.  I don’t want to risk it – “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”.

The sheer confusion of deals.

The hassle of remembering everybody who has email addresses and converting them. Especially since some are critical to household and financial administration.

The bad reputation of all the other providers, including EE which BT would force me onto.  I gather BT will continue to service existing retail customers – better the devil you know.

The need to move to voip which on switching would be compulsory.  I don’t want to be at risk of a power cut. I don’t know how long before I have no choice in this matter, but I’m dreading it.  I don’t understand the engineering changes and I can’t find a proper explanation.  It all sounds fragile and risky to me. Specifically, if anybody knows the answers :

1. Will my Panasonic ‘digital phones’ ( the ones with base units ) work – their manual says they are for use with the UK analogue network.
2. If the main unit connected to the router does work, will the upstairs relay handset work ?

Anybody else feel the same ?

DE_612183

With email addresses - you can keep your BT email address etc, even if you move supplier.

Regarding the VIOP:

1. Probably not - but BT should provide you with new phones that will connect directly to the Hub.
2. If you mean a bt socket upstairs, then again no - I think you can get some sort of transformer - but it's much better to just get phones - they connect to the BT hub wireless - so you don't actually need any cables ( apart from the ability to recharge ) - I have a couple of these phones and my biggest problem is forgetting where I left them until they ring!

chrisw

You don't necessarily have to switch. Just by phoning and threatening to switch can save you quite a bit of money without actually going anywhere. Even asking if they'll do you a discount will usually get some money off. Better in your pocket.

Ozzig

You can keep your BT email with full functionality for £7.50 a month, or with webmail access for free.

For every ISP you will always find customers with issues more vocal than those with faultless service

Take Virgin Media's awful reputation, at our last house we had them for about 15 years, two outages, one due to the moron next door putting a shovel through the cable, twisting the ends together and then burying it.
They fixed that for free within 48hrs of reporting the issue. 

We had lots of issues with BT implementing the service at a new house, including charging for the service before they put it in, didn't have a problem after that.

We have friends on a new fibre provider, they have never had 100% of the bandwidth quoted, but as they only use about 20% they don't care as it's cheaper than all the alternatives.

Our DECT phones work with Virgin Media VoIP, the base station needs to be connected to the router's VoIP port. 
Not sure about a "relay" handset, if you mean another phone using the same DECT base station ours is fine.

iniltous

Obviously without knowing the products you have , £65 seems much more than the price available from BT for just broadband and phone , FWIW, my BT price for F2 ( 80Mb ) with phone is ( after the April increse in price )  £34 ish , if your products are similar, then even if you don’t want the hassle of changing provider , there is nothing stopping you negotiating a better price , TBH , if you pay £65 unless you have optional extras like Halo3+ , then you must be on a legacy package, so out if minimum term , and in a good position to haggle 

JSmithy45AD

And this is why you never ever use the supplied email address, they've trapped you in with the fear of losing access and of change and then charge you a ridiculous amount of money that they know you'll pay. They're basically blackmailing and making a fool of you.

In fact every single point you raise is incorrect.

Neil_Jones

Monanore said:

I pay BT 65 a month for broadband and landline phone.  Martin urges me to switch or haggle. Here’s why I don’t.

A reliable, continuous service is these days as important as power and water.  I don’t want to risk it – “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”.

The sheer confusion of deals.

The hassle of remembering everybody who has email addresses and converting them. Especially since some are critical to household and financial administration.

The bad reputation of all the other providers, including EE which BT would force me onto.  I gather BT will continue to service existing retail customers – better the devil you know.

The need to move to voip which on switching would be compulsory.  I don’t want to be at risk of a power cut. I don’t know how long before I have no choice in this matter, but I’m dreading it.  I don’t understand the engineering changes and I can’t find a proper explanation.  It all sounds fragile and risky to me. Specifically, if anybody knows the answers :

1. Will my Panasonic ‘digital phones’ ( the ones with base units ) work – their manual says they are for use with the UK analogue network.
2. If the main unit connected to the router does work, will the upstairs relay handset work ?

Anybody else feel the same ?

£65?  What packages are you on to be paying that?  Phone up and get a better price.

Deals are not "confusing", seem pretty clear to me.

Email addresses - that's why you don't use the ISP provided one because if you move provider you will lose it.  Get Gmail/Yahoo/Outlook address and it works regardless of ISP. 

Re: VOIP and Power cuts - yeah if your phone exchange under the current arrangement has a power cut its exactly the same issue, your phone doesn't work.  Yet it doesn't bother you when that happens?

1) Possibly.

2) There are solutions.

Ozzig

Neil_Jones said:

Email addresses - that's why you don't use the ISP provided one because if you move provider you will lose it.  Get Gmail/Yahoo/Outlook address and it works regardless of ISP. 

One minor addition, if you're going down that path make sure you have two different providers and where possible have both configured on the important stuff. I prefer for banking/utilities etc email to be sent via a UK provider using UK cloud services. 

If it's a free service there is little recourse if they decide to revoke your access.

jbrassy

Broadband providers carry out a practice known as 'price discrimination'. They know there are two types of consumer:
1 - people like the OP who can't be bothered to switch.
2 - people like me who are prepared to switch.

Because they know there are two types of consumer, broadband providers charge different prices to these two groups. The Type 1 consumers pay high prices because the companies know they will not switch. The Type 2 consumers pay lower prices because they switch when better deals become available. 

This is why the OP pays £65 a month to BT and I pay £25 a month to Onestream (which amounts to a £480 difference over a year). 

On the specific switching points:

• Why not get a Hotmail or Gmail account? Then you it doesn't matter who your broadband provider is.
• Do you need a landline in 2024? Most mobile contracts include unlimited minutes?
• How many power cuts do you get every year? Struggling to recall the last time I had one.
• Other broadband providers are 'bad'. Well if you don't like them - switch. This is what happens in every other market. If I don't like Tesco, I switch to Sainsburys.

Having said all this, if you're happy to stick with BT and waste nearly £500 a year, carry on - it's your money.

iniltous

Absolute nonsense, there is one price list , some are prepared to pay some try and haggle , you may pay £25 , at the moment we have no idea what the OP gets for £65 , if it’s something that the same company also sell for £30 , then that’s the OP inertia, no doubt your  deal with a niche provider will be discounted and when the discount period ends if you do nothing , the price will go up  significantly also your provide also charges for extra for what most would expect to be included in the price .

Are all providers ‘content’ to have customers on out of date , uncompetitive prices ?  , who knows but for every customer called by their ISP offering to renew their  deal for a better price , will be a customer complaint that they are been bothered at home by some salesperson…..customers are advised as the minimum term expires that they may well be on an uncompetitive plan if they do nothing ( switch or recontract ) they will likely pay more than necessary, but to suggest two lists exist and they know who is a switcher and they get better deals than those than don’t switch is for flat earthers and other conspiracy nuts .

Neil_Jones

Ozzig said:

Neil_Jones said:

Email addresses - that's why you don't use the ISP provided one because if you move provider you will lose it.  Get Gmail/Yahoo/Outlook address and it works regardless of ISP. 

One minor addition, if you're going down that path make sure you have two different providers and where possible have both configured on the important stuff. I prefer for banking/utilities etc email to be sent via a UK provider using UK cloud services. 

If it's a free service there is little recourse if they decide to revoke your access.

Providing you aren't doing anything you shouldn't be with it, there would be no reason to revoke it.

The only other obstacle is having to sign in every so often to keep it alive, which used to be as often as once every 90 days but these days for most providers is closer to two year, though I believe Yahoo is 12 months.