Am I being ripped off by bt?

Somniac

I pay £43 a month for broadband and digital voice. The speed at the moment is 16Mps. Is this extortionate? Be honest. I can take it.

Money_Grabber13579

Yes. I’ve just moved to sky for 500mb and PAYG digital voice for £32 a month. After cashback etc, the price effectively becomes £23 a month.

Keep_pedalling

What speed are you actually paying for?

Rob5342

Just look on uSwitch and see what elae is available. You should be doing that every time a contract ends with anything. 

400ixl

Looks like you are on their base rate with no committed period for which you would get a discount.

If you are not in a committed period then you can look at what deal BT will do for you to commit to them for 18 months / 2 years, or look on the comparison sites to find a better deal with another provider (which will likely also mean you committing to a minimum term).

Just be careful with the customer service levels of suppliers. BT is in the top 3rd on the customer satisfaction surveys, the cheaper ones tend to be at the bottom for a reason.

iniltous

Why do people associate speed with price , it’s not a sliding scale, 50p per Mb for example ( so your bill would be £8 ) that may be great for you on 16Mb , not so great for 900Mb customers….if you were told your line was capable of ‘only’ 16Mb and you agreed to £** a month for that , then how it it a rip off , an agreement being fulfilled, no one put a gun to your head to sign up to that .

If you were guaranteed more than 16Mb and were getting what was guaranteed, but it’s now reduced to 16Mb it’s not a rip off , its  a fault , you report it and get it fixed .

Although someone else may get better speed than you for the same price that’s just physics , closer to the cabinet faster speed , the further away from the cabinet the slower the speed …one of the advantages of FTTP is that this distance related reduction doesn’t happen.

Somniac

Keep_pedalling said:

What speed are you actually paying for?

20 Mbps but when I look at the current offers, 43 quid for that seems exhorbitant.

Somniac

400ixl said:

Looks like you are on their base rate with no committed period for which you would get a discount.

If you are not in a committed period then you can look at what deal BT will do for you to commit to them for 18 months / 2 years, or look on the comparison sites to find a better deal with another provider (which will likely also mean you committing to a minimum term).

Just be careful with the customer service levels of suppliers. BT is in the top 3rd on the customer satisfaction surveys, the cheaper ones tend to be at the bottom for a reason.

400ixl said:

Looks like you are on their base rate with no committed period for which you would get a discount.

If you are not in a committed period then you can look at what deal BT will do for you to commit to them for 18 months / 2 years, or look on the comparison sites to find a better deal with another provider (which will likely also mean you committing to a minimum term).

Just be careful with the customer service levels of suppliers. BT is in the top 3rd on the customer satisfaction surveys, the cheaper ones tend to be at the bottom for a reason.

I am on a 2 year contract that ends feb 2025.

Somniac

iniltous said:

Why do people associate speed with price , it’s not a sliding scale, 50p per Mb for example ( so your bill would be £8 ) that may be great for you on 16Mb , not so great for 900Mb customers….if you were told your line was capable of ‘only’ 16Mb and you agreed to £** a month for that , then how it it a rip off , an agreement being fulfilled, no one put a gun to your head to sign up to that .

If you were guaranteed more than 16Mb and were getting what was guaranteed, but it’s now reduced to 16Mb it’s not a rip off , its  a fault , you report it and get it fixed .

Although someone else may get better speed than you for the same price that’s just physics , closer to the cabinet faster speed , the further away from the cabinet the slower the speed …one of the advantages of FTTP is that this distance related reduction doesn’t happen.

When I first signed up years ago, I got a discount because of Ali cabling so the speed was crap. I had engineers come out to try and get the speed up to no avail so they cut the price. Then the spedd improved about a year ago, and I renewed at a price that I thought reflected that I think because they have upgraded the area. It has dropped over the last week back to what it was originally.
BTW I am not associating speed with price ( although I think it will come as news to some that you shouldn’t)
I am making a comparison between what I pay compared to what new customers pay for faster speeds. Not quite the same thing although pretty close.
I wasn’t saying it is a rip off. I am asking you lot if it is. You obviously think it’s fine.

Somniac

If I renew again in feb when my current contract runs out, will I be able to get their advertised prices for new customers as they promise?

jbrassy

Yes, that is a rip off.

You can get fibre broadband for below £30 a month easily (I would say around £25 per month is reasonable). 

Do you actually need a landline? Most mobile contracts have unlimited minutes these days.