Does BT assume you'll stay loyal regardless?

Exodi

GrubbyGirl_2

I have been very happy with my BT broadband so ideally would like to stay, but as I get closer to the end of my contract am I likely to get a better deal? Do they ever match new customer prices or even come close to it?

More chances of seeing pigs fly. As you have already started to notice, loyalty does not pay with ISP's.

I am effectively permanently paying ~£25 a month, with a ~£100 giftcard sent to me every year or two among other benefits, as I spin on the merry-go-round between Vodafone, Sky, TalkTalk, etc.

Woodstok2000

We've just renewed woth youfibre. 1800mbps for £28 per month.

At first I was going to make a jab about the over the top speed, however £28 a month is extremely impressive.

zagfles

Do you really need 500Mb if it's only you in the house, that sort of speed is only really needed if there are several people streaming 4K video or gaming etc.

Of course they don't (sorry I appreciate it's a rhetorical question but gives me an opportunity to springboard to my point!), and I would also suggest that 'several people streaming 4k video or gaming' would also not need that sort of throughput.

There are 3 people in my house and we have a fairly impressive home network (and analytics) that has 29 devices, including 4k tv's, a NAS, 2x 2k cameras on max quality, 2x 1080p cameras on max quality and 2x 1080p cameras which are only active when no-ones home (maybe 20% of the time) as you guessed it on max quality, smart thermostats, even a smart shower, you get the idea.

What speed do you think I will need? 500mbps? 900mbps? In reality my peak daily usage is less than 100mbps, my previous 67mbps copper connection would work fine (if it were not for the poor upload speed which is a problem for cloud storage cameras).

It is now a bizarre marketing exercise where ISP's are just continually one-up'ing each other by going more and more over the top of what people need. The 1800mbps connection mentioned earlier, I can't even think what resource you could tap to saturate that much bandwidth (not that I blame the poster, for that price I'd take them up on it too).

Unless of course they run a data centre, or have 72x TV's streaming 4K content simultaneously.

I think consumers are just misinformed in general with regards to speeds, they have no baseline, they don't know what their usage is. Nearly doubling your speed from 500mbps to 900mbps is seen as worth it if it's only £3 extra a month or whatever, it's immaterial if one only uses the internet to browse amazon and play candy crush.

What perhaps irks me the most is that in the context of internet performance, in practice the incoming bandwidth is usually not the biggest impact - it is usually the wifi setup. It's all to common for people to pay for 900mbps packages, while having their router in a cupboard in the hallway, when they predominantly access the internet from their phone in the living room or bedroom. The impact of setting up a third party router/mesh network would be significant on the bandwidth your device receives, much more than just continuing to increase the speed coming into the router (obviously hardwiring would be best, but not realistic to expect from most households).

It's also unfortunately reality that most peoples devices do not support these kinds of speeds. Most phones, tablets, laptops etc use 2x2 antenna, which often caps out at around 500mbps real world speed on the 5/6ghz band, regardless of the speed being broadcast. On the 2.4ghz band this could be a quarter of that. The only exception would be if the device was next to the router. Virtually all modern TV's feature a built-in Ethernet port that is capped at 100 Mbps (which to be fair is plenty, but you get the point I'm trying to make).

Sorry a lot of words, I get quite aminated over this - I guess the short version would be the entry level fibre offering (150mbps) is fine for 99% of households (yes, even ones with 4k tvs), and the ones it wouldn't be suitable for would already know. If you're not sure which speed you need, then 150mbps will more than enough.

JSmithy45AD

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82121934#Comment_82121934

100%, the Sky forums for one are chock full of people on the 900Mbps service yet complaining that the 'internet' is really slow. Obviously they mean the WiFi not that they're likely to see 900Mbps via WiFi and/or the device they're using. The advertising hype doesn't help. We can now get 1,600Mbps (asymmetrical) from EE, Vodafone and someone called Nufibre, I just have no idea why I'd want that.

zagfles

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82121821#Comment_82121821

Why? That's a pointless comparison as you're paying less than that most of the time and it doesn't account for the signup incentive. The total price you pay over the contract minus the incentive divided by the number of months in the contract gives the average cost per month, and the MSE page calculates that for you so the comparison is easy.

zagfles

The 1800mbps connection mentioned earlier, I can't even think what resource you could tap to saturate that much bandwidth 

I guess you could provide internet for the whole street, with a few wifi boosters!