Change from BT to Tiscali?

Sal123

We are currently paying a ridiculous £23 per month for our broadband with Pipex plus BT call charges and line rental, so I thought that I would get a better deal. The £14.99 per month Tiscali deal with "free" line rental looks good but when I phoned I was told that they can't take over our phone until after July as our exchange needs to be upgraded first.

I have a few questions:
1) What does the bit about needing the exchange to be upgraded mean?
2) If we swap to Tiscali line rental but later decide to swap back to BT at the end of the contract would we have to pay a BT connection charge of lots of money?
3) Are there any reasons not to go for the Tiscali deal when our exchange is upgraded. We don't make many phone calls, so call charges don't matter that much to us but we do use broadband a lot.

Thanks,

Sal

avantra

Sal123 wrote: »

We are currently paying a ridiculous £23 per month for our broadband with Pipex plus BT call charges and line rental, so I thought that I would get a better deal. The £14.99 per month Tiscali deal with "free" line rental looks good but when I phoned I was told that they can't take over our phone until after July as our exchange needs to be upgraded first.

I have a few questions:
1) What does the bit about needing the exchange to be upgraded mean?
2) If we swap to Tiscali line rental but later decide to swap back to BT at the end of the contract would we have to pay a BT connection charge of lots of money?
3) Are there any reasons not to go for the Tiscali deal when our exchange is upgraded. We don't make many phone calls, so call charges don't matter that much to us but we do use broadband a lot.

Thanks,

Sal

I would go with it, you will take some risk with poor customer service but if it all goes OK you should be better off money wise with Tiscali.

1. Tiscali put their own gizmo in the local BT exchange box allowing them provide you with line rental.

2. Yes £120 or something, you left them so pay again to be reconnected even if its just a button press for them in HQ.

3. see answer above = poor customer service and all sort of nasties.

deklan99

2) If we swap to Tiscali line rental but later decide to swap back to BT at the end of the contract would we have to pay a BT connection charge of lots of money?

Yes, no, maybe depending on who you talk to at BT.
Bearing in mind it wouldn't have to be BT you get a "BT Line" with The Phone Co-op actually mention Talktalk and a possible £40 "LLU Conversion" fee.

espresso

By all means change your ISP but keep your line rental with BT. If you switch to Tiscali, you will be joining the most complained about ISP. If you keep your line rental with BT there are hundreds of ISP's to choose from, most with better reputation and reviews than Tiscali. see here for some of them. Tiscali are in the process of being sold, so beware!

Sal123

Thank you all for your replies, there appears to be a lot of factors to consider!