BT Internet Broadband Service

[ianhind]

Dave

Read back through this thread - can't you just get Virgin broadband via cable without having to pay for the TV package? It's such a long time since I was on cable that I can't remember.

And this might help people who want to know if Infinity is going to be rolled out to their exchange:
http://www.openreach-communications.co. ... -and-when/

Probably a bit more reliable than the BT Infinity map.

Ian

[DaveB]

Hi Ian..

I honestly don't know is the simple answer but I'll check it out

Wel done Ian.. it seems you can! http://shop.virginmedia.com/broadband/up-to-30mb.html
There are other speeds available too.. I just clicked on 30mb BB for the sake of it. Looking at the detail, it will pay me to go for a Virgin phoneline too, otherwise, I'll be paying the same as I am now (a bit less) for BT Option4. It's well cheaper if I take the phone

ATB
DaveB

[speedbird591]

Cripes, Dave. Is that the sound of a decision being made?

Anybody got the number of the Guinness Book of Records?

Ian

[DaveB]

Well.. it was, until I ran it past SWMBO My indecision hat is back on again 30mb BB is pretty darned quick though isn't it. Unncecessary for me in reality but for £18-odd with phone and no line rental, it makes a rather attractive offer. I'll see what 20mb costs

EDIT.. now.. I've read it again and although there's no BT line rental, you do have to have a Virgin line rental at £13.90pm. The 20mb isn't 20mb.. it's 10mb and is £13.50pm plus £13.90pm if you have the Virgin phones.. 20mb being £18.50+£13.90 if you have the phone. God.. why do they make things so complicated.. or is it just me

ATB
DaveB

[GHD]

God.. why do they make things so complicated.. or is it just me

ATB
DaveB

Have you tried comparing Electricity and Gas tarrifs

[DaveB]

No George.. I'd rather not. We already have the gas and electric from British gas (dual fuel is cheaper) up in the Midlands and I'm happy to leave as is for now If I'm going to go online, the location is just outside 3G by a couple of streets (it often appears on the mobile but is unstable) so I'm gonna have to go the traditional route. TBH.. the cheapest deal at the moment seems to be from Plusnet. This runs out tomorrow I think but there'll be more deals I'm sure. Virgin are there already and the house is already BT connected. It's nice to know I don't have to have the TV too from Virgin and TBH, their line rental is now about £1 cheaper than BT (I think BT went up Dec1 to over £14pm) so it all boils down to what speed I'm prepared to accept and what it'll cost The gas and electricity can stay as they are for now as while I'm not living there, my sister is paying half the bills

ATB
DaveB

[Paul K]

Just to conclude about my recent dealings with BT over my crappy speed; since sending me the new hub ( free ), followed by another ten days of the line settling down, followed by 'dont worry sir, its just your hub adjusting ' ( the needle on the Bullshit-O-Meter was starting to twitch by this time ), my speed settled at around 8.4 MB/s and has now gone up to a consistent 9.3 MB/s. Pretty good for an all copper wire connection. Very pleased with BT's service in this instance, and Monika Singh in India got a big thumbs up in the subsequent customer satisfaction questionnaire. Mind you, we did give them a railway system, so fair's fair.

[speedbird591]

Mind you, we did give them a railway system, so fair's fair.

D'you think they'd let us have it back - it's better than ours? My workplace, Westbury station, was closed all day yesterday because the shunt driver had derailed a train right across all three lines. It wrecked the train and a complicated set of points, but to be honest, both were totally crap anyway

I'm glad you got your BB sorted, Paul. That's a very good speed for copper so it was worth it in the end. Like me you've come out of it feeling very happy with the customer service and I feel that they genuinely care about you getting good broadband. I know it's unlikely, but it certainly feels that way. That goes for both Bangalore and Newcastle! I think that the engineers have similar problems to the railways. They're trying to put too much fast traffic through an antiquated infrastructure but I think they're doing as good a job as they can. Thanks for the update.

Ian

[Paul K]

Yes Ian, I agree with you - they did seem to genuinely want to get it resolved. A couple of things struck me during the process, which lasted about 3 weeks from my initial phone call. Firstly, after I had rung a couple of times, the third call was automatically redirected to a supervisor ( in this case Monika Singh ) who seemed instantly aware of the troubles I was having. Also, when the new hub was delivered, the Parcelforce man scanned the bar code on the packaging as he handed it to me, and about two hours later, Monika called and said 'I see you have the new hub'. Obviously the package was being tracked, and she had given me a couple of hours to get it set up before calling. Hats off to BT ( touch wood ).

[speedbird591]

And still there's more ...! My BT Infinity started dropping out again last week - only briefly but still very annoying - and there were Openreach trucks lining a nearby road. I thought 'here we go again'

It gradually settled down and I ran a speedtest and to my surprise, since I last posted in this thread, my speed has jumped from 16 Mb/s to:



Which is very nice of them and a big improvement on the 4.5 Mb/s I was getting for the same price a couple of months back.

Ian