Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => ISPs => Topic started by: WesBez7 on June 07, 2016, 12:47:07 AM
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Frustrated with the constant price hikes of BT. My 3rd in 18 months.
1 - My line rental is increasing by £1 again. £18.99 just to be connected. The % hike has gone up greatly in the last few years. Especially the last two. £19 for no "perceived" value.
2 - Broadband & calls are set to increase by £3. Seriously unacceptable because I don't use the house phone. It's 2016 & because smartphone. Calls are free. iPhone with the help of inclusive unlimited minutes, FaceTime & whatsapp service all my needs. Contracts for mobile phones are data based.
I'm on the highest package and they've offered me nothing for three pounds. The speed for their highest paying customers receive no speed increase. But if you're paying for a tier below you get an increase from 30's to 52mb. BT want bragging rights for fastest "standard" fibre (ie people who don't require the throughput) and basically these customers would not use it to capacity frequently enough otherwise warrant being on a faster package.
3 - While I find the BT TV to be good value for money for what I pay its another £1 added to my bill. Not so bad as I said it's good value but the fly in the ointment is the removal of FOX without any warning whatsoever. When was it removed? Annoyingly in the middle of the walking deads' final season. I was livid as I love FOX & yes I know SKY are playing hard but so is BT with sport. (SKY is evil for the record) I would have to pay to watch the rest. Got a nominal £20 rebate. One off only because I complained and not because I was told about the change. No monthly discount. I was an early adopter of BT tv and it's come a long long way. The value is there for me.
The HD channels are slightly annoying in as far as 1080p is concerned as it doesn't display in full hd. I have a 4K TV and normal BBC HD is better. The ultra HD is great and it's always good to be first. The one annoying thing about having a old youview box is you can't use it as a free view box in another room and connected to the Internet for (Netflix or freeview catchup) as it'll interferes with the ULTRA HD boxs' paid catchup services. I learnt the hard way and only once I got the customer service call to the UK was it fixed. (Very painful calls to foreign call centres)
The extras are as follows
BT offer 300gb of cloud data on my package. Up from 50. I don't need it but I can't get a discount for not wanting it.
80% uk based customer services. It's welcomed especially for moving phone calls or difficult problems with services. The frustration calls even though very infrequent.
All this after the big spat between ofcom and the other players. Prices just can't keep going at the rate they are. I'm a loyal BT customer and enjoy the fast internet speeds they provide but this all boils down to perceived value and I feel as a customer that I'm being taken advantage of.
Would like to hear other members thoughts in terms of perceived value.
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The problem is all the big players copy suit so there is no competitive pressure on BT to lower the line rental, there is a few small players who dont profiteer so those are options, but you then may have the issue that the larger providers will either refuse to sell you broadband without their line rental, or they will add a penalty fee to the price for having the landline elsewhere.
This imo clearly needs regulator intervention but ofcom seem to only care about wholesale price regulation. They have more concern about the CPs been able to make money rather than saving money for consumers.
Sky imo is slightly better value as caller display is inclusive.
Whats interesting this time round is infinity is getting a price hike as well, it seems all the line rental price hikes are still not enough to pay for those football rights.
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I would gladly give up all BT sport. I'm not a football fan in the slightest. Again. It's not a choice. Free should mean they eat the cost or charge people for it.
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Agree with all the above.
I just voted with my feet - I was more than happy with the quality of service on Infinity, but got more and unhappy with every price rise having to pay directly (or indirectly) for services that I didn't want or need ...
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2 - Broadband & calls are set to increase by £3. Seriously unacceptable because I don't use the house phone. It's 2016 & because smartphone. Calls are free. iPhone with the help of inclusive unlimited minutes, FaceTime & whatsapp service all my needs. Contracts for mobile phones are data based.
I'm on the highest package and they've offered me nothing for three pounds. The speed for their highest paying customers receive no speed increase. But if you're paying for a tier below you get an increase from 30's to 52mb. BT want bragging rights for fastest "standard" fibre (ie people who don't require the throughput) and basically these customers would not use it to capacity frequently enough otherwise warrant being on a faster package
Or there lines don't support higher speeds - no point paying for 80MB if your line isn't capable of it.
I understand that BT are moving their customers to a higher SLA for faults as well but understand your basic premise about perceived value - obviously there are many other providers as well.
In terms of the pending price rise, have you seen what https://www.bt.com/myoffer is offering you? You could also try calling their customer options team (i.e. Retentions) and seeing what you can haggle..
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Or there lines don't support higher speeds - no point paying for 80MB if your line isn't capable of it.
I understand that BT are moving their customers to a higher SLA for faults as well but understand your basic premise about perceived value - obviously there are many other providers as well.
In terms of the pending price rise, have you seen what https://www.bt.com/myoffer is offering you? You could also try calling their customer options team (i.e. Retentions) and seeing what you can haggle..
I did try that. Thanks for the link. Not any better and they tried giving me a sim contract. I will ring up BT and see what and also see what plusnet offer as all I need is pure speed with no frills. I run my own hub because of the restricted features. But as a consumer Hub BT HH5 is good for a set it and forget it. Decent wireless. My parents had sky until I got them a BT HH4R to run as a AP. They are now BT customers.
Does BT take preference over other ISP on the network? I totally understand prices go up but it doesn't help retain customers and also because of the hassle of changing and there not being a smooth progression of the next provider. Just try change address with BT.
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No, BT do not take preference - they are treated like any other ISP.
If you are purely interested in price you could try SSE (http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,17791.msg325242.html#new) as long as you are prepared to change or haggle with them in 18 months time.
Though as that thread makes clear there isn't much feedback on SSE's service yet.
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No. Price is not a priority otherwise I would be with the "free" internet choices out there. I need the fast unlimited fibre. Consume copious amount of data. plusnet seems to be a good bet with the youview system I like. BT own it so it shouldn't be far off.
They supply line only broadband £16.99 with the same speed I'm getting now. £10 month going up to £20 after six months on a 18 month contract. Spend £5 on tv and add HD @£3 & the entertainment package at another @£3 (less than BT but most of what I need)
Currently pay £15 for BT max extertainment
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Frustrated with the constant price hikes of BT. My 3rd in 18 months.
1 - My line rental is increasing by £1 again. £18.99 just to be connected. The % hike has gone up greatly in the last few years. Especially the last two. £19 for no "perceived" value.
2 - Broadband & calls are set to increase by £3. Seriously unacceptable because I don't use the house phone. It's 2016 & because smartphone. Calls are free. iPhone with the help of inclusive unlimited minutes, FaceTime & whatsapp service all my needs. Contracts for mobile phones are data based.
I'm on the highest package and they've offered me nothing for three pounds. The speed for their highest paying customers receive no speed increase. But if you're paying for a tier below you get an increase from 30's to 52mb. BT want bragging rights for fastest "standard" fibre (ie people who don't require the throughput) and basically these customers would not use it to capacity frequently enough otherwise warrant being on a faster package.
I'm in the same boat. Phoned them up and they offered me Infinity 2 (what I'm on currently) for £28.50 instead of the £29.50 that I'm currently paying. Curiously, they called it a "£4 discount". When I queried the obvious discrepancy, they said their price is going up by £3 very soon!
I'm with you - really annoyed about the whole situation. What am I getting for an extra £4 a month? I understand that line rental pays for the upkeep of the infrastructure but this constant price hike is a bit too much to take, especially when a lot of other providers are able to offer it for a lot lesser. Plus where are the higher speeds? The newer technologies? IPv6? Fibre to the home? They have nothing new to offer.
I'm moving as well. Trying to find a good provider to move to. I don't want their free wifi, cloud storage, BT Sport and what not. Plus I have zero requirement for a land line and calls; I don't even have a phone plugged into my line anymore.
The SSE offer is very tempting at £21 a month, but I'm sure it's going to come with a lot of compromises. They appear (at least on paper) to apply some aggressive traffic management policies using deep packet inspection technologies. On the other end of the scale, there's Zen at £30 plus line rental at £17 on a 12 month contract (which actually is less than what I'm paying BT right now).
EE claims to not do any traffic management on their fibre products but they have some silly blanket restrictions like blocking port 25 to "block spam" which I don't like.
Plusnet sounds like a decent alternative but they traffic manage as well.
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Plusnet sounds like a decent alternative but they traffic manage as well.
As far as I'm aware, they prioritise voip, streaming and gaming data, but that is as far as their 'traffic management' goes.
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That's also my understanding of what PN do as well.
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Might have to take a good look at Plusnet then.
Many other ISPs have completely abandoned traffic shaping though, because it's usually more hassle than it's worth.
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Was looking into Plusnet forums and this change from 40/20 to 40/2 has me bewilder do they do a 40/10 service or just a 40/2 now ?
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As I understand it, Plusnet only now supply 80/20 and 40/2 based services.
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That's right, the 40/20 product is gone permanently. It was a bit of an odd offering anyway as no one else does that ul/dl ratio. But they should have gone to 40/10 instead but they've chosen to really drop that down to 40/2 which is a pretty basic fibre connectivity option. However, they still offer unlimited data usage on that package.
I've just signed up to the 80/20 connection from Plusnet on an 18 month contract. Should transfer across from Infinity 2 in 10 days or so. £27 including line rental for the first 6 months, £37 after that. Plus £154 cashback from Top Cashback. Works out to around £19 a month for the first year, which is quite of a bit of a saving from the £47 or so that I pay BT currently.
Bit wary about their traffic shaping nonsense but will see how it goes. Fingers crossed!
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As I understand it, Plusnet only now supply 80/20 and 40/2 based services.
Oh dear then that is plusnet marked off the books for my next ISP
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Just an update to this. This bill was set to rise during my contract which would allow me to cancel. I made a complaint about the constant price rises. I voiced my opinions and the BT agent was taking it serious. Listening and discussing at length.
Final decision was to give me new customer prices. BT retained me because of this decision. I was able to lock my price for broadband and line rental for 24months @£24.50 which I was happy with. (Infinity 2)
Got the the full BT TV package for £13.50 for another 12 months. Great package but missing FOX.
I have a 3rd party router and BT wanted £50 for the new hub. It would only be used as a AP so I decided against it. Citing Lack of features
(https://forum.kitz.co.uk/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fuploads.tapatalk-cdn.com%2F20160701%2Ff259c12aafc2e33d4ee546a488769114.jpg&hash=ff32f4e24bda1cb6d170a51f3f35e357a800fa02)
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Can't understand why line rental is going up, to be honest.
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Same here. The prices of other services are being tacked on in my opinion. SPORT, AMC etc
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Line rental has been line rental for years, it's nothing new. Surely, as more people buy broadband they will get more profit anyway?
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4 or 5 years ago, line rental saver from BT was something like £120 a year. Today it is £194.28, an increase of nearly 62% in 5 years. It's utterly astonishing that they are allowed to get away with this.
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At a guess they're getting less income from call charges.
As an aside, why are they allowed to put the price up during the term of a contract, just giving the customer the option of leaving? I'll bet it wouldn't work for you to contact them and say you've decided to pay less each month (give them 30 days notice) but if they don't like that then you will end the contract early.
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Sadly customers have to do the grafting. That would never come to fruition. Sadly changing is not easy enough so they risk allowing customers to leave knowing that they will most likely stay.
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Same here. The prices of other services are being tacked on in my opinion. SPORT, AMC etc
It's simple really, revenue from calls is dropping, mainly due to mobiles and inclusive calls, and apps like Skype, Viber, What's App. We have evening and weekend calls included, but it's still extremely rare for us to use the land-line. People look at the cost of broadband, line rental is more hidden so that's what gets put up and of coarse even those without broadband have to pay line rental if they want a landline.
When I was young I'd spend age's on the landline chatting to the girlfriend, how many young couple's do that now on a landline?
At work a lot of communication is via email, many companies ours included has switched to voip, where we used to have five line's we now have just one and that's for broadband.
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@Ronski I take your point about landlines not being utilised for calls. I too did the same. I don't believe Customers should pay for their inability to innovate and change fast enough. They've only just gone back into the Mobile space again. There is absolutely no value to the line rental for a modern house. It keep going up +-60% in the last 4-5 yrs.
Mobile companies have moved to Data centric plans. They don't charge a access fee for the network. Prices have not gone up drastically. I pay £18 for my plan (4GB) and £20 for my phone. My phone bill has always been between £32-£38 for the same period with a IPhone contract.
I know that lines are necessary but they are feel more like a connection fee in this day and age.
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Usually when sales drop the prices drop to stimulate sales, however because line rental is required for broadband then the opposite has happened in that line rental is now been used to replace call revenue.
Call costs themselves going up is not quite so clear cut, and it seems what is happening is they trying to make PAYG unattractive to sell call packages. I suppose the thinking is the customer is already paying close to £20 a month for the line why not make it seem that paying just an extra 10-20% on top of that they get inclusive calls and to try and entice them away from mobile voice plans.
I still have the view this is clear market failure. Its a sort of unofficial cartel going on. But ofcom still are taking the position that because "almost" everyone is doing it then its ok, they only really care about companies been able to compete with each other rather than direct intervention on the retail side.
In the end unless people are either prepared to do away with voice services all together (unlikely given they want broadband) or they move to companies like pulse8 who charge normal line rental then these CPs know full well it doesnt matter if people can leave, because they will have new people to replace them who are leaving other isp's for the same reason.
e.g. Jack leaves BT due to the inflation busting line rental increase, he joins sky, 2 years later he leaves them for the same reason and goes to talktalk, 2 years later he does full circle and joins BT again because talktalk are ripping him off for line rental. It is sort of like the fake competition on home energy where people are going round and round between different power companies whilst prices are rising rapidly across the board.
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Usually when sales drop the prices drop to stimulate sales, however because line rental is required for broadband then the opposite has happened in that line rental is now been used to replace call revenue.
Times are changing. There's a reason why companies like Blockbuster went bust and the likes of Netflix survived. People don't use a land line to make calls simply because there is a much better and cheaper alternative available, and it's already in the hands of every single person.
BT didn't adapt and switch to the mobile market early enough, and now they are trying to milk existing wired customers because they know they can get away with it.
And they are still not innovating in the one space they can and should - modern broadband technologies. Things like G.Fast are there to just distract the press, regulators and the public; some people may see the benefits, yes, but for the vast majority, I suspect it is either not going to be available for years and years or will prove not that beneficial.
What really gets me is the sheer hassle I have to go through to raise a fault with BT, despite paying nearly £50 a month for broadband. Every time I contact them, the first thing I get is repeated threats of a £160 call-out charge (which was, what, £90 or so 4 years ago?). My line is currently banded and I have lost 6 mbps of sync speed. The line rental mafia did nothing to correct it.
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I really have to commend BT on their TV offerings. You can't get better programming for this money. Credit where credit is due.
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I really have to commend BT on their TV offerings. You can't get better programming for this money. Credit where credit is due.
Agreed. If they had offered me the same deal that you are on, I would have been very tempted to take it. They didn't want to know, and weren't willing to listen.
Having said that, I would have missed some of the Sky exclusive channels.
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Line rental pricing is a real bug bear of mine and one that Ive harped on about for years and made numerous posts about it. eg (http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,15820.msg294730/topicseen.html#msg294730)
It should be noted that it is the ISPs who are profiteering from this and basically using it to subsidise the cost of DSL.
What some of you may not realise is that the wholesale cost of line rental has actually gone down over the past 10 years.
In 2006 what BT charged the ISPs was £100.68. From April 2016 it is £86.72. Practically every year the wholesale cost for line rental has decreased, yet we the consumers are being taken for a ride because the ISPs have increased it.
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Well all the £100 give a ways to new customers don't help keep prices lower , then there are those annoying ads to pay for no wonder they keep hiking the line rental and calls,
Best thing to do is switch line rental to a cheaper supplier , i did
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I migrated from plusnet last October (after my 12 discount); I have given up changing providers every 12 months especially as I am on a market A exchange with only BT on adsl max.
I came to the conclusion to keep good single thread throughput at peak times I will have to stay with BTr or plusnet, both of these cp's are (i seem to remember) openreach care level 2, 48 hrs after fault reported.
Total non-discounted price about £39/month with high call charges.
I moved line rental to a small supplier with 1 ppm call charges and rental of £13.80, Caller display £1.00. This has an OpenReach care level of 1 (next working day)
I moved adsl to BT business £24/month also with care level 1; special offer 6 months free.
This week I had an email notifying of a £2.80/ month price increase from BTb, so I had a quick look at adsl pricing again, no-one was much cheaper, so I phoned the contact number in the price increase email.
After a 2 minute conversation I was given an £8/month discount on a new 24 month contract.
Total (after price increase)
13.80 line rental
01.00 Caller display
18.80 Adsl
33.60 TOTAL
All on OR care level 1
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In 2006 what BT charged the ISPs was £100.68. From April 2016 it is £86.72. Practically every year the wholesale cost for line rental has decreased, yet we the consumers are being taken for a ride because the ISPs have increased it.
Just wow. I did not know that.
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My current monthly charges with Plusnet are:
Line rental: £12.99 Line Rental Saver (managed to get in before last years increase)
80/20 FTTC: £19.99
Caller Display: £0.99
Refferal Discount -£5.00
Total £28.97
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Line rental with Pulse 8 £13 +£1.00 CLID FTTC 80/20 Zen £30 total £44 pm + calls
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Line rental with Pulse 8 £13 +£1.00 CLID FTTC 80/20 Zen £30 total £44 pm + calls
Interesting. Without line rental, Zen quoted £35.40 for their 80/20 product. How happy are you with Zen?
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Over all i can't really complain , they since i joined them last have managed to get BTW to put me on a different svlan due to congestion and apart from some issues within their own network which appears to of been resolved for over the past week or so, the service seems ok , latency to most locations seems good, and it's generally consistent to the likes of ubisoft in canada