Coming Back To BT ..... maybe

Just been cold called by BT for the umpteenth time about coming back to BT. And I just might (sick of Bulldog/Pipex/TalkTalk poor customer service). The lad from BT did a quick check on my postcode and was delighted to tell me that with the new BT home hub I would get 14Mb/s downstream. He says the checker shows between 9 and 10Mb/s, but with the new hub it will 'boost' it upto 14Mb/s. Does this sound feasible? I asked him if he could guarantee 14Mb/s - he said absolutely. I'm guessing he can't

When I was with BT before I got approx 6.5Mb/s.

I've used their speed checker on the BT site and it just tells me 'Up to 8Mb'

The 'deal' he's offered is an 18 month contract at £29.60 (£13 for three months), free hub, unlimited internet (I think) and free evening and weekend calls. I think he said line rental was included (need to double check).

I think this is reasonable as I'll be paying about the same as I currently pay Bulldog since they took off my £10 discount package 2 months ago. Do BT do any better deals than this on unlimited internet?

It won't go ahead until BT Broadband have spoken to me sometime in the next 13 days, so still time to back out.

The BT line checker is quite conservative, it says I can get 7 meg and in reality I get over 10 although if you post your router stats so we can see your line attenuation and make an estimate.

Also what you do need to check is that your exchange has 21CN (ADSL2+) equipment in it so you can possibly get over 8 meg/sec.

The BT Unlimited package has a FUP of 300 Gigabytes a month and they do traffic shape p2p connections (which I don't use so I don't really notice it)

The price is their current offer, although I wouldn't sign up with somebody just phoning me I would phone BT up and so you know who you are phoning.

Also is your line rental still with BT? If so then all you need is a MAC code from your current ISP to move. If not then you would need to get a new BT line then get broadband ordered when it goes live.

In reply to a post by mikeycrawford:

but with the new hub it will 'boost' it upto 14Mb/s. Does this sound feasible?

Not really! All the HH or any other ADSL2+ router will do is give you the speed your line will bear as opposed to the pessimistic estimates the checkers come up with.

However, your current router stats will tell us the true capability of your line.

Thanks for the replies,

My line moved across to bulldog/C&W years ago when they first had an LLU presence in Shrewsbury. I pay them the line rental, not BT. I'm guessing BT knows this from when I left them.

The guy from BT says that they now get any MAC codes, the customer no longer has to deal with the current provider (which is a relief as I have spent hours on the phone to India in the past getting the runaround)

Samknows reports my exchange as having

BT Wholesale ADSL
BT Wholesale ADSL Max
BT Wholesale WBC (21CN)
BT Wholesale SDSL
AOL LLU
Bulldog LLU
TalkTalk (CPW) LLU
Sky Broadband / Easynet LLU
Orange LLU (Formerly Wanadoo)

and goes on to say

BT 21st Century Network (21CN) rollout
You are connected to the Shrewsbury telephone exchange.

Wholesale Broadband Connect is available in your area
There is currently no 21CN migration date for your PSTN service

line stats of my router
ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 4032 kbps 576 kbps
Line Attenuation 39 db 11 db
Noise Margin 12 db 21 db

The downstream speed is a bit misleading. I asked bulldog to cap the speed to see if reliability increased. Now I can't get them to remove it.

Cheers

I'm a light user with no gaming etc so BT's ordinary package does me very well, speeds around 4.5mb average with best ever 5.9mb. Service has been very good, will post about BT after my first six months are up.

Main reason for this is to say you can save about 25% line rental if you pay a year up front.

In my opinion 39dB attenuation is extremely unlikely to give over 12Mbps whatever the router.

How much download do you need? There are loads of ISPs to choose from, including good LLU.

The guy from BT says that they now get any MAC codes, the customer no longer has to deal with the current provider

Do What !!!!!! absolute tosh tbh, in reality as your line is full LLU no MAC is required as they will basically as Openreach to install a newline for you on a sim provide i.e. line and bb at same time.

Thats what he told me. Also asked if I wanted to keep my current number, so presumably they have to speak to Bulldog to arrange that side of things. Will quiz the broadband team when they call me.

The ONLY BT broadband package that is Unlimited, is the Option 3 package that has been renamed 'Unlimited Broadband'. It is £28 per month PLUS line rental.
http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProduc...
Check out how many more features you get with Post Office broadband for £26 and NO minimum line rental tie-in, no extra charges for not taking Direct Debit or paying at the local Post Office. You will also see on this site that the Post Office beat BT for customer satisfaction.
http://www2.postoffice.co.uk/broadband-phone/home-ph...
Like any ISP, there are those that will have something bad to say about the Post Office, but I have been with both, but I now have exactly the same broadband, far more free features for half the price, for what is after all re-badged BT

Edited by m0aur (Thu 24-Feb-11 23:36:18)

Keeping your original number wont be an issue