BT Broadband good or bad?

Hello All

Well we use to have Zen on my parents line which was my brothers which has recently moved out and got his own place, and took his connection with him so that he wouldn't be stuck with a full term contract before upgrading to FTTC there.

So we was left with our main connection which was BE that got brought by Sky and that's another story right there.

Anyway he moved out connection went live at his new home all was great his end.
So we are left with Sky BB Pro and also freeing up my parents line for another BB to become our main connection until we get our FTTP install completed which may be a while.

So we searched through all the providers and my mother wanted to use BT so that we could move over to their Fibre (330Mbit) package later on if we choose to.
Now here was the issue, we phoned BT BB Team and told them that we used to have Zen on there but that provider has been removed from our line over to my brother new home, and was told ok, we asked them to check the line was clear and wasn't tagged, so she did and said that there was nothing on there, so we went ahead and ordered BT's Unlimited package which was £7.50 p/m for 12 months with a 12 month contract and the £16 p/m starting from month 13, thought yep, that looks good and processed the order when just before the final checkout it started moaning about a MAC code and the order checked out and was put on delay for the MAC Code, so I phoned my brother and was told the Mac codes are for when you migrate from one provider to another and that we are not doing that and that we are ordering a new install.

So after 3 weeks of phoning BT and Zen which both seem to be blaming each other here, who was at fault here I don't know.

We was told a few times by BT when we phoned them that we would be phoned with an update with our BB Order Issue, we received no calls, then we got an email saying that they will be calling on the 30th of July about our BB and not to go out, so we didn't, and low and behold no phone call.

Anyway tag was removed on the 1st in the morning between 6-7am so we thought we would check our order has gone ahead when we was shocked to see that BT had cancelled our order and didn't even let us know either.

So we phoned BT;'s BB Sales to ask why, and even they could find the order or why it was cancelled.
So we reordered BT's BB Unlimited over the phone, now here was the issue the deal that we had ordered before was no longer available and when I told them what we had ordered and that it was the deciding vote why we chose them and that package, we was put on hold for a few mins and was then told ok, so we got the same deal that we originally got before BT cancelled it which is as follows:
Unlimited broadband up to 17Mbit £7.50 p/m for 12 months and £16 p/m starting from moth 13.
With a 12 month contract starting from the 8th of August.
We didn't bother with the BT Sports optional extras due to we have enough sport channels on Sky already.
So we are now getting what we originally ordered on the 15th of July which I think is a result.
The only issue is it seems that they are charging my parent for their phone line that has already been paid for to the end of the year, so we will be phoning them on Monday to question this.

Apart from that I think the phone call went great, they understood the issue we was having and was also apologized to as well.

Now as to how good of a service it will be I don't know, will find out in the week starting the 8th of August, but if its a reasonably stable at 5 to 6Mbit download we will be happy enough, well until our Fibre install gets restarted and completed that is

So line had a Zen ADSL2+ service on it and this was ceased (the fact a brother has it now is irrelevant if they are at a different address)

There was NO need to mention Zen at all to BT, the line should have been tag free with the cease clearing all those. My bet is on the initial conservation getting tags mentioned on the order caused the confusion, sometimes just saying nothing makes things simpler when dealing with call centres.

The second line in the property that has Sky on it, might possible have confused some reps if they were doing an address check, but if the line is active it should be done by phone number and not be an issue at all.

I have BT broadband unlimited on Adsl and it's just as fast and reliable as my be connection and it works great

Customer service isn't the best though when I have to phone them

Hello Andrew

Well I was told by my brother that Zen may not be fully removed due to it takes a few days to take effect even though he had Zen just start working at his home, and I was to ask BT and make sure it was clear before ordering, which I was told it was so we made the first order where we was presented with the MAC Code message.
That was why it was mentioned, and this TAG took 3 to 4 weeks to be removed.

As for the send connection, yeah, I think that may of confused them as well, due to you could hear a confused Hmmm on the phone and then be put on hold

But it seems to of been sorted, just connected the old router to the line just to see the sync speeds and it seems like what I was expecting so all good so far.
Image of Router Status

Customer service isn't the best though when I have to phone them

Learn Hindii !

In my experience, far too much unfortunately language isn't the problem, just the very limited script they have to work to and the second level support isn't much better.

Have you tried turning it off and back on again.

Yes, its the big red button.

LOL.

When I get passed onto non UK support (not referring to BT here, but in general), I just ask for a local support due to your only reading a script and if I cannot resolve the issue then there are chances that you are not going to, and if it doesn't get sorted this time I am leaving due to you not supplying a working paid service which we have agreed to in contract, needs to be said in a firm voice but not being rude, and I normally get put on hold and then passed onto a local tech guy (maybe the next level up) and most of the time the issue is then resolved.

Though, you do get those very stubborn ones

The classic one is when they are reading their script and half way though I say I have already tried that, but they just seem to ignore you and just continue, and you then tell them that I have tried this that and that and they are just stumped and have nothing else to read from the script, just makes me laugh.

Granted 70% of the calls are resolved and if they resolve the issue then great but if they have no clue why continue reading the script, just pass me onto somebody that can.

I genuinely find BT support generally the worst I have experienced except for Bulldog in its watchdog days and they are rapidly catching up with Bulldog in my experience. In fact, if they can get something wrong, they will, even something as simple is ringing you when you say you are available. They have literally got it wrong every single time, though on one occasion they were only fifteen minutes outside that window when they rang to apologise for ringing at the wrong times. However, they do screw things up exceedingly politely.

I think its all down to who get passed onto, I find most of the local tech support ok and they seem to know their stuff when I am explaining my issue and I can be confusing when I explain stuff LOL.

Now 90% of the over seas tech support I have been passed onto just read their script and hope for the best, but if that doesn't help I get passed onto their manager, and then they pass me onto theirs and after a few forwarding's I end up with a local tech guy and they most of the time resolves the issue.

I also remember when an openreach engineer was down in the BT Pit to fix somebody else's phone I gather, we wasn't aware of this until I got a call on my Mobile from some of my mates asking why I didn't answer the phone.
Which I told them it hasn't rang here, picked up the phone and got a dial tone and said its working, called it myself and it just rang and rang.
It turns out the openreach guy connected us to somebody else's line and that ours wasn't connected to anything.

Now the tech support we was talking to funny enough was a local one and I had to explain it to them a few times due to they was confused due to I was phoning them on our landline that was at fault.

When an openreach engineer come round 24 hours later I was chatting to them and they looked puzzled and said ours and somebody else's line was swapped.
And that this happens all the time due to the state of the cables in the enclosure.

The strange thing was our broadband was working fine, not too sure why that would work still, but we had access to the internet,.

I migrated to BT when it was ADSL about 18 months ago, and the service was good. I upgraded free to FTTC last November, and it has been consistent since then. I am about 480 metres from the FTTC cabinet, and reliably get 70 Mbs all the time.
Their service is very good, and the unlimited package at £26 a month excellent for streaming video, which I use a lot. Typical monthly usage around 100 Gig.
Considering I live in a small village in Cornwall, its an excellent service and I can recommend.