Add Broadband to BT Line

My elderly (well 70s) uncle lives alone, some 2 hours from me, he has a BT phoneline/contract, paying about £20 pcm. I've suggested he gets broadband/a tablet to explore the internet/home order stuff, video call etc. Partly COVID/partly age driven.

Is there a cheap upgrade deal ? Fibre 1 for £28 pcm ?. Also tablet suggestions, Amazon Fire 10" seems to fit ? TIA

Won't change from BT, needs to be low hassle, low support input from me !!

Fibre Essential

Based around the VDSL/FTTC 40/10 service £19.99 setup and £24.99 for 2 years. Standard price is £32.99/m. This price includes line rental, so only like £5/m inititally.

Believe this price should be available to existing phone customers who do not have broadband yet. Signup is online so if they are happy you can signup them up online while they are on the phone to answer the questions double check stuff.

On tablets, the Amazon Fire are good for price, though if you are going to do support I'd suggest having the same tablet at your end for the questions you'll have at the beginning.

Remember if you have prime there is ability to add them to the household account and they get prime benefits i.e. e-books, films etc At which point a Fire TV might be an idea.

Remember also remember a case, the Amazon ones that fold to form a stand are useful as holding a tablet can be tiring after a while.

Does he really need fibre and is he on any means tested benefits (pension credit etc.) ?

If the answers are no and yes then BT basic + Broadband is the cheapest at slightly over £10 per month for line rental and ADSL-only broadband included.

The basic BT deals are fine. Mr S has shown a decent deal and go for a Fibre, don't bother with ADSL unless he really wants to save every last penny.

What I would suggest that you and he consider is getting you as a "nominated contact" on his account which will allow them to talk to you about it, order service, tech issues &c. It may be appropriate now, or it may be in the future.

+1

it maybe worth checking what they currently get for their £20 landline deal and what they need. some of BT's landline only tariffs ( e.g 'home phone saver ') include unlimited calls to landline as part of the deal and those plans are normally around the £20 / £21 a month price including line rental. so if they need unlimited landline calls or some form of inclusive calls this would be an additional cost on top of the £24.99 fibre deal that has already been posted.

call plan add ons are £5 per month for 500 anytime minutes ( covers landline and mobile ) or £15 for unlimited minutes

BT Basic is only available to those on some low income Government benefits.

The 15GB monthly allowance may be an issue if they start to consume video content a lot too. There is an assumption that BT Basic is currently enjoying unlimited usage due to the pandemic, but even if it is that way now it is not clear how that would last.

Only the social tariff BT Basic is cheaper now.

BT ADSL2+ and BT Fibre entry level speeds are the same price.

NOTE: If going via by hand to bt dot com you will see higher prices, i.e. the link I used was an affiliate deal which are often lower. So when signing up use that link. If you fall back to ordering over the phone they'll probably offer at £27.99/m but try to haggle them down to the £24.99 point.

Many thanks Mr Saffron and others. I'll try for the £24.99 deal.

No tablets in our household to be familiar with but likely I'll stick with the Amazon fire (plus stand) so he can share our Amazon account for films etc

I use Teamviewer to support my parents and M in L PC , can it work on an Amazon fire or other Tablet, get mixed results when I google.

Thanks for the tip about being named on the account for issue resolution

Mixed - to the point I'd suggest its no good.

Best bet for a tablet is owning one too and go through things over the phone. On my mothers fire only ever had to do the initial show how it works, but windows laptop still throws up odd and unexpected things e.g. mail broke, but she had actually unknowlngly just shrunk the size of the browser window so format had altered to hide message preview.

@TheBaron,

IMHO, I've helped out a few OAP's that live with my parents in a McCarthy & Stone building and found I needed to be face-to-face with them. This was so that I could show them how to switch on the device (be it a tablet or a desktop or laptop...) and teach them how to handle the basics including setting up an email address or shopping on the internet, etc. You might end up forking out for a device and connection that will not be used until after you can sit down with them and teach them about the device, which will not be until after restrictions are lifted.

Just my 2 cents worth.....

HTH,

Thanks, I'm now thinking of a microsoft tablet that can have team viewer on. I think remote support will be required. I note Marks comments about F2F but I need that remote option. Also just thought, would want whatsapp on the device, he has no need of a mobile phone......

Win 10 is ok'ish as a tablet but the touch screen interface of the OS is still nowhere near as user friendly as Android or Apple - buttons can still be too small and it is still a hybrid OS between desktop and tablet. For ease of use I would still go with an Android tablet over Win 10 despite the lack of proper remote control support. Just my personal experience.

In reply to a post by ian72:

For ease of use I would still go with an Android tablet over Win 10 despite the lack of proper remote control support.

Or get a couple of redundant Win7 laptops, install an ubuntu OS on both, setup remote assist and job done.

I was comparing tablets - I haven't used Linux in some while so not sure how good it is with touchscreens on tablet devices these days.

I am not sure of the specific requirement for tablet but I am guessing it is because the person who will be using it isn't computer literate and may not have used touchpads, mice, keyboards a great deal - I could be wrong as we haven't been given the reasoning behind it being a tablet specifically.

I'm nearly 70 years old and need a keyboard and mouse these days but find xubuntu really easy to use for browsing, emails etc. However there can very occasionally be issues with bios/graphics (grub) and that can require booting into a previous kernal but a phone call could sort that out.

Hi thanks for all thoughts.

Not familiar with linux

Having spoken to him its a laptop needed, ... I'm happy with a Win 10 laptop to support, Budget circa £500, so I'll be searching ,

cheers all

@TheBaron,

Now that you've decided one what to get your uncle, the next step is to, some how, teach him remotely how to switch it on and get it configured with his broadband connection. I hope he's had experience of using computers before or else this is going to be a bigger mountain to climb than Mount Everest! Bare in mind that you might need to take things at a pace slower than a snail and repeat yourself several times, possibly. f you would like a hand please feel free to PM me.

HTH,

Have a look at the Dell deals https://deals.dell.com/en-uk/category/laptop-deals £529 for one that will do all he needs ... And if you call, the salesperson will presssure you to make a decision and you can then use that to get a reduction of 10-20%. And delivery on most is just 2-3 days.

Get it sent to you and install the Win 10 and any apps he needs.

Then send it to him and all that is needed is the wifi setup which generally comes on a bit of plastic slotted into the top of the BT Hub.

Or maybe have that sent to you as well and set the pair up and send both to him?

Thanks Mike and MHC and Roberto.

The Dell deal looks good Inspiron 15 3000 laptop.

I now remember he has had Apple/PC experience before so fingers crossed.

I'll get it delivered at home and configured, then will set up and BB at his place. I have been wfh for weeks now so should be OK for a brief interaction.

Cheers