Thinking of Infinity

Hi,

As FTTC is expected to be available for my line on 30th September, and I currently only get around 4 - 5 M from my existing DSL line, I'm currently looking at switching to a fibre product.

With a new arrival due in the house cost is important, both from a one-off installation point of view and also ongoing. Ideally I'd also like to have one or more static IPs like I currently have on DSL, but I can live with dynamic rather than push the cost up too much.

My current thinking is BT Infinity at £18 per month with the weekend calls option as it seems to be both the cheapest both in terms of installation and monthly cost, and also seems to be a good product on the technical side (ignoring customer service), but before I commit I just wondered if anyone had any other suggestions?

Also, I'm currently on the free evening and weekend calls option with BT with the contract running until May next year. Is this likely to cause any problems if I switch to infinity? BT aren't likely to hit me with a charge for finishing the contract early or anything like that? I'm hoping they won't and will simply change the internet side of things over and leave me on my existing package calls wise, but you can never be sure with BT

Finally, if I do go with Infinity, am I better waiting until it's available and then migrating over, or migrate to BT Broadband first and then let them do the upgrade as soon as it's available?

Hope this all makes sense and is in the right place?

Thanks

Ross

In general BT will not charge an early termination fee provided you are staying with them and moving up or across the product chain and agree a new 12/18/24 month contract (dependent on service).

I have moved DSL service 6 to 8 times, telephone several more times and in two cases after just two months and have never paid an early termination fees even when moving a phone from residential to business.

Don't forget that £18 doesn't include the line rental.

But Infinity is definitely the cheapest overall cost on the market, and so far I've not really seen any criticism of it on the performance side.

That September date could easily slip. They normally do, so don't get too expectant. One in the family at one time is enough.

What does this checker say about speeds?

In reply to a post by MHC:

In general BT will not charge an early termination fee provided you are staying with them and moving up or across the product chain and agree a new 12/18/24 month contract (dependent on service).

Thanks for this - I kind of guessed they wouldn't but it's nice to see that my guess appears to be right

Ross

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Don't forget that £18 doesn't include the line rental.

But Infinity is definitely the cheapest overall cost on the market, and so far I've not really seen any criticism of it on the performance side.

That September date could easily slip. They normally do, so don't get too expectant. One in the family at one time is enough.

What does this checker say about speeds?

Cheers - I'll bear the possibility of slippage in mind - as you say - one expectant parent in the house is enough Is there somewhere which details any changes to the expected date or is it just a matter of keeping checking the checker?

Re the rental - yep I realise the 18 is just the broadband cost, but as I currently pay rental plus 19ish for DSL then it's still far better value for money than I've got just now - especially with the added option of using the wifi hotspots when I'm out and about

The checker says that I should get around 30.6M down and 7.5M up which, compared to the 4 - 5 that I get just now is just a tad on the faster side

Thanks

Ross

Just keep checking the BT Wholesale checker. The others all seem to feed off it. But don't be surprised if it does wierd things.

Lower estimates than those have so far always given the full 40/10 sync. A few people have found a slight drop over several months though to nearer the estimate, presumed to be the effect of cross-talk as more on the cabinet join up.

Edited by RobertoS (Wed 31-Aug-11 23:11:31)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Just keep checking the BT Wholesale checker. The others all seem to feed off it. But don't be surprised if it does wierd things.

Lower estimates than those have so far always given the full 40/10 sync. A few people have found a slight drop over several months though to nearer the estimate, prIesumed to be the effect of cross-talk as more on the cabinet join up.

Cheers

Still saying the 30th so could be good, but I suppose there's still time for it to slip yet.......

Ross

In reply to a post by RossNicol:

Still saying the 30th so could be good, but I suppose there's still time for it to slip yet.......

Same here... but there's no sign of any FTTC cabinet alongside my PCP, so I'm suspecting this will slip yet again :-/

I'd strongly suggest considering Infinity Option 2 (unlimited) - once you get a faster connection it's highly likely you'll use it more than expected, and this way you won't need to pay excess use charges

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

That September date could easily slip. They normally do, so don't get too expectant.

And this one has - to 01 December 2011

Looks like the exchange has been enabled though as samknows.com is showing 'FTTC available in some areas'.

Guess I'll just need to wait until December....

Ross

Just an update

Checked at the end of last week and BT are now taking orders for FTTC on my line

So order placed on Thursday, HH3 delivered today and engineer coming on Thursday.

I went with option 2 in the end as I can see me using more with the faster speeds as some have suggested.

I'll update on Thursday when I get home from work.

Ross

Good luck - let us know how it goes .

good move on going for the unlimited option! ENjoy - have been delighted with mine

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Good luck - let us know how it goes .

Well at the moment it isn't going at all

I was working today but my partner was home and is full of praise for how polite the engineers were, and I certainly can't fault the neatness of the work done putting the box on the wall and running the cable to the plug.

However, the engineer and eventually his boss were here from about 11am till 3pm and still couldn't get it working.

Apparently I was the first person to be connected to the cabinet but due to some sort of fault they couldn't get things going. Someone else was due to be connected after me and hasn't got their service today either.

I'm currently back on AAISP and BT will call to arrange another appointment once the fault is fixed - perhaps next week.

Will be interesting to see how quickly they get things sorted. I'm also curious as to whether anyone else in Stirling has Infinity at the moment as apparently one of the engineers mentioned to my partner that the fault was affecting 'all of Stirling'.

I'll let you know when I hear anything else...

Ross

Yuk !

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Yuk !

Yuk indeed!

Latest update per a call from BT today is that nothing's changed.

They still have a fault affecting the whole of Stirling (01786) and don't know when it'll be fixed but they will keep me updated.

Suppose it's better happening now while I still have my old broadband to use, but I'd rather it didn't happen at all.

Wonder what sort of fault can take out a whole exchange and still not be fixed 4 working days later? I'd have thought BT would be anxious to get this sorted!

Ross

In reply to a post by RossNicol:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Yuk !

Yuk indeed!

Latest update per a call from BT today is that nothing's changed.

They still have a fault affecting the whole of Stirling (01786) and don't know when it'll be fixed but they will keep me updated.

Suppose it's better happening now while I still have my old broadband to use, but I'd rather it didn't happen at all.

Wonder what sort of fault can take out a whole exchange and still not be fixed 4 working days later? I'd have thought BT would be anxious to get this sorted!

Ross

Update - and sorry for the delay!

The morning after I wrote the above I got an email giving me a new install date of the 9th of November! A call to BT got this changed to the 31st of October and everything worked perfecty on that date.

I now have Infinity

Current speeds are approx 37-38M download and 8M upload so I'm not complaing

Thanks for all the advice /. help from everybody on here

Ross