Switching fibre provider during epidemic

Hello,

My Sky Fibre contract recently ended and my price has gone from £30 to £42. A search online suggests that I can get TalkTalk 'Faster Fibre' for around half that on an 18 month contract. From what I can gather, both are provided by Openreach so speeds should be similar. Is that right?

Secondly, and more importantly, is it sensible to change provider at this point? Again, research indicates that an engineer visit wouldn't be required but we need an internet connection to work from home and I'm worried that a visit might be necessary. What would you advise?

Thanks

If you phone Sky and tell them you are planning to cancel (quoting the TalkTalk offer), they will generally twist your arm to stay by offering you a price you can't refuse.

Thanks for the reply. I was thinking about that too but saw on their website that the advice is "Please don’t call us, as we're prioritising our most vulnerable customers and key workers at this time."

You'll be facing a 1-2 wait minimum. I wouldn't advising making a change now if you absolutely cant afford for things to go wrong

1-2 (what) wait?

1-2 week I presume. This is down to the 10 day migration notice mandatory wait to help stop lines being slammed between providers.

Thanks for the replies, I think it's better to be safe than sorry in this instance.

I was thinking more probably 1-2 months precisely because of the standard ten working days provision you cite .

There may have been some completed in under a fortnight but other than emergency ones I don't recall anyone posting about one.

The post did come from someone we know has more information than most of us, and given the constraints the relevant part(s) of BT will be working under and it involves a move from Sky to TalkTalk at the exchange ….

I spent about 90 minutes in chat and on rapidly answered phone yesterday talking to BT Business support, (two reps), and Residential Sales. All were working from home and the first BTB one needed to make enquiries from colleagues all of who were also working from home. Which rather slowed things down.

In the end a BT Wholesale > BT Wholesale migration was arranged with a confirmed (so far) date of 15 April.

Edit:
Or of course the poster meant a 1-2 hour wait on the phone.

Edited by RobertoS (Fri 03-Apr-20 19:41:16)

I'm doing exactly this next week, i'm ceasing my line with cerberus and then signing up with BT for the Full Fibre 900 connection.

Due to happen Monday so i'll feed back what happens.

If it takes more that the normal up to 3 days i'll be on 4G for a while!

1-2 hour wait on the phone to sky

Edited by witchunt (Sat 04-Apr-20 10:01:31)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

it involves a move from Sky to TalkTalk at the exchange ….

A change from Sky FTTC to TalkTalk FTTC doesn't require any physical intervention, and normally such a change would sail through. But: if anything *did* go wrong with the provisioning systems, then you're reliant on being able to get through to TalkTalk's support staff (which can be a slow process at the best of times); and in turn they would be reliant on being able to raise the problem with OpenReach and them having enough resource to fix it.

So it's not an ideal time to do this.

If you call Sky for a better deal, you could do it at an off-peak time (e.g. just after they open, or near to closing time)

EDIT: This thread gives you an example of the sort of thing which can go wrong when changing providers on FTTC. Resolved with sufficient time and energy, but required an engineer visit to the property.

Edited by candlerb (Sat 04-Apr-20 14:01:26)

Thanks .

My cerberus line has now ceased (instantly as we hit the cease date), i'll be on the phone first thing in the morning to BT to order their Full Fibre 900 connection.

Currently have the the PfSense router WAN wired into my travel router (in client mode) that's connected wirelessly to my phone hotspot.

Surprised at how quick and well it's performing, 70Mbit/10Mbit with a 29ms ping!

Just got off the phone with BT, i need to call back tomorrow as their system is showing that my port is still blocked currently. I was told the same thing last week by sales support (to call back day after cease).

So looks like i shall be calling back tomorrow!

Just an update to keep the info in thread complete! Signed up with BT today but for their Fibre 250 package, and will be going via a regrade option to their 900 once that is live.

They seem to be having issues with the 900 package and this was the safer option to get me online quickly.

so you will be working at 1/3 normal speed then!

sorry could not resist. If only I could get a full fibre connection......... sitting here green with envy.

In reply to a post by thejinkazama:

Hello,

My Sky Fibre contract recently ended and my price has gone from £30 to £42. A search online suggests that I can get TalkTalk 'Faster Fibre' for around half that on an 18 month contract. From what I can gather, both are provided by Openreach so speeds should be similar. Is that right?

Secondly, and more importantly, is it sensible to change provider at this point? Again, research indicates that an engineer visit wouldn't be required but we need an internet connection to work from home and I'm worried that a visit might be necessary. What would you advise?

Thanks

If broadband is essential as you need to work from home I'd advise considering way more than just the pricing.

On FTTC you don't need engineer visit. All you'll need to do is change the supplied router and reconnect that router to your broadband cable and you're good to go!

You won't need any technical knowledge to set up ISP routers. Only if you buy your own router you may need to set it up manually using username and password through the router settings.

Of-course if you call Sky they will try and manipulate you to reduce the price. But the problem with that is that they force you into a new 18 month contract!

3 years ago it happened with us with Sky. My dad called to try and cancel and we were about to migrate to SSE at that time. But they managed to convince my dad to stay with a new price offer of £20.99 a month for ADSL which went up to £30 after 18 months.

And he accepted the offer, despite me telling my dad, "don't accept it"! But obviously Sky managed to somehow manipulate him.

It was a mistake because after 3 months the price jumped to £22.99 ok £2 more no big deal. But after 18 months the story repeated itself and the price jumped to £30 again.

This time we finally migrated to Plusnet ADSL in 2019 and after 12 months I am now with TalkTalk FTTC following Exchange Only line upgrade in October 2019.

I needed BT Openreach engineer visit only for the new MK4 VDSL Faceplate upgrade which the engineer did for free. Since you most probably already have a VDSL preinstalled Faceplate you won't need an engineer unless you want new telephone line.

Go ahead and switch via Uswitch you will also get £75 voucher with TalkTalk. Don't bother haggling Sky, it's not worth it.

I would caution against such advice.

I work for a major provider and its not unusual for faults to show up during the migration process to another ISP.

People are better staying where they are until such a time some of these restrictions are lifted and OR starts premise visits again.

As others say, I wouldn't consider switching at this time with busy call centres losing up to half their staffs on self-isolation. Almost six years ago we were due to switch but the new supplier had mixed up the date so we were cut off, with the prospect of losing our phone service as well. On that day I was admitted to hospital as an emergency; at that time we had very poor mobile signal.

In desperation I posted on TBB via a Kindle and fortunately having BB on the ward. One of our regular contributors very kindly pursued the new ISP and the connection was made. Murphy's law: if something can go wrong at the worst possible time, it will.

In reply to a post by AyeUp:

I would caution against such advice.

I work for a major provider and its not unusual for faults to show up during the migration process to another ISP.

People are better staying where they are until such a time some of these restrictions are lifted and OR starts premise visits again.

Very good advice.

The Fibre 250 service is due to be activated tomorrow, i'll instantly be on the phone to get in the queue for Fibre 900.

It has been painful on the 4G, especially on lockdown with the kids using their devices. Currently had 4GB left, we've churned through 100GB so far, averaging 20 - 25gb a day.

My own fault this has taken so long, even though it was promised by last Friday i and the BT person forgot about the long bank holiday!

I just hope the activation isn't late tomorrow!

In reply to a post by iand:

so you will be working at 1/3 normal speed then!

sorry could not resist. If only I could get a full fibre connection......... sitting here green with envy.

i totally understand, i've only been on the full fibre connection for a year coming from a 30/10 FTTC connection. I got lucky with my Openreach FTTPoD build cost being under the government gigabit voucher (back when they were at £3000). I've just had to pay £100 + VAT for the year.

I'm now live with the Fibre 250 product, activated when they said - same download speed as FTTPoD (295Mbit) but with 51Mbit upload.

Awesome. He who dares Rodney, he who dares!

Just a caveat to ignore Blazingspeed as they have no idea what they're talking about and are some random butthurt as their parents can't get FTTP right now.

If you have access to FTTP you are outside their experience immediately, they're some random that was waiting an age for FTTC and now how it, albeit at a not great quality.

Edited by CarlTSpeak (Tue 14-Apr-20 18:10:06)