Changing landline and broadband - minimising disruption

We currently have a BT landline and BT Broadband. This combination has never been good value for money, and lately the broadband has been sluggish too. The latest round of profiteering price hikes from BT has finally prodded us into jumping ship.

We want to move the landline to Primus (wholesale) and the broadband to O2.

In what order should these moves be executed, in order to minimise any loss of service?

Does Primus landline count as a BT Wholesale Openreach WLR line? If not, O2 won't put BB on it.

Always move the phone 1st, as the ISP wants the line in place before the BB.

Edited by XRaySpeX (Tue 13-Dec-11 19:20:57)

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

Does Primus landline count as a BT Wholesale WLR line?

yes

I don't think it really matters, but my preference would be broadband first. Partly because I'm pretty sure the move of a BT Retail line to Primus has caused no problems for several O2 users, and partly because IIRC many years ago someone had a new line installed by Primus then were only able to order broadband through Primus. But my memory being what it is, it could have been some other company.

Re O2! Are you talking about one of their LLU packages, or would it be O2 Access? In either case, are you aware of the traffic management on all of them, the 20GB FUP on Basics, and the 20GB cap on Access. Access being reportedly a poor product.

ask bt for your 'mac' code and see what they offer to retain you

Good that Primus counts as WLR, according to the Anon poster. I'd assumed the Primus/O2 broadband combo must be OK because I saw it's listed as an option on MoneySavingExpert.

That was my feeling too, move the phone first. Contradicted by RobertoS though.

I wonder, has anyone actually gone through a similar move recently who could throw in their tuppence-ha'penny?

Interesting, a different opinion to that of XRaySpeX. I'd love to know who was right. I assume if I moved the broadband first then there would be a shorter interruption to internet connectivity... provided, of course, that the subsequent landline move didn't nobble it.

I get the impression all of these moves have become a lot more straightforward recently - a friend of mine was slammed by TalkTalk, and they managed to move her from Plusnet broadband and phone service completely transparently, i.e. with no noticable interruption to either service, and with her Plusnet wireless router happily connected to TalkTalk ADSL. I was pretty dumbstruck that they could do that much "behind her back", particularly the internet service.

The O2 service I've been looking at is the All-Rounder LLU product, but I've also been looking at Be Value. In fact it's the knowledge that Be is behind O2 that led me to look at O2 - I have previously been a very happy Be customer.

It will be interesting to see what they offer, but given how poor their broadband is it would have to be (a) too good to refuse and (b) not involve an 18 month contract. Somehow I doubt they will be able to manage that combination.

This pretty much says it all, particularly on customer service:
BT vs O2

I wasn't "contradict"ing him, merely saying I would do the opposite because I've known posters do it. Note how I started that post - I don't really think it matters.

As for interruption time, that shouldn't be any different whichever way you do it. When you are on broadband, your line reaches the exchange and is then routed to the broadband MSAN or DSLAM. At the other side of that, your phone service is also routed to the MSAN/DSLAM to get onto your line. So when you move to O2, both have to be moved/reconnected/jumpered to the O2/Be MSAN/DSLAM.

That's where the downtime lies. Who you are paying line rental to shouldn't make any difference, as that is a purely administrative operation.

O2 traffic management here. Be do not have traffic management.

In reply to a post by rick1999:

This pretty much says it all, particularly on customer service:
BT vs O2

Hmmm
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/isp/compare.html?isp_4...

In reply to a post by rick1999:

Interesting, a different opinion to that of XRaySpeX. I'd love to know who was right.

I defer to Roberto. He knows more about these things and I've never moved nor would I take my line away from BT

hi i can say that i would never go back to BT IF it WAS FREE I PAY £10.57 A MONTH FOR MY LINE RENTAL WITH FREE WEEK END AND EVENING CALLS NOT £14.60 LIKE BT /AND MY BROADBAND IS TOTAL UNLIMITED BROADBAND TOTAL COST FOR BOTH £28.98

I agree with you about the phone with BT. I would be most reluctant to put it elsewhere. The CS for BT phone problems is excellent.

Having said that, I did consider O2 Home Phone when I was with them for broadband. So I used MKD's comparison table of O2, BT, Primus and the Post Office phone costs, and came out that despite the headline lower cost of O2, by the time you added in the things O2 charged for the difference to me was pence per month.

That table is now well out of date as prices have changed since it was last updated, but it is a great guide to the factors people shluld consider as well as the rental. It is one of the entries found at this link, so the OP may be interested.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I agree with you about the phone with BT. I would be most reluctant to put it elsewhere. The CS for BT phone problems is excellent.

Having said that, I did consider O2 Home Phone when I was with them for broadband.

BT's various price hikes, plus the end of the paper-free discount means BT's line rental doesn't compares too well anymore. Throw in the end of renewable contracts, and BT's Evening & Weekend looks very overpriced now.

BT Line rental with E&W calls is now £17.75 vs Sky's equivalent at £12.25. If this is still the case when my renewable deal ends in May it will be tough to justify staying with BT. Paying a years line rental up front to cut the bill isn't something I want to do.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

The CS for BT phone problems is excellent.

Strongly agree!

Had a loss of dialling tone last week on my non-BB line. Called 151 when we realised in late evening and he arranged eng for next day. He did warn me it could cost me £130 if it was found to be my responsibility, even within my boundary, but I was so confident that it wasn't that it did not worry me.

Eng came next day, tested at master socket and then drove to cab 200 m away. There he found a fault which he didn't really explain to me except to say it was "probably due to corrosion". Phone now OK.

He even nicely gave me a spare NTE5 faceplate when I asked, for the sushy filtered faceplate that BT OR fitted last when they were on a wild-goose-chase from Orange when I asked them to reduce my Target NM at exchange on my WBC

My ear-drums are bursting from post before yours

Edited by XRaySpeX (Wed 14-Dec-11 00:19:01)

Order should not matter, but I would say leave a gap between doing to two of a week or two, to try and ensure databases are up to date, and avoid confusion.

A WLR move is pretty simple, and a MAC move is pretty simple too.