9 months contract for students ?

My daughter + 2 other girls are moving to rented house in September. They intend to do it again next year.
There is a disconected phone line, previously with Talk Talk, apparently capable of 7Mb/s, which may be too slow for 3 of them watching videos at the same time. Fibre seems to be available too.

Anyone knows of any special 9 months deals for students ? It would not be that expensive to keep std. broadband on for next year, but not fibre.
However the house is rented out to holidaymakers June to Sept., so it would be necessaary to cease the the phone line, or, if possible, block outgoing calls.
Any advice would help. Thanks, regards,
Martin

Virgin Media seem to be the main ones these days.

A 12 month deal and turn on call blocking for the holiday season seems best, especially given offers that vary. Alas TalkTalk is often 18 month minimum contracts

And now OpenReach is going to hike the Fibre cancellation fee from £5.71 to £37 !!!
Arggghhh...

As if by magic, an article about 9 month contracts for students:

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2015/08/bt-and-...

Yeah have same offers, weighing up if of any use versus just chasing a 12 month deal and throwing away last 3 months

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Yeah have same offers, weighing up if of any use versus just chasing a 12 month deal and throwing away last 3 months

Very little in it, except no worry about what happens to live line after the 9 months.
Phoned my home provider PlusNet, but no go, will they perhaps follow BT later ?

Unlike other Unis, ours starts 7th Sept. so it's urgent.
Regards,
Martin

AARRGGGHHHH = [censored] BT !!!
So my daughter decided to go with the 9 months BT deal, duly entered her Uni email address and details via the website an picked 4th September (2nd was available) as a start date as she will be moving in that day (Scottish Uni, starts Sept. 7th)

Today she received spate of emails, BT cancelled her order, replaced it witd std. BT BB (presumably 12mths ?) at std. price (their Student price is £5 chreaper, still shown on BT website) starting 18th Sept. !!!
NO EXPLANATION !!!
Of course beeing a Bank Hols weekend we cant' get hold of anyone at BT !!!

So first thing on Tue., it will be ultimatum to BT, sort it out pronto, or she cancells.

Sky now has 9 mnths free BB, line rental only offer for students, PlusNet has £75 cashback....
Regards,
Martin

That sounds VERY naughty of BT.... almost like they didn't think it would be noticed!

I saw the Sky deal and thought it was rather good... though making sure Sky's available where your daughter will be staying is important but is good ammunition to have against BT!

UPDATE
After the bank. hols my daughter phoned again, got some reasonably inteligent bloke (but see later), who blamed OpenReach (?) for changing the order, but promised to re-instate the original Student Contract and expedite the activation.
Today we arrived at the house, the phone line came to life in the afternoon, so far so good.
Of course no sign or router, so I urged my daugter to ring up again and ask if the intenet connection is active (could have scrounged a router).
She was reluctant, but eventually phoned up.
Just as well, they expedited the phone line, but NOT the internet !
Now they promise a router and connection by Tuesday.
Well, I will be surprised if that happens, and I will be 500miles at home....

If you HAVE to deal with BT, make sure every few days that they still at it...!
Regards,
Martin

I have a educated guess as to why openreach cancel so many orders.

My guess is when the exec office do escalated appointments and none are available, they will boot someone off from the appointment system to make room, hence the mess your daughter has had. May also happen with higher tiered products such as business pushing residential appointments out as well.

Update 2
As predicted, Nothing happened on Tuesday.
Today my daughter received silent calls on both her mobile and landline.
Urged her to call BT again, took them a while to check the status of the order.
Made promises for tommorow.
Not holding my breath, just crossing fingers...
Regards,
Martin

I was chatting to an OpenReach engineer who was recently fixing our noisy line. He was telling me a lot of the delays were caused by the engineers on the ground being no longer allowed to organise their day in a sensible sequence. Apparently administrators choose who the engineer should visit next, regardless of the geographic position of the calls or the potential work involved.

OK, BT delivered the router on Thursday, so internet is now up and running !

Still, this was 8 days later then they said they could do it, 6 days later then we asked for.
More to the point, the the order got cancelled and replaced with non Student one, without telling us, then we had to phone almost daily to make sure it was proceeding...!
Regards,
Martin

Did you expect that was the end of this little saga ?

HA ! This is BT we talking about.

So, Monday morning just 4 days after connecting it, the phone line is DEAD.
My daughter phones up, she is told it would take 4 days to diagnose and then 7 days to fix !!!

My wife phones later in the day, apparently it will be fixed by midnight Thursday...?

Place your bets....
Regards,
Martin

There's always the automated phone line test https://www.bt.com/consumerFaultTracking/public/faul...

UPDATE

Lo and behold, a BT chap has actually turned up on Thursday, (as it happens, he lives almost directly accross the road, we have seen Openreach van parked near by all weekend.

So, phone line and BB working again, but fingers still crossed.....
Regards,
Martin

What was the problem?

In reply to a post by Apprentice:

What was the problem?

Although my daughter asked, she didn't get a clear answer,
but the BT chap was in the street cabinet and on the mobile to someone at the exchange couple of times.
Sounds to me like they switched to alternative line / pair.
Regards,
Martin