How Long Before End Of Contract Can i Sign Up Elsewhere?

I am on BT fibre and my contract ends 12 December.

I note black Friday offers from other providers whcih I would like to consider but I obviously don't want to incur breaking BT contract charges.

Whe is the earliest that I can safely sign up elsewhere & can I specify a "not before" date if necessary?

With some you can specify a not before date. But if you are now in your last month so have paid for your line rental and broadband to end of contract, I would expect you to be safe anyway, with only call charges outside your call plan to pay.

And you believe these "deals" really are special and cannot be negotiated at any other time?

You need to be 100% sure of who/what you want as the SPs are hoping to ride the wave of "everything is cheap today" mania and grab as many customers as they can and the customers panic into signing/buying thinking that they will be missing a "bargain".

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

....................But if you are now in your last month so have paid for your line rental and broadband to end of contract, I would expect you to be safe anyway, with only call charges outside your call plan to pay.

I am very surprised by this as I have read somewhere that if you leave even a day early BT charge you for the HH5 etc.

MHC. No I don't necessarily believe the hype but I want to be able to consider the offers and use them as the basis for negotiating continuance with BT.

Edited by chris52 (Tue 24-Nov-15 11:27:36)

I wasn't aware of that, and it almost certainly would hold up in court, on the basis you have paid for it in your subscriptions. But no-one is going there.

Anyway, the next thing is that migrations now take a minimum of 10 days, as that is the period stipulated by Ofcom during which you can change your mind with no penalty, and without needing to give any reason other than that.

In practice you are likely to get a message on the 8th day saying if you don't cancel immediately then the migration will happen. As it would be too late to stop the process down the supply chain. What would happen if you demanded on the tenth day so had to be migrated back I don't know. I don't think "they" have thought of that.

Edit: Ah, I hadn't read what you said to MHC. So you don't really intend to leave anyway. I'll duck out then.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 24-Nov-15 13:50:50)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I wasn't aware of that, and it almost certainly would hold up in court, on the basis you have paid for it in your subscriptions. But no-one is going there.

BT say "If you leave in the first year, we'll charge you up to £55 towards the cost of your new Hub". It's £65 for the HH5.

Technically if you leave BT a day before the first year ends, the contract allows them to bill the customer this charge, and knowing BT I wouldn't expect them to waive it. Even if you are in the last month and have paid for the last month, they will refund the unused day(s), but will also bill any termination fees and in this case the Hub fee.

I'd say that comes under unfair contract terms, never mind anything else. But as I said - no-one's going to challenge it.

There couldn't be any early termination fees as those can only cover demonstrable material loss by the ISP. In the last few days of contract they in fact would make a material gain, due to loss of traffic, and potential helpdesk resources that might have been required should a problem arise with the connection.

It's the refunding of the unused days that shouldn't happen in the last month. Given the refund, then I agree the Hub charge could stand, but the early termination charge has to be lower than the lost revenue. (That's why Ofcom had them introduced).

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

..............Edit: Ah, I hadn't read what you said to MHC. So you don't really intend to leave anyway. I'll duck out then.

I don't know whether I am staying or going. I am looking at the options. All I know is that doing something is better value than doing nothing.

I am totally p....d of with BT. I have had a series of problems the latest of which is that I cannot look at my BT account because the web site won't let me and BT don't seem to want/ are able to do anything about it. Unfortunately the first account is my fathers and the one that I cannot get is mine.

I can log in OK and I get the first account screen. The problem is that two accounts are linked to me email address and there is normally a drop down menu that lets me select betweeen them. It is still there but it won't drop down leaving me stuck in the first account. They have no idea what to do about it.

Trying to explain problems like this to India is impossible.

Edited by chris52 (Tue 24-Nov-15 15:03:42)

What browser are you using. Try a different one.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

What browser are you using. Try a different one.

Explorer, Chrome & Edge tried on 3 different computers. All the same.