BT CVE

I currently have BT FTTP - Business with all the add-ons and perfectly happy with it. The voice side (Cloud Voice Express) - not so, as it was expensive.

My plan, for the current renewal was to keep FTTP at 500/70 and drop CVE before reclaiming the number through a port to my VoIP provider and paying a monthly rental to them. During a call earlier today I put my plan to BT - who had already offered a good discount on just FTTP and was offered £1/month for the VoIP/CVE -which is much the same as my normal provider.

The number is rarely used but some key contacts refuse to change so I could not afford to lose it - and talking to a contact I have, I was told that sometimes it proves impossible to Port between BTs CVE and some thrid parties.

I really hate it when you say to a supplier that you're leaving and they throw you an exceptional rate, which they could have offered at any point.

Conversely at the start of a contract, its all teeth sucking and "that's the best we can do"

🤬

I get you point on it howver I got the feeling that he was asking someone in the background for approval - the offer was already good on both FTTP and voice and I may have stayed without it as I would have porting charges to pay.

And it makes it easier for me!

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

I really hate it when you say to a supplier that you're leaving and they throw you an exceptional rate, which they could have offered at any point.

That's when I typically say something along the lines of "I don't deal with suppliers that have proved to be not entirely honest with me", add them to my "faeces list" & move on.

Netgear have been there since 1998.

What did Netgear do to you in 1998 that has caused them to be ostracised for 26 years? My LAN is run by a GS308 (unmanaged) switch which was cheap (<£20) and just works. Bought to replace an older Netgear 100M switch which also just worked.

Indeed. That’s longer than many ‘life sentence’ jail terms! What did they do I wonder…?

The short version is that I had a Netgear wireless access point advertised as 802.11b/g compatible (call it a £50 purchase) that apparently did not work with the Intel-based chipset the (£1K) laptop that was also 802.11b/g compatible and worked 100% reliably with the other APs I'd tried it with (belonging to friends/family/work)- even Netgear's own support docs said the answer is to call Netgear to have them replace the AP...

A workmate had exactly the same setup & experience - him in Canada, me in UK.

Netgear (Europe) support answer: buy another piece of Netgear hardware - a USB WLAN NIC - and would not budge.
Netgear (North America) support answer: we shall send you a replacement v2 router FOC.

I'd still rather not have it than have a Netgear.