Which Broadband Provider?

[AirAssisted]

yup ... AOL are doing this too ... think the competition is worrying them!

[And]

Hi

Info here for BT customers

http://www.bt.com/broadband/2mb/faq.html

[Mr T.]

I'm on 576K BT Broadband and I got a call, about three months ago, saying 'for a slight hike in your quarterly bill' I could upgrade to 1meg.

Great, says I, let's conjugate the verb 'TO LARGE' in a first-person let's play styleee

Then....."Sorry Mr T, you'll have to change your primary email address if you'd like the faster service...."

Bollocks, says I, in a 'insert your news in a rectal, non-sun-shiney' type styleee!

Still haven't heard from them - after I did an email to their Business Services Customer Support We Care Honest Help Line (pardon me whilst I try to re-insert my colon which I''ve just shat through laughing too hard)....

[Scene: BT's new Advertising slogan - "We're BT, and yes, we're Gash! "

[johntemp]

It says that it may take up to 5 months before everyone is upgraded but existing 1Meg customers are to be upgraded first I believe - which is nice

[dlegros]

Originally Posted by ray

Hi/ Just got an e:mail from BT Broadband, seems they want to upgrade my 1meg broadband up to 2 meg, FOR FREE and they are giving me a couple of quid off my monthly bill for three months, will this mean I will need a bucket of water at the side of mi computer incase its sets a fire with the friction of its little brain working like a bulls foot!.

And I did'nt even ask them !

I got the same, nice to get something out of BT for a change. I only upgraded to 1 meg a month ago!

Dom

[Dundee]

I haven't received that message yet. I take it that they only send it to your official BT email address and not the "preferred " one?

C

[Allan Carr]

Got mine this morning. It probably depends which exchange you are on.

[TerryH]

Originally Posted by dlegros

I got the same, nice to get something out of BT for a change. I only upgraded to 1 meg a month ago!

Dom

Yep just being upgaded to 2meg and they've even made it £3 cheaper!

T.

[Mr T.]

Here ya go - this'll give you all the pricing and availability of every broadband deal and Service Provider/Operator (Cable, DSL and Satellite) currently available in your area:

http://www.broadbandchecker.co.uk/?G...mb%20broadband

[Mr T.]

The pitfalls of switching broadband
(Filed: 10/08/2005)


You could save yourself a fortune but changing internet provider can still be fraught with difficulty. Emma Lunn reports

Broadband overtook dial-up as the nation's favourite way of getting online last month. More than half of all internet subscriptions are now broadband, with over 7.5m homes permanently connected to the internet.


Not as easy as it looks: changing your broadband provider could prove difficult

For those who are unfamiliar with technology jargon, broadband offers a quicker and more convenient way to access the internet. Whereas dial-up internet services use your main home phone line, a broadband connection means it is possible to be online and use your phone or fax line as normal. It is also far quicker to access and browse internet pages and is virtually essential if you are looking to download music or films from the internet.

With demand soaring, competition between broadband providers has never been fiercer. Most charge a monthly fee and require customers to sign up for a year-long contract.

UK Online was the first supplier to break the £10-a-month price barrier and has offered a £9.99 service since March. But this is only available to about 20 per cent of the population, mainly in urban areas. Normally it comes with a £54.99 set-up fee, but this has been waived until August 15.

NTL now also offers a £9.99-a-month service, and for a faster broadband connection. Tiscali, Telewest, and Virgin all offer similar services at £14.99 a month with no connection charge.

Many people get confused about the different service levels on offer. Most broadband deals are 1Meg (also sometimes written as 1Mb) although some prices quoted will be for a 512kb service, which is basically half the speed.

If you are simply using the internet for web-browsing a 512kb service will be adequate and is still 10 times faster than a dial-up connection. But if you want to download music, film clips or regularly open large e-mail attachments you should look to get a 1 or 2Meg connection.

A music track takes about five minutes to download on a dial-up connection but only about 40 seconds with a 1Meg broadband connection.

It is possible to get broadband speeds up to 8Mb and the UK's first 24Meg service is due to be launched soon by Be. At under £30 a month, this will allow users to watch digital television on their PC, run video conferencing or make phone calls over the internet.

Download limits, measured in gigabytes (GB), put a maximum on the amount of data you can transfer across the internet each month. Downloading music, watching movie trailers or uploading photos all eat into your limit. Before signing up to any service check what this limit will be.

A monthly 1GB limit will allow you to view about 10,500 web pages and download 205 music tracks over this period. Conversely a 30GB limit allows someone to visit 314,000 web pages and download 6,144 songs.

Blair Wadman, the broadband product manager at uSwitch, an online comparison service, says more people are now switching broadband providers. Those who have signed up for broadband over the past couple of years, now realise they can reduce their monthly fees signficantly - in some cases by half.

"Some people are also not satisfied with the quality of service they receive," he says. "They could be having problems with the customers' support line or problems with the actual connection."

Not all broadband operators offer services nationwide. Internet comparison sites such as uSwitch, can help you find what deals are available in your area. If you decide you want to switch providers it should, in principle, only involve about 20 minutes "downtime", when you will not have any internet access at all.

The majority of broadband connections use an ADSL line provided by BT. BT Wholesale sells ADSL lines to internet service providers (ISPs) which in turn offer broadband deals to their customers. So switching providers is simply a case of BT migrating customers from one service provider to another.

But some users are reporting problems and experiencing much more than 20 minutes downtime. The Sunday Telegraph has received numerous complaints from customers who claim it has taken weeks to switch providers and they are often left without a broadband internet connection in the interim. For those who work from home this can be a costly and frustrating experience.

Stephen Martin switched from BT to Bulldog earlier this year, lured by the promise of a cheaper service. He was supposed to go live with Bulldog on June 9 but the BT service was still on his line. As you can only have one broadband service per line, Bulldog could not connect its service.

Martin says: "However, I wasn't too unhappy as I was getting BT service at Bulldog's price. Then on June 21 BT closed my account but still stayed connected to my line. Bulldog couldn't connect and BT wouldn't talk to me as I was no longer a customer."

After numerous phone calls Martin eventually got BT to admit he was still connected to them and the problem was fixed, but not until after more than two weeks without broadband.

"Given the knowledge I now have I would choose my first supplier more carefully as I would want it to be my last," he says. Martin is not the only customer to have had problems switching to Bulldog. Cable & Wireless which owns Bulldog, has threatened BT with a formal complaint about delays in switching customers over to its service.

To help make the switching process run smoothly a number of broadband providers, including Bulldog and BT, have signed up to an industry code of practice overseen by the regulator, Ofcom. ISPs signed up to the code give departing customers a migration authorisation code (MAC). The customer passes this code to their new supplier, which then initiates the switch and informs customers of the transfer date.

However, there are still some ISPs that have not signed up to the code of practice. In these cases customers must disconnect their broadband and sign up as a new customer which could mean a gap without service.

Zen Internet is one ISP which has signed up and says that if a customer is switching to it from a supplier that has issued a MAC code, there should not be any problems and minimal downtime.

MAC codes should be issued to customers within five days of them requesting a switch. But again it appears that many providers do not always meet these guidelines.

When Charlie Ansdell switched from Virgin to Homechoice, Virgin took about a month to give him a MAC code. It would not allow his notice period to start until he had the code, which meant for a short time he was paying for both Homechoice and Virgin services simultaneously.

"When I complained about this, Virgin told me this was impossible, and refused to refund me," Ansdell says. "Homechoice meanwhile, said that Virgin couldn't be right but didn't make any effort to sort this out with them."

Switching between a BT-provided ADSL line and a cable broadband connection is even trickier. Unless you do not mind having a period of time when you do not have broadband you will need to get the new line installed before you switch off your old provider. This could mean you end up paying for two lines for a short while.



http://www.broadbandchecker.co.uk/?G...nd%20providers