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BT Overview

  • Good range of broadband packages, with between 10 GB and unlimited download allowance, which you can bundle with additional phone and TV options
  • BT's new fibre optic broadband service Infinity offers speeds of up to 40Mb in some areas
  • Home Hub can be used as a second line to make free internet phone calls
  • Add a whole year of 1GB mobile broadband usage for only £9.99 with Option 3 broadband

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About BT

BT broadband home hubThe big daddy of UK broadband, BT owns the infrastructure that all other providers use to put ADSL internet (eg, except Virgin Media, which uses its own cables) into your home. It's the biggest fixed-line broadband provider by user numbers, its 'Home Hub' wireless router is well regarded, and it offers a good variety of products - everything from a straight broadband deal to offers including mobile phones, mobile broadband dongles and television services. however, it offers no local loop unbundling (LLU), so max speeds are 8Mb. As you might expect from such a big company, some customers find the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, but it does offer 24/7 customer services and technical support, with premium options also available.

BT claims to be the world's oldest communications company, dating back to the Electric Telegraph Company of 1846. British Telecom (as it was known) was formerly part of the Post Office - then a government department - but became a public limited company (plc) in 1984. It now has more than 4.6 million subscribers (including PlusNet, which it owns) to its BT Total Broadband products, which it runs in partnership with Yahoo!

In answer to Virgin Media's 'up to' 50Mb cable broadband offers, BT announced the roll-out of its own super-fast fibre-optic services in March 2009. With speeds of up to 40Mb, the service is being piloted in London's Muswell Hill, Whitchurch in Cardiff and parts of Wales. BT is aiming for a wider roll-out in 2010.

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neutral

by Suzie | registered | 2 posts
at 12:24 on 3 Mar 2010

If you want to check your broadband spewed with bt www.speedtester.bt.com

You need Java to be able to use this one.

make sure that all other users ie wireless ps3 etc are not downloading

Check the box and key in your home phone number attached to the broadband

it will then start checking your reg details

it will then require you to fill in 2 boxes

1st box

BThomehub

2nd box

bt.braodband.com

it will then start the speed check

At the end it will give you your profile ie 1mb - You won't get much above the profile that has been set for you.

Your actial download speed - this is the spped that the line has managed to get to at the time of day you did the test. Usually the profile speed and download speeds are pretty near each other.

The achievable speed is the one that could be achieved which as I said before will n ot be much above the profile speed set.

The computer sets the profile and although you can compain that your speed isn't fast enough, and if the engineers then reset your sped, the computer can go and reset it back to 1mg. An engineer hgas to go in an d do a manual change so that the profile is not automatically reset.

Hope this is helpful

Suzie Report abuse

neutral

by Suzie | registered | 2 posts
at 11:01 on 3 Mar 2010

Many commiserations to Michael x I am 53 and yearn for the olden days when we the phoine was either engaged or we got through to someone who could really help us. BT is well known for the technical support help desk being based in India now and YES it is soo frustrating. I asked to be tranferred to customer services which I thought would be in the UK but then I had another Indian speaking aid (nothing against any other culkture ect).

IU have been with BT broadband since it bagan and had non problembs until I moved 2 years ago and then on 1st Feb 2010.


The first time Dec 2007 I rang Bt to ask for my phone number and broadband to be connected on the day of moving(Monday). No phone and no broadband. They said that they would send and engineer on the Saturday. They sent him to the old rented adress (no on in) and said that I hadn't notified them of the new adress. Funny, since I had, in fact, received a bill at my new address from them!! The engineer then turned up, connected the phone but said that I didn't have an order for broadband. I then rang Bt to ask why and had to put in yet another order. This was on a friday and they stated that it souyl;d take 5 working days for b/Band to be working ie Friday next.

Friday came and still no B/band. Rang BT. "Sorry, there is no order on the system, would you like to place an order?" I then had to place another order which would not be operational until the following Friday. This happened 3 more times and I ended up in the corner with my hands over my head in tears thinking that I was going out of my mind. Also, very oftern, I was held in a que and calls took ages. Eventually, a manager in the Tech Dept (UK!!) took over the problem and monitored the connection. Thge original order that I put through for phone and B/band was on the system but didn't go through for some reason. When I put in a subsequent order for b/band the system accepted it but then recognized that there was already an order, so cancelled. I eventually got b/band - sometimes up to 8mb but didn't bother to go for compensation as I was topo exhausted by then.


2ND MOVE and STILL ON-GOING!!!!

Moved 1st Feb 2010

BT Phone line was on BT b/band was on but only 0.2kb - not enough even to go into the webb!

I was told that it would take 10 days to stabalize.

Rang up day 11 when i was asked to do a speed test was only gettin 1kb

Have rung up every day since - It has now increased to 3.5 MB which we are finding hard to cope with because we download a lot of films, my son is on his ps3 on wireless ands I do a lot on my laptop too. When we download my son gets kicked off his ps3,

Nobody has taklked to me from BT in the last week although I made a compaint to customer services and they said that they would ring me back the next day.

It seems very hit or miss with BT lines in general. Whether you go to sky or talk, talk - they both need to still use your existing BT line.

I have been informed that the maximum speed I would get is 3.5mb. This is because I am further from the exchange (the green boxes you see dotted about outside).

The last house had one three dorrs up and the previous house had one on my front wall.

The further away from these green boxes the less speed you will have (SO BT SAYS).

I live in Tonbridge Kent and there has been alot of flooding lately. Many of the boxes have been flooded and wires are corroding.

They are trying to replace with fibre optic cables (which makes sense) but this will take time.

As, I said I was perfectly happy with BT Broadband for 8 years but then things have gone pershaped.

As things progress, we are downloading more, kids have wireless everything and everthing seems to be PC nowadays.

Coupled with the flooding, BT have not kept up to date quickly enough to keep up with demands for speed ie fibre optic and replacing old wiring/cableing when damaged by floods etc.

I'm sure that when the fibre optic cableing is in place everywhere that the connection/speed service will be absolutley great-- still not sure about the call centres though.

Have a good day (as long as you don't have to deal with call centres!)

Suzie Report abuse

unhappy

by Raj Khuti | registered | 1 post
at 09:27 on 3 Mar 2010

I had ordered BT Broadband Talk Service in December , I was told it would be up and running within 24 Hours, had a nice welcome email from the Managing Director of Customer Services, the next day received a call to say that there was a mistake and it would take a month, so I patently waited till march and decided to give them a call, what a mistake that was… I spent nearly 2 hours being passed from one call centre to the other, in the end decided to call the nice director who send me the email, apparently he only sends the emails and you cant get hold of him, the highest you can reach is a level 2 manager after that you have to consult a committee. I was so angry and frustrated and then tried to figure out what BT’s strategy is and here is my analysis.

BT is probably now one of the very few British Institutions left, and for them to fall in to foreign hands they have to satisfy the following criteria.

Directors must not give a crap :- just con as many people as possible and get large salaries.
Management must not give a crap:- just lie and get the customer of your case.

Staff must not give a crap:- just use the big words from the customer care manuals such as I ASSURE you we take your custom seriously or I UNDER.. STAND your situation.

To prove this look at the first point when you call they give you 10,000 options and you have to wait for an hour before a human will talk to you and then that human will pass you round the world until your blood pressure rises, and then you get an email from a director who you cannot contact, so you call Oftell or ofgem, they give you a 7 digit number as your complaint number, if they started with zero that means they have had millions of complaints and guess what they don’t give a crap either, as the Terms and conditions for BT does not cover the Internet.
Second Point. Yahoo is owned by BT if you type in How crap is BT I got 2,800,000 entries, there competitors Google had 682,000 entries.

They are ashamed to be British company and this is only a ploy to sell of the company, they also know that they are the best of the worst bunch of Service providers, so people like us have no choice. I just thank god that they are not selling Baby Milk, I think after 3 Months I would have been charged with Manslaughter or Murder.

I have now resorted to using my Mobile (Orange) more as they provide free land line calls, just got to look for another small provider for Internet, where I can contact the person who has written to me..

It’s a Shame that they will be going to the Wall in the coming years, but have no sympathy for any of them at BT. I pay for my service , if I was getting the service for free then I would have been prepared to put up with there crap.
Report abuse

unhappy

by anonymous
at 14:15 on 28 Feb 2010

i never get the speeds i want.
the speed im supposed to get is 8mb/s for my area but i rarely get above 1mb/s Report abuse

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